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Tag Archives: colloquial speech

5 Words You Hear in Informal Russian Conversations Posted by on Jun 14, 2018

two women at a table talking

If you’ve listened to a speaker of Russian in an informal conversation, you know that there are a few words they say over and over again. Some are fillers, meant to give the speaker some time to come up with what to say. Others mark logical connections in a conversation or express the speaker’s attitudes…

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10 Ways To Say You Don’t Care In Russian – Part II Posted by on Jan 18, 2016

Last week, we looked at some colloquial ways of saying you don’t care about something. We listed five, but that’s not all! Let us continue the list. 6. до ла́мпочки Лампа is the diminutive of ла́мпа (lamp) and usually means “light bulb.” [Noun/pronoun in dative] + до ла́мпочки is yet another synonym of “I…

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10 Ways To Say You Don’t Care In Russian – Part I Posted by on Jan 14, 2016

Read Part II here. Russian has many ways to say you don’t care about something. They range from neutral to decidedly low-register to downright vulgar. In this post, I would like to cover some colloquial ways of expressing indifference. Let’s start with the basics. Normally, we say “[adjective/noun in the dative case] + всё равно́”…

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Caesars and Pushkins: Proper Names Used to Describe a Person Posted by on May 29, 2014

You may be familiar with proper names being used generically for inanimate objects, such as aspirin. However, Russian often takes the name of a famous person to describe someone and to say they share some characteristic of that person. So what does it mean to be called a Pushkin? 1. Multitasker Julius Caesar (Юлий Цезарь)…

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«Класс!» – On the Importance of Calling Things by their Proper Names Posted by on Feb 17, 2010

There are days when «словарь» [the dictionary] is not you best friend. It might still be «друг» [a friend] of yours, «но не самый лучший друг» [but not the very best friend]. Why is that? Because on these particular days the dictionary fails to explain certain words to you. Or explains them in such a…

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