Russian Word of the Day

We mentioned the other day that the preposition "с" + the instrumental case means "with." There is another context where it means "with," but we don't translate it as "with," and that is when two nouns are joined together as the subject (or object) of a sentence. In these contexts we must translate "с" as "and." For example:

In this context translating "с" as "with" sounds terrible in English and is a grammatical error.

The preposition "с" has several meanings and can be used with several cases. When "с" means "with" it is followed by the instrumental case:

One thing a beginner has to watch out for is that sometimes you must NOT use "с" in translating the English word "with." This is particularly true when indicating the "means by which" you do something. This is the "pure instrumental" meaning of the instrumental:

In those last three examples it would be wrong in Russian to include "с".

Sometimes Russians seem insane, particularly in their desire to drink hot tea and eat hot soup for lunch in the middle of summer. But they have one soup that is cold that they also like, and it is called окрошка. We don't have any special name for it in English, so we just transliterate it as okroshka. Essentially it is a cold vegetable soup for which the base is kvas, a beerish liquid made of a mildly fermented bread mash, which has almost no alcohol content. If you are going to have soup in summer, it makes sense to my American mind to have this relatively light and cool one. Here's a picture of the окрошка from the Трали-Вали cafeteria at one of the universities in Kazan:

There are quite a few variations on окрошка. If you want to specify that you are making it with квас, then you call it окрошка на квасе. If you use water and кефир instead of квас, then you call it окрошка на кефире. Yesterday morning I was sitting at my currently favorite overpriced (but very tasty) coffee place, Кофейня «Капитал», in Kazan when I spotted this advertisement:

It says that they will make окрошка special for you not just with kvas, not just with kefir, but, if you prefer, with BEER! That's right, окрошка на пиве! You can have it made with dark beer, light beer, or honey beer! Beer soup for lunch... does that not sound like redneck heaven??? Plus they will be happy to add beef tongue, boiled beef, or sausage. See if you can figure out what the остальные ингредиенты "remaining ingredients" are from the sign.

Here are some sample sentences:

On Saturday I was sitting just outside the men's section of the place where I get my hair cut here in Kazan, when a guy walked up and asked «Сколько там мастеров?» A second-year student of Russian would probably have translated the sentence "How many masters are there?" and would then have no idea what it meant. Here's the scoop. The word мастер in Russian often bears the meaning "someone qualified in a particular trade." In other words, he wanted to know how many barbers there were there that day.

The word itself is one of those that have a stressed -а in the nominative plural, and thus is end-stressed through the plural instead of stem-stressed:

There is no commonly used word in English that is quite as general as мастер in this sense, so when translating it, it is best to substitute the common name of the tradesman who practices the trade in question. Thus, if you are sitting outside an establishment that cuts men's hair with the old-fashioned standard cuts, the phrase «Сколько там мастеров?» is best translated "How many barbers are there?" The lovely and willowy Розанна who cuts my hair also does women's hair and can color hair as well. She would probably object to the word barber, and in fact someone with all those skills in the States would be better labeled a "hair stylist," so in this case the best translation may be "How many hair stylists are there?" or "How many stylists are there?"

I was in the dormitory of Moscow State University in 1986. My bathroom sink began to come out of the wall. The floor attendant said «Я вызову мастера». In this case she meant the guy who takes care of the dorm's minor maintenance requests, so her sentence would be best translated as "I'll call the handyman" or "I'll call the maintenance man." (BTW, when he showed up, he simply took a look at the sink, shoved it bank into the wall and smeared some cement over the screw and brace that held it in place. The wall was cinderblock. And the sink was anchored to the cinderblock by a screw... The word мастер struck me as completely ridiculous in that context.)

Thus if you summon a мастер to fix the plumbing, translate мастер as plumber. If you summon a мастер to fix your electrical outlet, translate it "handy man" or "electrician," depending on just how qualified the guy is.

Although the generic word for ice cream in Russian is мороженое, you also need to know the word пломбир. Ordinary мороженое per Russian standards contains 2.5 - 4% milk fat, which in the States we used to call "ice milk" instead of "ice cream," although nowadays it is sometimes called "low-fat ice cream". Пломбир according to the same standards has 12-13% milk fat. If you think that that makes пломбир smooth and creamy and delicious, you are exactly right. Most US ice cream has high fat content, so пломбир can usually simply be translated into English simply as "ice cream".

Пломбир comes in all sorts of forms, just like regular мороженое. My most recent taste was in this fun brand:

Once you unwrap it, it's basically an ice cream with a chocolate coating:

I came across a couple off ads recently with the word in them. This first one is on an ice cream stand, and it means "For the world, peace; and for you, plombir." It's cute because it rhymes:

This ad says, "Gold Standard is plombir #1 in Russia." Gold Standard, obviously, is a brand name.

And here are some sample sentences: