the word’s worth: How to make Russian easier by saying less

By Michele A. Berdy

Published: July 4, 2012 (Issue # 1716)

Ñàìî ñîáîé: short for ñàìî ñîáîé ðàçóìååòñÿ — it goes without saying

So you open up the morning newspaper, armed with four years of Russian grammar and conversation classes, three years of studying Russian literature in the original, and two years of watching Russian videos on YouTube. You’re prepared.

And then you read: Ñïàñèáî çà ìèòèíã íà Ñàõàðîâà. Thank you for the rally on… Well, that can’t be right. If the rally is on something, you need the prepositional case: íà Ñàõàðîâå. Sheesh. Editorial standards are going down the drain … unless I’ve got it wrong. Maybe it’s the accusative case and the author is thankful that the rally moved toward …? That doesn’t make sense. What’s going on here?

What’s going on is simple: a word was left out — ïðîñïåêò (avenue). Ñïàñèáî çà ìèòèíã íà ïðîñïåêòå Ñàõàðîâà (Thank you for the rally on Sakharov Prospekt.)

When stating an address or place, in colloquial speech — and apparently now in the written language — Russians often leave out the place marker words, like óëèöà (street), ïëîùàäü (square), ïåðåóëîê (lane), or ñòàíöèÿ ìåòðî (metro station). But they keep the name of the street, square, or metro station in the grammatical case it would be in if the word was there. So instead of saying: Ïîâåðíèñü íà óëèöó Êîìñîìîëà (Turn on Komsomol Street), they say: Ïîâåðíèñü íà Êîìñîìîëà (Turn on Komsomol).

Sometimes they leave out more than one place marker. In St. Petersburg, you might be told: Âûõîäè íà Ëåíèíà (Get off at Lenin), which is super-short for Âûõîäè íà ñòàíöèè “Ïëîùàäü Ëåíèíà” (Get out at the Lenin Square station).

This might be a snap for native speakers, but it’s hard for us non-natives to maintain grammatical cases determined by omitted words. It’s slightly easier to get right when the street or station name is an adjective, although you have to remember what gender noun it modifies. Åçæàéòå äî êîíöà Êóòóçîâñêîãî (Drive to the end of Kutuzovksy [Prospekt].) Èä¸øü íàëåâî íà Ôðóíçåíñêóþ (You turn left on Frunzenskaya [Embankment].)

In general, as Russians chat away, they leave out a lot of words. They chop off the longer bits of set expressions, so that ñàìî ñîáîé ðàçóìååòñÿ (it goes without saying) is ñàìî ñîáîé. Sometimes they only quote half of a saying or proverb: Íó, âåê æèâè … (Well, live and … ) You can complete the phrase: Âåê ó÷èñü (Learn). Or you can just nod sagely.

Nodding sagely is a good technique when you have no idea what proverb is being quoted.

Most of all, it seems, Russians eschew verbs. This is good news for those of us who haven’t mastered all those conjugations or the finer points of aspect. Instead of saying, Òû ÷òî ãîâîðèøü? (What are you talking about?), you can say: Òû ÷òî? Instead of asking, Êîìó ïîëîæèòü äîáàâêè? (Who can I serve seconds to?), you can say: Êîìó äîáàâêè?

Conversations are often retold in verbless shorthand. Îí ìíå — Äóðà! À ÿ åìó — Ñàì äóðàê! (He told me, “You’re an idiot,” and I said, “No, you’re the idiot.”)

Once you get the hang of this, you can have an entire conversation without a single verb being uttered.

Òû êóäà? (Òû êóäà èä¸øü? Where are you going?)

Ê ñîñåäÿì. (Ïîéäó ê ñîñåäÿì. I’m going to the neighbors.)

ß – â ìàãàçèí. (ß èäó â ìàãàçèí. I’m going to the store.)

À òâîÿ ìàìà? (À ÷òî áóäåò äåëàòü òâîÿ ìàìà? What about your mother?)

Ñî ìíîé. (Îíà èä¸ò ñî ìíîé. She’s coming with me.)

Sure beats conjugation.

Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is author of “The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas),

a collection of her columns.