Practice Russian phrases with audio | Greeting Russians | Negative responses to 'How are you?'

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VOCABULARY USED IN THIS LESSON

Russian	Pronunciation	English

так	tak	so
себе	si-byEh	literally: "to itself"; It is used in the context of "так себе" to mean 'so-so'
ужасно	oo-zhAs-na	awful / terrible

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Use one of these phrases to respond negatively to the question, "How are you?".

So-so (not so good; below average)

так себе

Pronounced:

tak si-byEh

Audio:

(Lena)

Audio:

(Irina)

Bad

плохо

Pronounced:

plO-kha

Audio:

(Lena)

Audio:

(Irina)

Awful / Terrible

ужасно

Pronounced:

oo-zhAs-na

Audio:

(Lena)

Audio:

(Irina)

Another tip on pronunciation ..

If the letter 'в' appears adjacent to the letter 'с', then Russians often pronounce the в with an F sound, as in Feather.

Hence, the word всё is pronounced 'fsyo'.

There are a number of letter combinations like this that we will teach you. Usually they occur because they are simply easier to say.