5 Modern Russian Internet Slang Words You Should Know

Hi! Do you like to chat with russian folk? Or maybe you prefer to spend you free time reading posts from russian users on social media? If it is so, you might find some words they speak extremely difficult to understand.

Internet era has come to Russia as well, and our language started to change rapidly and radically. Even my mother can’t understand things that people write on their Facebook sometimes. Imagine how the foreign people feel.

So, now it’s time to learn some new words to be prepared for modern Russian language in 2020s.

Што (шта? чиво?)

You all know this word – что, right? The one that starts with ч, which is pronounced as [ш], which is quite strange for us. Well, that’s why people from the internet try to make things easier. They don’t care about grammar: they hear “што” – they write “што“. Isn’t that great?

Usually we use this word when we disagree with something or it makes us angry.

For example:

Вчера на почте мне сказали, что потеряли мою посылку. Штоооо? Вообще-то там были ценные вещи!

Another variation of “что” is “шта?” and is very similar to english “wat”. So, we’re not the only ones to distort words.

 

Чиво = чего? We often use “чего?” instead of “что?” in everyday situations (informal of course).

– Принеси воды.

– Чего? Не слышу.

Don’t use it as a question word in writing as a substitute of “Что?” – it doesn’t work that way and gramatically incorrect.

And, again, “чего” sounds more like “чиво”, that’s why people write it that way sometimes. But not because they are that dumb, but because they want to express sarcasm, anger or something like that.

Жиза

This one is very common as well. The word means жизнь (life) and is usually used when we want to say that things that happen are very common and happen to us all the time.

For example:

– Купил зарядку, а она не подошла к телефону -_-

– Жиза…

***

– Хотел оплатить электричество в почтовом отделении, а там очередь.

– Жиза.

Зашквар

This word is extremely popular in russian blogging and vlogging. When a vlogger disappoints his or her subscribers, they say that he “зашкварился” (verb). It means that he did something wrong, bad, shameful and don’t deserve any respect anymore.

зашквариться – to disgrace oneself, to get worse

зашквар – shame, disgrace

Originally this term came from Russian prisoners, that’s why it doesn’t promise anything good.

Example:

Этот блогер рекламирует мошеннические сайты. Совсем зашкварился.

Лойс

It’s identical to like in English. Like as an internet term for thumbs up. I have no idea, why some guys call it that way, but it happens pretty often.

Ставьте лойсы, если вам понравилось видео!

Простыня

When you read a really huge text on your Facebook with complaints, storytelling, bragging, etc., it’s called “простыня” (bed-sheet). Sometimes you can also see under a text like that something like: “сори, многобукав” (sorry for many letters).

That’s it. Is there any other words that you don’t understand? Leave me a comment 🙂