Repeating the same word sounded a bit weird to me the first time I was in Russia, but after a while I understood that it’s completely fine to do so. Oh, and last thing: if someone greets you with здравствуйте, it’s completely fine to repeat it back. So even though it’s a difficult word to pronounce, it’s worth spending 10 minutes practicing its pronunciation. Like we spoke about above, Russian is a polite language, and you don’t want to accidentally address the customs guy with an informal greeting. If you’re just starting to learn Russian, I absolutely recommend you use this as the only way to greet people. Makes it a lot easier, right? Now you just need to add them together and you’re good to go. It’s funny how such a simple thing as “hello” can be such a difficult word in the Russian language.īut like most things in life, you can make Russian easier if you split it up into smaller parts. If you don’t want to risk saying something out of place, it’s a good idea to always use this greeting: Formal “Hello” in Russian – Здравствуйте (Zdravstvuyte) It's not free, but it's helpful if you're currently struggling with learning Russian. If you can understand this one, the rest will be a walk in the park.īy the way, if you want to learn Russian quickly, I've got a course that teaches you how to use strategic habit-building to make learning Russian fun, easy, and automatic. Now that you know the general differences, let’s start with the most difficult hello in Russian. But it’s good to know them, in the case someone says them to you. As a foreigner, it’s better not to use these at all. These phrases can be seen as informal, but with some added connotation. Fun – some Russian greetings are a bit wacky or said more of a joke.If someone says ‘ты’ to you, you can use informal greetings.

A good way to know when you can switch to informal is when someone says an informal greeting to you. Russian is a polite language, so it’s better to err on the side of being too polite. Informal – these greetings can be said once you know someone better.If someone uses ‘Вы’ with you, it’s better to stick to formal greetings.

It’s also good to say these forms to people that have a higher ‘status’ than you, such as when meeting a police officer, or a student to his professor. For example when you meet a store clerk, bus driver, or just say hello in Russian to someone you don’t know.

Formal – say these forms in most day-to-day situations.

There are many ways to say hello in Russian, but most forms can be divided into formal or informal:

Hello in russian google translate