Russian Word of the Day

My former student Ryan is living in Kazan and studying. Despite his studying, he manages to spend some time with his girlfriend, Lila. Now Ryan is an excellent guy. He is one of those men who cooks and cleans and is communicative. Lila considers herself lucky. (Frankly, Lila is worth it. If I were thirty years younger and smarter than I myself had been at that age... well, nevermind.) Anyhoo, Lila asked Ryan to go to the store to get some sweetened, condensed milk. He went. And he said to the store attendant, «Я хочу мошонку» “I want scrotum.” I leave it to you to imagine the attendant's reaction.

The word Ryan was looking for was сгущёнка, not мошонка. The word comes from the root густ-, which means ‘thick’, from which we derive the verb сгущать/сгустить ‘to make thick’, hence сгущёнка means ‘stuff which has been thickened’, in this case specifically milk with sugar added. Here's a picture:

It declines like this:

The Russians love сгущёнка. Not only can you make various desserts with it, often Russians like to drink tea and then simply stick a spoon in the сгущёнка and have a mouthful. It is so good. Here are a few sentences.

Now a comment on the power of branding. As I was growing up, the most popular brand of sweetened, condensed milk was Eagle Brand. It was so popular that no one ever said ‘sweetened, condensed milk.’ We just said ‘Eagle Brand.’ For instance, we could have a conversation like:

Nowadays there are generic versions of sweetened, condensed milk as well, but if I ever have a conversation with my mother, I'm sure we will not say ‘sweetened, condensed milk.’ We will say ‘Eagle Brand’ and know exactly what the other means.

Another of the Russians' favorite fermented milk products is кефир kefir. You take milk, mix it with bacterial and yeast cultures, let it ferment for one or two or three days, and then bottle it. Usually it is made from cow's milk, but it's possible to use sheep or goat's milk as well. Compared to ряженка it is rather more acidic and slightly carbonated. The alcohol content in commercial kefir in Russia is usually less than 1%. It actually has live cultures in it, so it colonizes your gut with friendly flora that may have beneficial effects in human beings.

Most Americans' only exposure to cultured dairy products is to yogurt, usually flavored with sugar or fruit in the US, or sour cream as part of dips or dressings. So when Americans are first are exposed to kefir, they usually have a negative reaction. I didn't care for it at first, but now I really like it; and the American version that they sell in places like Whole Foods that is flavored with sugar and fruit... well, it's edible in a long-term toxic sort of way, but it's nothing like Russian kefir. Let's see some sample sentences:

Now what about the nutritional value of kefir? Here's the label.

Now that's interesting. In terms of its fat content it's about the same as ряженка.

The Russians drink a variety of fermented milk products and one of them is ряженка. You take milk, mix it with a bacterial culture, let it ferment for six to eight hours, then bring the process to a close. Essentially it is a type of yogurt without any flavor additives. Compared to кефир kefir, it's flavor is less acidic. We have no special word for this in English, so we usually just transliterate it as ryazhenka. It declines like this:

This last week I bought a packet of ряженка at the store. That's right: in Russia cold liquids are often sold in plastic packets. Here you can see it on the left. I drink about half a packet at a time, pouring it into a glass, which you can see on the left:

Now a thoughtful homemaker will wonder, “If it is in a floppy plastic bag, how the heck am I supposed to store an opened packet in the fridge?” Why, you stand the packet up in a mug, of course!

Let's see the word in some sentences:

Since I'm trying to limit my carb intake this summer, I of course am now wondering what the carb load is. Here's the ingredient lable. The words that appear first are in Tatar, since I am living in Kazan, and the words that follow are in Russian:

They mean:

Hm. Let's see. 100 mg of ryazhenka has 4.1 g of carbs. I'm limiting myself to 20 g of carbs a day. If a glass is 250 mg, then that's roughly 10 g of carbs for a glass of ryazhenka. Damn. That's half the day's carbs right there. Guess that means that leaves only meat and fat for the rest of the day. Actually, I can live with that.

¹ This was actually said by a Russian woman visiting the US. We had no kefir, no ryazhenka, no tvorog. It was like there was no human food there at all!

