RBTH
24 Nov 2021, 15:24 GMT+10
Be careful: not all Russian words that sound familiar mean what you would expect them to.
If you have ever learned Russian as a foreign language, you know that its grammar can tie your brain in knots at the beginning. But as exhausting as it is to memorise the six different 'cases', and get your head around the verbs of motion, adding to your Russian vocabulary is altogether simpler. Plenty of words are instantly understandable, from taksi (такси) and restoran (ресторан) to trend (тренд) and kompyuter (компьютер) and dozens of others that are the same in Russian and English. But, be careful: not all Russian words that sound familiar mean what you would expect them to. Here are ten "false friends" to watch out for...
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images)
The classic movie Brilliantovaya Ruka is not (as this student once thought) a movie about a man with a brilliant arm. In Russian a brilliant is a diamond ‒ the movie is actually about a man who inadvertently smuggles some jewels into the Soviet Union in a plaster cast. These different meanings exist, because the English meaning of 'brilliant' has changed over time. Diamonds once used to be called 'brilliants', but recently, the word has come to mean anything that is stunning, or extraordinary.
In Russian, if something is brilliant, it can be otlichnyi (отличный) ‒ or if it is even more special, it can even be genialnyi (гениальный) or velikolepnyi (великолепный).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Tairat Junhuai/EyeEm/Getty Images, Pixabay)
If you are ever invited to sit inside a kabinet (кабинет) in Russia, you will always have plenty of room. It doesn't mean a wooden cabinet that you keep papers in; in Russian, a kabinet is a personal office, like the ones that doctors or lawyers work in.
On the other hand, the Russian word for the English 'cabinet' is shkaf (шкаф). You put your cutlery in a kukhonnyi shkaf (кухонный шкаф - kitchen cabinet).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Patrick Denker CC BY-SA 3.0, Pixabay, Unsplash)
If you ever find yourself looking into a Russian kamera (камера), you definitely won't want to take any photos. This Russian word conjures up images of cramped and dark rooms, from a police cell (kamera) to the 'left luggage' room at train stations (kamera khraneniya; камера хранения). Russia's most famous kamera is the eerie Kunstkamera museum in St. Petersburg - a claustrophobic exhibition of freakish artefacts that is not for the faint-hearted.
Russians do sometimes use kamera to mean camera, but they usually take photographs with a fotoapparat (фотоаппарат).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Legion Media, Pixabay)
The good news is that in Russia every office has a chef (шеф); the bad news is that these colleagues never do any cooking. In Russian, chef means any kind of boss. In Old French, a 'chef' was a leader; it is where the word 'chief' comes from. While Russian keeps the original French meaning for chef, in English, it is now only used to mean one very important kind of leader: a chef de cuisine.
The Russian word for a chef is povar (повар) ‒ but will also include 'chef'(boss) if they are the head of the kitchen, a chef-povar (шеф-повар).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Legion Media)
This false friend is logical enough: in Russian, your familiya (фамилия) is your family name - your surname.
In Russian, a family is a semya (семья). The adjective is semeinyi, so a family budget is a semeinyi byudzhet (семейный бюджет).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Legion Media)
If you suffer an insult (инсульт) in Russian, it is something much more serious. An insult is a stroke. In fact, Russian medicine is full of terms that mean something completely different to what they do in English. Very confusingly, the Russian word for tonsillitis is angina (ангина), while the heart condition angina is stenokardiya (стенокардия). On the plus side, catching herpes is no big deal: gerpes (герпес) in Russian is just a cold sore.
Away from the clinic, if you want to insult someone, you need to think of a good oskorblenie (оскорбление).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Legion Media)
We have always believed that people are influenced by the movement of the moon. Russian uses the Latin word for moon, luna (луна), and has the word lunatik (лунатик) which means a sleepwalker ‒ or anyone who wanders around at night, as if controlled by the moon.
In English, the word is altogether more unkind. It used to be thought that certain phases of the moon brought out peoples' craziness and, so, 'lunatic' translates to the Russian sumasshedshii (сумасшедший).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: Tom Werner, Image Source/Getty Images)
A magazine is only one thing that you might find in a Russian magazin (магазин). It is one of dozens of instances where Russian uses the French meaning of a word, not the English: a magazin is a shop or a store. The abbreviated version of the word, 'magaz' (магаз) is one of the great bits of Russian slang...
Even more confusingly, the Russian word for a magazine is zhurnal (журнал), which is another false friend if you're from North America. A journal, i.e. the little book for writing your thoughts into, is actually a dnevnik (дневник).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: kyoshino/Getty Images)
Only some fabriki (фабрики) in Russia have any fabric inside them. The word actually means 'factory'; it is another instance where Russian uses a French word ('fabrique'). Fabriki are found in the industrial zones outside most Russian cities, while in the early 2000s, the TV programme Fabrika Zvyozd (Фабрика Звёзд, 'Star Factory') was one of Russia's first ever talent shows.
Meanwhile, in Russian a fabric or textile is a tkan' (ткань).
Kira Lisitskaya (Photo: YinYang, PM Images/Getty Images)
In Russia, dressing yourself akkuratno (аккуратно) doesn't just mean putting your t-shirt on the right way round. It is a specific type of accurate, closer in meaning to 'thoughtfully' or 'carefully'. When Russians ask you to concentrate on something ‒ walking over an icy street; writing a note by hand... ‒ you will always hear: "Akkuratno!"
On the other hand, the Russian for accurate is tochno (точно): In a soccer match, a shot on target is a tochnyi udar (точный удар).
When all that is said and done, maybe Russian grammar isn't the hard part after all?
Jonathan Campion writes about Russia at jonathancampion.com.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Get a daily dose of The UK News news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to The UK News.
More InformationHANOI, Vietnam: During Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Hanoi this week, China and Vietnam agreed to take the first steps toward...
FORT WORTH, Texas: American Airlines will begin offering free high-speed Wi-Fi to passengers in January 2026, joining a growing list...
LONDON, UK: Electric vehicle sales surged globally in March, with strong growth in China and Europe offsetting slower momentum in North...
New York City: New York: Goldman Sachs has signaled a prolonged downturn in oil prices, forecasting a steady decline through the end...
NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks were volatile again Friday as President Donald Trump blasted Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for...
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The Europesn Central Bank has slashed official interest rates in the wake of the financial crisis triggered by...
Madrid [Spain], April 19 (ANI): Paulo Dybala, the Argentine World Cup winner, has today been announced as a Laureus Ambassador. The...
London [UK], April 18 (ANI): British soccer player Joe Thompson has passed away after multiple battles with cancer. He was 36. Thompson's...
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], April 18 (ANI): The Indian Super League (ISL) has consistently served as a launch pad for India's most...
(250418) -- FRANKFURT, April 18, 2025 (Xinhua) -- Ange Postecoglu, head coach of Tottenham Hotspur, instructs during the UEFA Europa...
Madrid [Spain], April 17 (ANI): Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti is expected to leave the club after the Copa del Rey final on...
(Photo credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images) Expect the ball to be in play, and likely hit on the ground, when the Texas Rangers host...