No Sweat, Dude, Really!

Since this column began in 1995 (10 years ago!), our country has raised a whole new generation of teenagers. So it is time we brought you up to speed on the younger generation’s slang, to give you a linguistic shot in the arm as it were.

Remember круто/крутой (cool), which was all the rage in the 1990s? Well, the word still exists, but is just no longer круто. Teens now say something is прикольно or понтово. The words are untranslatable, of course, so just memorize them.

Meanwhile, savvy teens sprinkle as many utterances as possible with the rather redundant  “на самом деле” (“as a matter of fact”). This phenomenon has grown over the last few years and bothers the older generations to no end (ensuring its continuance).