² Note to Russian readers: in the US when listing nutritional information, the word "calorie" means "kilocalorie". So for a nutritional discussion, "calorie" is a proper translation for ккал, even though in the metric system that is properly translated kilocalorie.

The Russian phrase for common sense is здравый смысл.

I'm in Kazan with a group of students. Many of them are in host families. Americans are very communicative, so before the program began, one of our students sent a message to her host father to say that she was excited and looking forward to meeting them. She wrote:

Я очень возбуждена и спешу встретиться с вами.

Now that's pretty damn amusing. The word she chose for ‘excited’ means excited when the appetite is excited by exercise or a solar cell is excited to stimulate the emission of electrons by photons. But when applied to humans it can mean ‘sexually excited.’ The word she chose to for ‘to look forward to’ also means ‘to be in a hurry.’ So in effect the good-hearted girl had written:

I am very aroused and rushing to meet you.

Our resident director clarified the situation to the host father...

The verb ‘to stimulate; excite; arouse’ in Russian is возбуждать/возбудить. It conjugates like this:

This word can be used when one's appetite or thirst or curiosity or surprise are aroused:

I suppose I must give at least one sexual example:

The preposition от is often used with the word лекарство ‘medicine’ to indicate the condition which the medicine is used to treat. It is always used with the gentive case.

The preposition от often means ‘from’ in the sense of ‘due to a negative cause’, and it is always used with the genitive case.

The preposition от often means from, and it is always used with the genitive case. Specifically if you are coming from seeing someone, then you can use от:

The Russian word этот is a demonstrative adjective that can be translated as this/that/these/those, depending on the context. (For a discussion of the this/that distinction, see the entry on тот.) It declines like this:

For first- and second-year Russian students, I call this word ‘changing это’ because it changes it's ending for case, number and gender. Beginners often confuse it with ‘unchanging это’; for discussion of the distinction, see this blog entry.

The primary meaning of виза is visa, the document without which you cannot enter a foreign country. The US and Russia have a tit-for-tat game going on that esentially means Russians can't come to the US without obtaining a visa (which is an onerous process), and Americans can't go to Russia without going through an annoying process as well. Here's a picture of my visa for the summer, with portions grayed out for obvious reasons. It occupies an entire page of my passport:

Back in the Soviet period a visa was a three-part form that was not attached to your passport. When you entered the country, they stamped the visa and removed on part. When you exited the country, they stamped and retained the rest of the visa so that once you were gone, there was no proof in your passport that you had ever been in the Soviet Union. I never quite figured out the reasons for that. Here's a photo of my visa from 1988:

Виза is a perfectly regular first declension noun:

Before you get a visa to Russia, you have to get an invitation from a family, hotel or business. That's a lengthy process as well. And of course there are fees involved. Once you get to Russia, you have to register your passport/visa with internal immigration, which produces another document and involves other fees. Then by law you are required to have your visa and passport and registration on you at all times, and the police can stop you at any time and demand to see those documents. And of course if you passport, visa or registration is stolen, then it's a major pain to get them replaced. And of course there are fees involved. It's entirely amazing how many problems can crop up with these things. For instance...

That may sound ridiculous, but it actually happened to one of my students in ’92. We were in Moscow at the time. Our visa support was in Leningrad. I ended up having to head back to Leningrad to get a new visa for him.

That also may sound ridiculous, but in fact that's what I had to pay for the visa for this summer.

That, too, may sound ridiculous, giving a complete stranger your passport, but in fact one of our students did precisely that in ’89. She got to know the American Embassy pretty well in the process of getting a new one.

That, too, may sound ridiculous, but all our students have to have HIV tests to get a visa. I think this is part of the tit-for-tat. Up until January of 2010 the US also required HIV tests for people getting visas to enter the country. Now that the requirement has been lifted, it will be interesting to see if Russia lifts it as well.

