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Dirty Languages
Dirty Russian: Second Edition: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"
Learn the slang words, modern phrases, and curses they definitely never taught you in Russian class with this super-handy and hilariously improper English-Russian phrasebook.
You already know enough Russian to get by, but you want to be able to tell those inside jokes, greet your friends in a laid-back manner, and casually pick someone up at a bar.
From “what’s up?” to “Wanna go home with me?” Dirty Russian will teach you how to speak like you're a regular on the streets of Moscow. But you’ll also discover material that goes beyond a traditional phrasebook,
Next time you’re traveling to Russia, pick up this book, drop the textbook formality, and get dirty!
You already know enough Russian to get by, but you want to be able to tell those inside jokes, greet your friends in a laid-back manner, and casually pick someone up at a bar.
From “what’s up?” to “Wanna go home with me?” Dirty Russian will teach you how to speak like you're a regular on the streets of Moscow. But you’ll also discover material that goes beyond a traditional phrasebook,
Next time you’re traveling to Russia, pick up this book, drop the textbook formality, and get dirty!
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 18, 2014
Funny. Stupid and funny. You can't possibly take this work seriously. And it does give a lovely, colorful insight into the mind of the people living in the largest country in the world.
April 3, 2011
This is an interesting and humorous book of Russian idioms. Most of them I would never dream of saying, but a few might come in handy, and I hope that if I ever hear a few of them, I'll know to ignore them or respond properly.
My job is one that takes me to Russia, but everything is ususally so polite, professional and formal, I doubt that I'll need this book much. Still, it's a popular one among my colleagues and I found it to be quite entertaining.
My job is one that takes me to Russia, but everything is ususally so polite, professional and formal, I doubt that I'll need this book much. Still, it's a popular one among my colleagues and I found it to be quite entertaining.
August 29, 2017
About 5% of the Russian in this book has orthographical errors, but I still found it extremely helpful. As someone who has lived in ex-Soviet states for the past year, the cultural tips were true to form, especially the sections about cultural differences in ideas about health and friendship. Another pro and another con: the curse words are both hilarious and mostly accurate, but the authors fail to mention that cussing in Russian is taken way more seriously than cussing in English. I read this before going to Russia because I thought it would win me points with my language partners, but apparently cussing in Russian is seen as low-class and offensive (especially coming from women) and it generally just embarrassed whoever I was with when I tried to use a phrase I'd learned from this book. The sections about drinking, greetings, sex, etc are all helpful regardless of the funny but unusable cuss word sections, though, so I'm still giving it 5 stars.
February 23, 2023
slabo wyjasnia znaczenie slownictwa, zapis wymowy okropny. znaczna czesc wyrazen to cringe i nikt ich nie uzywa (no chyba ze jacys boomerzy, ale tak to sie dzieje ze slownictwem, ze czasem odchodzi do lamusa).
October 29, 2011
Terrible.
Who is supposed to be the audience for this book?
While it provides an interesting variety of current slang, the pronunciation guidance is poor and only occasionally is there more than a phrase or word in English followed by a phrase or word in Russian. Almost all of this stuff needs contextual and other explanation to be useful. The phrase collections are organized by topic in English so there is no looking up a Russian phrase possible (no index).
The section on slang and abbreviations used by Russians on the Internet is perhaps the most useful section, or anyway is for me since I read Russian discussion lists etc while having no plans to visit Russia itself.
The authors, apparently by virtue of writing a book mostly about obscenities, seem to regard themselves as hip and amusing - this comes out particularly strongly in the "about the authors" blurbs. But alas they express little that is amusing in the book, which would certainly be possible given the topic, and apparently have zero sense of irony.
And why they included the section at the end on food words as part of a book titiled "Dirty Russian?" Well, I guess when you are drunk or stoned and not using your newly acquired crude phrases for various sexual acts, you might get peckish as the Brits say. And it helps to fill up the book rather than explaining the phrases that precede this section more fully.
Oh well.
Who is supposed to be the audience for this book?
While it provides an interesting variety of current slang, the pronunciation guidance is poor and only occasionally is there more than a phrase or word in English followed by a phrase or word in Russian. Almost all of this stuff needs contextual and other explanation to be useful. The phrase collections are organized by topic in English so there is no looking up a Russian phrase possible (no index).
The section on slang and abbreviations used by Russians on the Internet is perhaps the most useful section, or anyway is for me since I read Russian discussion lists etc while having no plans to visit Russia itself.
The authors, apparently by virtue of writing a book mostly about obscenities, seem to regard themselves as hip and amusing - this comes out particularly strongly in the "about the authors" blurbs. But alas they express little that is amusing in the book, which would certainly be possible given the topic, and apparently have zero sense of irony.
And why they included the section at the end on food words as part of a book titiled "Dirty Russian?" Well, I guess when you are drunk or stoned and not using your newly acquired crude phrases for various sexual acts, you might get peckish as the Brits say. And it helps to fill up the book rather than explaining the phrases that precede this section more fully.
Oh well.
May 20, 2014
Aside from racial slurs, terms related to prostitution, and slang for heroine and cocaine, i thoroughly enjoyed this book! Very fun to learn the things your professors wouldn't dare teach you in class, and you won't be in Russia long enough to learn from locals. I'll refer back to this one frequently!
Read
February 13, 2011Good for learning a few new phrases and brushing up on my Russian sentence structure or what I believe their sentence structure to be. It's a reference book, really.
Read
September 15, 2011i think it a nice book
February 2, 2023
It bothered me a little that the transliteration appeared before the phrase in Russian. Regarding the contents, I don't think I'll ever use any of the phrases but at least I'm familiar with them.
April 18, 2018
A bit more thorough and much more useful than the guide I received at the Defrnse Language Institute back in the 1970s!
I was gifted this by one of my dearest friends, who suffered with me at DLI.
I was gifted this by one of my dearest friends, who suffered with me at DLI.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews