The Russian word for emotions is чувства (singular чувство). Some of the basic emotions are happiness радость, sadness печаль, anger злость, anticipation ожидание, disgust отвращение, fear страх, excitement возбуждённость, disappointment разочарование, and shame стыд.

One day, my friend invited me to her birthday party and I was very happy рада to attend the special occasion. As my friend handed me the invitation, I became engulfed with excitement возбуждённость and ran home to show it to my mother. As my mother saw me running to her with a smile on my face, she began smiling too but to my disappointment разочарование, I saw that her smile quickly faded as she read the invitation and said «Я извиняюсь Оля, но ты не пойдешь, потому что мы уже сделали планы поехать в лес в этот день» “I am sorry Olga, but you can’t go because we have already made plans to go to the forest that day.” Shocked, my jaw dropped and I said «Что? Ты не разрешишь мне пойти?» “What? You’re not going to allow me to go?” Again, my mother began apologizing, and I just stood frozen staring at her. Anger overwhelmed me, and I ran to my room, slamming the door behind me. As my mom knocked on the door, I choked back my tears and said «Уходи!» “Go away!” My mother came in anyway and after a long talk, I felt much better even though I was still mad at her.

The Russian word for compliment is комплимент. People enjoy expressing their feelings through a compliment whether it is a special holiday such as Valentines Day or any day of the year. When a man wants to compliment a woman about her beauty, he can say «Ты выглядишь очень красиво» “You look very beautiful.” A few variations of this could type of compliment are «Ты выглядишь прекрасно» “You look lovely” or «Ты выглядишь хорошо» “You look well.”

A few years ago, my father’s friend moved into a new home and decided to invite my family and a few other friends for a housewarming party празднование новоселья. When my parents arrived, there were many guests with whom my parents were not acquainted. In particular, my parents noticed a couple with a few small children and decided to introduce themselves. After my family met the couple, they looked at the beautiful children and said «У вас очень очаровательные дети!» “You have very lovely children”. The lady began laughing and said «Это не мои дети. Это мои внуки!» “They are not my children. They are my grandchildren!”. My mother’s eyes seemed to dilate as she said «Удивительно! Вам не дашь ваших лет!» “Amazing! You don’t look your age!”. The lady began lecturing my mother about her extremely healthy lifestyle while I stood smiling and thinking to myself «Какая ложь! У нее просто хорошие гены.» “What a lie! She just has good genes.”

The phrase Olga's mother used to mean “You don't look your age” may seem confusing at first glance. Why are there ты forms and вы forms in the same sentence? It turns out that ты has two uses, just like English “you.” It can mean either the person you are talking to, or it can mean a generic “you,” like in the sentence “No matter where you are in Seattle, within fifty feet you'll find an espresso stand.” The “you” there doesn't really have a specific person in mind in that sentence; rather it catches the idea that anyone in that situation would find espresso easily. Similarly in «Вам не дашь ваших лет», the ты form of the verb catches that generic use of “you,” while the вам and the ваших are actually taking about the young-appearing woman. Thus the sentence in effect says, “No one would attribute to you your actual years.”

When someone is neat or punctual, we say that he or she is аккуратный. I am a person who prefers to have everything organized and stored properly. Even as a child, I kept my room very organized, neat, and clean. My parents often complimented me when my room was neat. «Какая у тебя аккуратная комната!» “What a neat room you have!” My sister on the other hand, was very untidy and disorganized. She always threw clothes on the floor after coming home from school and often found things missing or lost because her room was so messy. My mother constantly nagged her about her room. «Юля, какой бардак! Убери в своей комнате!» “Julie, what a mess! Clean up in your room!”, but regardless of my mother’s lecturing, my sister’s room always stood messy. «Даже сейчас у меня все аккуратно и организованно» “Even now I keep everything neat and organized.”

Don's additional notes: бардак literally means bordello, but in conversational Russian it is used to mean "a mess." The latter usage is so common that I've even met Russians in the US who don't know the original meaning.

Warning! This entry discusses a biologically unpleasant verb, and then addresses vulgar versions of that word.

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The Russian noun for “a smile” is улыбка, and the verb is улыбаться/улыбнуться.

In Russia smiling is not required to be polite. A store clerk can walk up to you, look you in the eye, and not say a thing. If you ask her for something and she gives it to you without a word, then she has been perfectly polite: you got what you wanted without a hassle. This lack of smiling creates a very bad impression on Americans who go to Russia; they come away with the feeling that everyone in the country is rude. They are wrong. It's simply a different social standard. Russians smile when they are happy, and I don't mean happy in the sense of "Oh, here comes my 78th customer of the day, what a joy, I'll smile because I'm really interested in him as a human being!" That's an American delusion. Russians smile when they are actually happy. A Russian man smiles when he hasn't seen his girlfriend in three weeks and she shows up at the door, flings herself into his arms and offers to make dinner. A Russian woman smiles when she finds three hundred dollars on the ground and no one else is around so she gets to keep it. That's what smiling is about in Russia: actual specific happiness. It's never smiling just to be polite.

The Russians label the American smile as «дежурная улыбка» “a business smile,” the kind of smile you put on your face just because that's what Americans are in the habit of doing. That kind of smiling creates an impression of insincerity and falsehood in the Russian mind and makes people wonder, "What the heck is so-and-so up to?” There's a story of an American business coach teaching the employees of a Russian company to constantly smile at each other and say, “Have a nice day.” Three weeks after the consultant left, everyone in the office thought everyone else was out to get them. The American smiles caused mutual suspicion, a sense of falsehood; it was completely the wrong thing to teach a company in a Russian environment.

It's funny: we Americans tend to think that our smiles are a spontaneous expression that springs simply from emotion. Not so. A smile is a learned behavior which is used to mean different things in different places. I remember back in the 2001 World Series there was a game where Byung-Hyun Kim made a series of bad pitches that could have lost the game. He stood in the middle of the field staring at the ground and grinning like an idiot. The American audience totally misunderstood his smile. Some thought he was being overconfident. Some thought he was thinking it just didn't matter. But Koreans may use a smile to mask negative feelings, and in this case the feeling was shame. The guy wasn't overconfident. He wasn't making light of the situation. He was feeling like a complete failure and was thinking about how his wife and all his friends and countrymen would be ashamed of him.

The lesson to draw is this: when we first go to Russia, our American intuition will tell us that the Russians are always being rude. That intuition is false. You will have to train yourself to remember that those intuitions you have are based on American expectations of body language. Russian body language is different. Use your mind to teach your emotions how to reinterpret things.

You can find an interesting article about Russian and American smiles here. The section contrasting how Russians and Americans smile at children and pets strikes me as being slightly exagerrated, but on the whole I think there is some truth there.

PS. On October 21st, 2008 Russian singing duo «Тату» (t.A.T.u. in English releases) released a new album called «Весёлые улыбки» "Happy Smiles."

2013-12-06: I just came across another neat article on Russian smiles at Russia Beyond the Headlines (mirror). You can find the original of the article at adeptis.ru (mirror).

2014-01-09: A former student of mine, Graeme Fox, pointed out this new addition (mirror) to the discussion of Russian smiles. Point #11 is quite good; I had never thought of that aspect.