Russian Word of the Day

Last weekend I was invited to my friend’s wedding. It was a great celebration with lots of dancing, delicious Russian food and… wait for it… drinking! Being there made me think of a great word to write about — «горько». No Russian wedding can go without people yelling «горько» to the bride and groom. Literally translated, this word means "bitter”. According to the tradition, people say it at the end of their toasts or just surprise the newlyweds with it at any moment during the wedding to make them kiss. The idea behind this tradition is that the guests want to see the bride and groom kiss. By yelling «горько», people let them know that they can’t stand the “bitterness” in the air and ask them to make it sweeter by kissing each other.

Sometimes the guests play it trickier and instead of just yelling «горько», they start saying that the wine is bitter or the food is bitter; thus, indirectly asking the newlyweds to sugar it up. Once they made them kiss, everybody begins counting very slowly to see how long the kiss will last. It is generally considered that the more the guests yell, «горько», the happier the couple’s life will be. Therefore, when you are at a Russian wedding, don’t hesitate to use it!

There are two standard words in Russian for mother: мама, мать. The former is perfectly regular, and the latter is one of the most ancient words in the language and retains old quirks to it:

Although these words mean basically the same thing, they are stylistically different. A child would never say «Мать приготовила ужин» “Mother prepared dinner.” A child will only say «Мама приготовила ужин». Roughly speaking, children, young adults, and adults still living with their parents will usually refer to their parents as мама and папа. As they grow into later adulthood, people in their thirties and forties will refer to their parents as мать and отец. It just sounds more grown up.

Тhese are not hard and fast rules. Emotional closeness and gender influence things as well. A forty year old woman with a really close relationship to her mother may well call her мама. It is less probable that a forty year old man would do so, but it is still possible. And a twenty year old woman whose mother is a shrew may well refer to her as мать.

Sample sentences:

The Russian word for family is семья. Family is a very important part of my life and I could not imagine myself without them. When I lived in Russia, we set one day out of each year to be together as a family. Most of my extended family came to my home from different parts of Russia and Ukraine to spend the day feasting, dancing, and talking. When the big family arrived to the gathering, there were many of my aunts тёти, uncles дяди, grandmothers бабушки, grandfathers дедушки, nephews племянники, nieces племянницы, and grandchildren внуки. One of my aunts had a young son сын and daughter дочка who were two of the most energetic children I have ever seen. I felt that sometimes they were so hyper that I could not sit them down to do anything quiet even for a few minutes. During the family dinner, my mother stood up and made a toast «Я очень рада, что сегодня вся наша семья собралась, чтобы провести этот день вместе» “I am very happy that all of our family gathered today to spend time together.” It is always difficult for me when some of my family travel back to their home because I do not get to see them very often, but I always look forward to the day when we will again gather together and spend time bonding and having fun.

The Russian word for newborn infants is новорождённые дети. In America, it is customary to show our appreciation and excitement for an upcoming baby by giving the family a baby shower. However, in Russia, this is usually not the practice until after a baby is born. It is thought by many Russians that expressing happiness and excitement for a new baby should only be done after the baby has successfully entered into the world.

Another important Russian tradition is giving the parents of the baby a sweet treat as a gift. This sweet gift can be honey мёд, sugar сахар, or candy конфеты and symbolizes a sweet future for the child. My mother told me that when I was born, my great grandmother brought a large jar of homemade honey and as she handed my parents this gift, she said «Пусть этот мед принесёт Оле сладкую жизнь!» “Let this honey bring Olga a sweet life!”

A student with four identical sisters asked how he could say 'quadruplets.' He had looked in a bunch of dictionaries and couldn't find the word anywhere. Let's dig into that a bit.

First off, Russian has a word близнецы (singular близнец) which can mean twins, triplets, quadruplets, or larger multiple births; thus you can say У нас родились близнецы and mean "We had twins" or "We had triplets" etc. A similar word is близняшки, which sometimes sounds better in examples with girl-children for reasons that would take to long to go into here. Examples:

Since English doesn't have a commonly used word that covers twins and triplets and quads, when translating близнецы you will usually use "twins." Of course, you'll have to determine from context whether triplets or quadruplets or larger sets are in mind, but twins are much more common than the larger sets.

In Russian twins and triplets are often discussed with the words двойня and тройня, which are feminine singular words meaning a set of twins or triplets:

From those words a clever student might predict words like четверня, пятерня, шестерня for quads, quints, and sextuplets, but there you run into a problem. The words двойня and тройня are part of the Russian literary language; that is, they are considered “real words” that you can write in essays or pronounce in official speeches or hear from an educated TV announcer. But the word четверня is not a part of the literary language. Oh, sure, if you say it, everyone will understand you, and some people won't think twice about it, but most will consider it conversational, and some people will consider it “not a real word.” And when you get to the other words, they have nothing to do with children. Пятерня means “hand (not including the arm)”, and шестерня is a team of six-horses hitched together.

In conversational Russian there are also the words двойняшка and тройняшка, which mean a member of a set of twins and triplets respectively. But again here, once you reach the “quadruplet” idea, people don't really say четверняшка very often, and you won't ever hear пятерняшка and шестерняшка, except maybe in a joking sense.

Note: if you'd like to read a Russian website with information on twins, go to bddb.narod.ru.