The word же is an emphatic particle, by which we mean it puts emphasis on the preceding word. My first-year college Russian instructor first suggested translating it into English with the phrase ‘in the world.’ I still like that approach after question words:

Же has many other uses and translations as well. It's especially worth taking the time to contemplate how it's used in translating the English phrase ‘the same’ in this blog entry.

Куда же ты идёшь?
Куда-куда, на кудыкину гору.

Where the heck are you going?
I'll never tell.

The verb pair приглашать/пригласить means ‘to invite.’ Note the с~ш alternation in the perfective:

The person you invite goes in the accusative case:

The place you invite someone to appears in a motion phrase, so you often have в/на followed by the accusative case:

You can also use к + dative to specify the person one is going to visit, which more often than not is specified with к себе or к нам, and в гости is often included as well:

It's possible to get names after к as well:

¹ Савик Шустер is the host of «Шустер live», a Ukrainian socio-political talk show. Despite being broadcast on Ukrainian TV, the show is conducted in Russian.

Most human languages have separate words for you-singular and you-plural. Russian is no exception. The plural you in Russian is вы, which declines like this:

Any time you address more than one person in Russian, you must use the вы form instead of the ты form:

In Russian the вы form is also used to speak politely to a single individual; it's the form you normally use when meeting a stranger or talking to someone who is your superior at work or to someone you don't know very well:

Now here is a subtlety. If вы is the subject of a sentence that has a predicate adjective, and if the adjective is a short form adjective, then you must use the plural form; but if it is a long form adjective, you must use the singular with corresponding gender agreement. Thus if I am talking to a woman I may say:

If I am talking to a man, I may say:

I should note that some of those sentences may sound a bit stilted in Russian. Russian-speakers tend to use predicate adjectives less often than English-speakers, and one needs a bit of experience to figure out when they sound okay and when one should use an alternative constructive. Grammatically, though, all four sentences are correct.

On Monday I depart for Russia. I love spicy food, so usually when I travel I take a bottle of Tabasco Sauce with me. This year, though, I'm taking a jar of ground chipotles with me:

If that's not an excuse to discuss перец ‘pepper’, I don't know what is. Notice that the word has a fleeting vowel:

A chipotle is an ugly-looking thing, but the flavor it imparts to food is nigh miraculous. Here on the left you can see one before it's ground. On the right you see the product of grinding six chipotles in the blender.

Although I love spicy food, I have to say there is a limit. Jalapeños and serranos are about as hot as I like it. Habaneros? Can't touch them. The hottest pepper in the world, as far as I know, is the naga jolokia. Check out the youtube videos of children and adults making idiots of themselves eating them.

Over a year ago I posted an entry on the words блузка/кофта that included a translation contest. Then I headed to Russia and lost track of it. Finally here are the results. The original and somewhat vulgar poem is posted here.

The best translation was submitted by D. Preker, and the first runner up was B. Schilke. Both translations are posted here.

PS to D. Preker. The e-mail address you originally wrote from is no longer valid. Send my your mailing address to collect your prize money. Specify the e-mail address from which you originally sent the translation as well so I know it's the real you.

Они is a pronoun that replaces grammatically plural nouns. It declines like this:

The primary meaning of они is they/them in its various forms. In such contexts you get sentences like:

But the interesting part of this word is when it refers to plurale tantum nouns. Such nouns are ones that grammatically occur in the plural only, never in the singular. Sometimes a noun is plurale tantum in both Russian and English, like брюки pants. If они is referring to such a word, then its forms are simply translated as they/them:

Sometimes a noun is plurale tantum in Russian, but singulare tantum (singular only) in English, such as деньги money. When они refers to such a word, then its forms are simply translated as it:

This by way of Ryan, a former student of mine, currently dating a lovely Russian girl:

Learning a foreign language is difficult. Sometimes it is downright dangerous; like when you accidentally tell your girlfriend that she has a great mustache when you meant to compliment her lips. The difference between губы and усы is noted...

