Some things in Russian language are not so difficult to learn and remember. Like this thing pictured above (the photo cold have been taken «в Челябинской области» [in Chelyabinsk Region], but it was not) – at first I wanted to call it «трактор» [a tractor], but that’s what happens when you bring a person from the city out to meet nature… The kind people in the village corrected me and said it was «комбайнер» [combine] – that’s about as difficult a word to remember as «компьютер» [computer] and «сканер» [scanner]!  If you knew what a combine was in English before you met it in Russian, that is…

A few days ago Yelena wrote that summer is the perfect time for Russian grammar. Of course, «я согласна» [I agree], but summer is also the perfect time to give into the almighty «лень»  [fem. 1) laziness; 2) sloth; 3) idleness; 4) inertia; 5) inactivity; 6) ease]. When Russians are feeling lazy, they put a pronoun meaning themselves «в дательном падеже» [in dative case] together with «лень» and exclaim – complete with a long, careless yawn – «мне лень!» [I’m (too) lazy! or: I don’t have enough strength (because I’m so overtaken by laziness)!]. Today I’m also feeling a little bit «ленивая» [fem. lazy] and that’s why I thought it would be perfect to dedicate this post to finding out some words in Russian that are easy like Sunday morning – to learn and remember, that is, because they’re so close to English words! Like the case with «комбайнер» above, they can sometimes seem easier than they really are. Sometimes they might turn out to be what translators like to call ‘false friends’.

That’s what happened to me a long time ago when I first came across the Russian word «банкомат», a word seemingly so close to the Swedish word ‘bankomat’. «Банкомат» means a cash machine; I think that the equivalent of it in the US is called an ATM. I remember searching for one of those an entire afternoon in Saint Petersburg, constantly turning to people around me and asking for it. I thought that this task would be easy for me because the Russian word for it was the same as in my native language. Yet nobody that I stopped and asked on the street could direct me to one. At times it even seemed as if they didn’t know what I was asking for… How come? The problem was that I kept pronouncing the word as it would have been pronounced in Swedish: «банкомат», with the stress on the «о», though that vowel should have been pronounced like an «а» instead, making the word sound like «банкамат» in Russian. I only got one little letter wrong, and yet many Russians didn’t understand me at all. So remember that stress is not only imperative, it is CRUCIAL to Russian language! Even when you think some word looks exactly the same as a word in your native language (especially if your native language is English; not only Russian has borrowed plenty of words from that language) – it might be pronounced slightly different. If you don’t pay attention to this, then you might also find yourself walking the streets of Saint Petersburg for hours «без копейки» [without a kopeck]…

Here are a couple of easy-to-learn and even-easier-to-remember “Russian” words (mostly connected with technical stuff for some reason… which makes me think of how I tried to teach my Russian students of Swedish language what to call all sorts of technical appliances in Swedish and kept asking for them to give me a Russian translation – and they ended up just saying English words with a Russian accent):

«компьютер» [computer], pronounced «кампьютир». Often Russians will not say the whole word, but use the shorter «комп», like in this example:

«Ты принёс свой комп?» [Did you (male) bring your computer?]

«лэптоп» [laptop], I’m confused. Either it’s pronounced «лэптап» or «лэптоп» (I think I’ve heard both used in colloquial speech) – anyone who knows for sure?

«сканер» [scanner]. Now this word is almost too easy – except it should be pronounced with an «и» sound in the place of the «е» letter, because the «а» is the only stressed vowel, like «сканир». You may see how this pronunciation can be found in the verb derived from it:

«сканировать» [to scan]. Of course this good and useful noun has had to receive an equally excellent verb to go along with it in Russian language! Use it like this:

«Сейчас я сканирую тебе эту страницу» [Now I’m scanning this page for you].

«Вчера они сканировали старые детские фотографии» [Yesterday they scanned old childhood photographs].

«флэшка» [USB-memory stick; or flash card]. One can easily see that this word comes from the Russian transcription of the English word ‘flash’: «флэш».

The word «ксерокс» can sometimes have a foreigner confused because it translates literally to Xerox, which is a company that makes copy machines. Not only should it be properly pronounced in Russian as «ксеракс» but also applied to all kinds of copy machines, no matter what company has produced them. Someone explained the reason for this to me with that the first copier to be available in the Russian Federation was made by Xerox. Thus the company’s name became what the whole phenomenon came to be called and known as in Russian language. It is not such a good idea to ask someone in Russia where «множительная машина» [duplicating machine] is… they probably will have no idea what you mean! (And also I don’t think that’s a real word).

That’s also why the verb for ‘to make a copy using a copier’ is «ксерить» [to copy] made – not very surprisingly – from the noun «ксерокс».

And here are two ‘bonus’ words which I think everyone already knew by now:

«Скайп» [Skype].

«Фейсбук» [Facebook].

Do you know more words like these? I know there must be at least a hundred of them out there in our favorite language.  I’m sorry my mind isn’t at it’s sharpest today – «после длительного, прекрасного дня на солнце и природе» [after a long, wonderful day in the sun and out in nature]… And most of them are very likely to have a different pronunciation in Russian than in the original (English or other) language! If you have any other words on your mind, go on and share them in the comments! And let everyone enjoy some easy Russian language learning for once 😉