Excuse my Russian

There’s nothing like the immersion method if you want to speak Russian like a native. One must choose carefully, however, with whom and where to immerse oneself: dialect and poor grammar abound in every nation. This chapter can’t point you to the ideal environment for immersion, but it can help you to recognize the wrong one.

For example, though Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was immensely popular internationally, he’s no role model in the elocution department. It is a little-known fact in the West that, despite his prestigious and much-publicized university education, the Soviet Union’s last leader regularly stressed the wrong syllable and abused Russian grammar in public speeches, much to the chagrin of intellectuals.

If Ronald Reagan or George Bush had practiced the immersion method with Gorby, in no time at all they would have been saying начать¸ instead of начать¸ (to begin). Other common examples of incorrect stress include позвонит (he will call) instead of позвонит, километр instead of километр, and квартал in place of квартал (quarter).

Mikhail Sergeyevich was also keen on using savvy foreign words like консенсус (consensus) where the simple Russian согласие (agreement) would do. The trouble was, he sometimes failed to grasp the subtleties of the imports. When the media latched onto and broadcast these gaffs, another ungrammatical phrase would enter into common usage.

One legendary pearl of “Gorbachev savvy” is сохранить нынешний статус-кво (to retain the current status-quo) – he status-quo is current by definition. There was also другая альтернатива (another alternative) and потенциальные возможности (potential possibilities). In Russian, such linguistic phenomena are called масло масляное (buttered butter).

Be on the lookout as well for when Russians abuse complex comparative forms, like более (more) plus an adjective. They might combine более, not with simple adjectives like хороший (good), but with comparative adjectives like лучший to produce the horrific “more better.” In Russian as in English, two comparative forms back to back are redundant.

Improper declension is one more thing to look out for. Don’t bother declining the word пальто (coat). If you hear someone say без пальта (without a coat), they’re not using “Ivy League” Russian. It should be spoken без пальто. The rule is: words of foreign origin ending with an “o” like пальто, кино and метро don’t decline, though they commonly are.

Not only people, but whole regions can deviate from rhetorical orthodoxy (at least according to the cultural elite). Southern cities like Gorbachev’s home town of Stavropol are rich in such departures. For example, in the third person, the verb класть (to put) declines as кладёт (singular) and кладут (plural). A Stavropol native might say ложит (singular) or ложут (plural), derived from the non-existent infinitive of the verb, ложить. In the perfective form, the verb класть is положить¸ (to place) or вложить (to insert).

If you go to the Crimea for an immersion experience, you might end up saying ихний / ихние, the local version of их (the possessive pronoun meaning “their”). Ихние is considered to be a просторечие (literally “simple speech”). If you use it, every Russian will understand you, but you may raise high a few eyebrows.

Speaking of high brows, you can always make out a true Russian интеллигент (intellectual) by the way he apologizes. You won’t hear him/her use the word извиняюсь – introduced into the language by illiterate sailors in 1917 and regularly substituted for the correct form: извините (excuse me). The difference between the two is subtle but critical. The reflexive form of the verb извинять (to excuse) in literal translation means “I excuse myself.”

To those with a refined sense of the language, извиняюсь is an absurdity. If somebody apologizes this way after stepping on your foot on a crowded trolleybus, they would technically not be begging your forgiveness, but forgiving themselves for the transgression. Don’t hold it against them, their intentions are pure. Some of the commonly used embellishments to this words are even less apologetic: я очень извиняюсь (I excuse myself very much) or я сильно извиняюсь (I excuse myself strongly).

In the end, if you can’t remember how to decline the word пальто, at least bring one with you if you come to Russia at this time of year. Your trip will be much “more better” that way.