Фреш

by Don  

A word from English that has invaded Russian over the last umpteen years is фреш. It seems to have a couple of meanings. McDonald's in Russia seems to think they can call something фреш if the just throw a leaf of lettuce on it. Thus we have the Двойной Фреш Макмаффин™ Double Fresh McMuffin™

and the Фреш Ролл™ Fresh Roll™

That's a pretty cheesy use of the word fresh in my view.

But the word is incredibly widely used to mean freshly squeezed juices, which technically in Russian is said свежевыжатые соки. Lots of Russian restaurants do this now. If you want apple juice, they'll just throw an apple in a juicer for you and Bob's your uncle. If you want lemon juice, they'll throw in a lemon. For instance:

Я встретилась с подругой в кафе, по привычке заказала фреш яблочный. (adapted from this source) I met a friend at a cafe and ordered a fresh apple juice out of habit.
Одна из посетительниц кафе-бара заказала фреш из томатов, болгарского перца, сельдерея и авокадо. (source) One of the cafe-bar's customers ordered a fresh juice made of tomatoes, bell pepper, celery and avocado.
Начни День Правильно! Замени Кофе Фрешем! (adapted from this source) Start The Day Right! Replace Your Coffee With Freshly Squeezed Juice!
Я решила себя побаловать фрешем. (adapted from this source) I decided to treat myself to a fresh juice.
Она заказала морковный ,бл#, фреш! А я хочу холодной водочки! Романтики не будет. (adapted from this source) She ordered a goddammed carrot juice! And I want cold vodka. No loving tonight.

You'll find фреш used a lot of other ways too. For instance, you can find a restaurant called Фреш Суши. Pears with crème fraîche can be called груши с крем-фрешем. I've even seen fresh birch sap referred to as берёзовый фреш. If you readers come across other interesting uses. Do post a comment below.

5 comments

Comment from: MMM [Visitor]  

Прилагательное вне официально-деловой или научной речи ставится перед существительным, так что следует говорить “яблочный фреш".

02/06/14 @ 10:41
Comment from: Simo Vihinen [Visitor]

newtry, а разве в разговорной речи не происходит часто и так, там “яблочный” уточняет какой именно. да и это является на меню точно в этом порядке по той же причине. но я не знаю, я не русский.

if you want to know, there’s a typo in the last paragraph, “brich” instead of “birch". btw your blog is great!

10/22/12 @ 14:53
Comment from: Newtry [Visitor]

“Я встретилась с подругой в кафе, по привычке заказала фреш яблочный. “

немного коряво, скорее прилагательное будет перед существительным, “яблочный фреш”

мелочь, но глаз режет)

08/18/12 @ 08:56
Comment from: Jay [Visitor]

Is the р in фреш hard or soft? (And for that matter, do you know a place where I can look up foreign loanwords with е to see how the preceeding consonant is pronounced? I know sometimes it’s hard, but I presume that with older or more assimilated loanwords things might be different.)

Don responds: My most recent informant tells me it is hard.

07/09/12 @ 08:15
Comment from: Moscow Expat [Visitor]

I like this post, because it’s really amazing for me to read in cyrillic, so many English phonetic words. Usually, it takes me same time to realize that it’s an English word written in its phonetic form which may differ from place to place and time to time.
The more commun is ‘house’ (хоус) ….
At the sport club I’m using to go, they also use this фреш adjectif to qualify juice, not always squeezed …

Nota Bene: Just to mention that in French, “crème fraîche” is written with an “î” and “frais” (the masculin form) with a normal “i” … ;) It’s just a detail.

Don responds: Thanks for the correction!

I often find it bizarre that a word in Russian will trip me up because it is borrowed from English and I’m not expecting it. For instance, someone two years ago used the word пияр. I asked what it meant. She looked at me in surprise and said, “But I thought it was an English word.” “No,” I replied, “we don’t have any world like that in English.” Then two days later I realized it was “P.R.” public relations.

Which brings me to Dunkel’s law: “That which you don’t know, you already know.” One of my Russian profs used to jokingly say this in Russian… hm… how did he put it? «То, чего не знаешь, уже знаешь». Something like that.

07/09/12 @ 02:10


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