Tag Archives: slang
5 Slang Words in Contemporary Russian Posted by Maria on Feb 21, 2020
Do you ever find yourself reading an article in Russian on a hip website and seeing a word that doesn’t seem to make sense even after you look it up? This post will look at some expressions that have cropped up or taken on new meanings recently. I will include examples from various Telegram channels…
6 Slang Words for Your Face in Russian Posted by Maria on Oct 24, 2019
It has recently occurred to me that Russian has multiple ways of referring to someone’s face, especially in a critical manner. Learning some common synonyms of лицо́ (litso, face) will help you understand colloquial Russian more easily because they come up a lot in informal speech. This post will use International Phonetic transcriptions for each…
3 Slang Sayings About Broken Dreams in Russian Posted by Maria on Feb 19, 2019
Russian has a few fun sayings for talking about getting your hopes up—and getting them crushed. Let’s look at three of them with examples and explanations. 1. Гу́бы раската́ть Гу́бы is the plural of губа́, lip. Раската́ть is related to ката́ть and means “to roll out.” So, all together, this saying means “to roll out…
5 Words You Hear in Informal Russian Conversations Posted by Maria on Jun 14, 2018
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…
«Щас!» – What DOES it mean and what DO Russians mean when they say it? Posted by josefina on Feb 11, 2010
Sometimes Russians say things to you and you do not understand. «Это неизбежно» [it is inevitable]. «К сожалению» [unfortunately]. And this situation may be repeated. Over and over. The situation in itself will be different every time, but the word or phrase you didn’t understand the first time will remain the same. Until you figure…