Such little misunderstandings are very common in cross-cultural relationships. Back in 1991 I was dating a woman who had been the national shot-putting champion of Albania. We were in Paris at Cafe Vesuvio not far from Rue de Leningrad, sipping a local red wine whose name I have forgotten, when she looked at me with moist eyes and said, “You have the most beautiful uterus.” Not wanting to spoil the mood, I replied, “Thank you, mon petit chou, my uterus is yours and only yours.” She was visibly moved; no man had ever said such a thing to her before, though doubtless many have since. Alas, our relationship did not last the weekend, and I am left with only misty, water-colored memories...

The Russian word for lip is губа; note the shifting stress in the plural:

The Большой толковый словарь at gramota.ru defines губа like this:

That is about as unromantic a definition as you can find. On a more human level...

Okay, I lied on Friday. My favorite word in Russian is not слизь. It's слизняк. Слизь of course means mucous, and -няк is a suffix that forms a new noun, so слизняк is a ‘mucousling,’ in other words... a slug! Isn't that an awesome word?

Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, I never saw a live slug, so imagine my surprise when I moved to Seattle where they have banana slugs, which are bright yellow critters as long as a human arm!¹ Here's a picture:

Those -няк suffixes usually produce an end-stressed noun:

There is a more scientific version of this word as well, which is слизень. It is a soft masculine noun with a fleeting vowel:

Slugs are harmless unless you have a garden, in which case those slimy bastards will really piss you off:

You really should follow the link to that last one. The site has beautiful photographs...

¹ Well, as long as newborn's forearm... not an adult's arm.

I think my favorite Russian word is слизь, which means mucous. Almost all American students will laugh out loud the first time they hear it, which will doubtless mystify Russian readers, so I should explain that English has a word ‘sleaze’ which means a disgusting and dishonorable person, and there is just something in the word that conjures up images of greasy hair and greasy skin and sports coats reeking of stale cigarette smoke that need to be washed much more often. So the association of revolting slipperiness with sleaze and слизь to an American is immediate and visceral. I just love that.

Of course слизь is a perfectly good scientific word, and grammatically it is a feminine third declension noun which declines like this:

English speakers might be surprised to see a plural of the word since we never say ‘mucouses’ in English, but of course in medical and scientific English the proper plural is mucosa. Let's see... what sentences can we come up with without inducing nausea in the reader...

English and Russian both have special comparison forms for adjectives and adverbs, which makes them seem sort of similar. In English the comparative form often ends in -er, and in Russian it often ends in -е or -ее:

But here is a curious thing: if you want to say how many times someone or something is faster, richer, taller or older, then in English there are two constructions you can use. One of them uses an “as...as” phrase without a comparative form, and one of them uses a comparative form with a ‘than’ phrase.

In Russian you always use the comparative form. The word for ‘time’ in this context is раз, which has an irregular genitive plural ‘раз’, and the number must be preceded by the preposition в, which in this context works with the accusative case of the number:

Oh, let's try a few more.

¹ If you look at the Wikipedia article on Joan Collins, you will see her name transliterated as Джоан Коллинз, which has an unpronounced ‘а’ and an unpronounced extra ‘л’, which have been added under the influence of English spelling. That is a *bad thing*. Dear Russian Wikipedia authors, please do not fall under the terrible influence of English spelling. You have a marvelous tradition in Russian of spelling things much more closely to their pronunciation. It is why the Russian application of Cyrillic is superior to the English application of the Latin alphabet. Notice that the author of the Kira Knightley article didn't make that mistake. Please maintain your excellent and sensible tradition, and, eight hundred years from now, when we English speakers finally have a sensible spelling reform, you can taunt us with an alphabetic “I told you so!”

In English when you want to say how often something happens and the period over which it occurs, you can use two constructions. The first uses no preposition, and the second uses the preposition ‘per’:

In English the ‘per’ version sounds more formal and stilted, and the prepositionless version sounds normal. In Russian the prepositionless version is not an option; you must use the preposition в:

At first glance it might seem that год is in the nominative case, but that is because it is a masculine inanimate noun. If we see a feminine noun in that context it is clearly accusative:

If you want to ask how often something happens, then the phrase to use is как часто:

That last example is interesting because you could rephrase it with minutes and skip the preposition:

Note the interesting use of the plural form of каждый before a number greater than one.