Thread: Mister, miss, mistress

How does one say Mr., Ms., and Mrs. in Russian and their abbreviations are which letters?

to my knoledge there is no equivalent of those words in russian...if you want to adress somebody formally(which is what the Mrs. Ms. and Mr. are for) you would use their first name and the name that is called otchestvo, which is a modified version of their father's name. For example mine would be Tatiana Yevgenievna (my dad's name is Yevgeniy).

What would be the title for teachers?

Originally Posted by Knave

What would be the title for teachers?

Just what NYGirl3 said: name and father's name (otchestvo).

Tatiana Ivanovna, Nadezhda Nokolayevna etc. Please not that only full forms of first names should be used in this form of address, no shortened or endearing forms. E.g. it is always Tatiana Ivanovna, never Tania Ivanovna.

And, as a matter of fact, a word for Mrs. or Miss does exist in Russian, but it is very seldom used nowadays. It is "госпожа". Before the Bolshevist revolution, it was a common form of official address, but after the revolution it was banned and replaced by "tovarisch" (comrade) or "гражданка" (citizen).
After the collapse of USSR, words "господин" and "госпожа" are slowing returning to use again, but they still are not as common as they were before 1917.

I remember Tovarisch Sukhov giving a lecture to the women in "Beloe Solntse Pustyni" - "Revolution has freed you! No need for "Gospodin." Now, you call me simply "Comrade." "

BTW, did everyone in Turkmenistan speak such good Russian in those times?

in movies i have seen, they call each other "Мистер" or "сир", but i think this is just for fun and joking. like pravit said, they got rid of that awhile back.

But when we talk about foreigners we use these words too:
Мистер Джонсон подошёл к мисс Смит и спросил как здоровье старой миссис Браун.
That depends of course on what form of address is used in their country.
Мсьё Паскаль пошёл в гости к фрау Вебер.

You can use господин to refer to a male person and госпожа for a female. It is still used but not in everyday language

I've also heard "девушка" used instead of "miss" like:

Excuse me, miss, how much does the notebook cost?
Извините, девушка, сколько стойт тетрад?

There are good old words: "сударь" (to man) and "сударыня" (to woman). They were used before revolution -- why not return them back to use? Even in 70's Vladimir Soloukhin (the well known writer) proposed this...

Originally Posted by emka71aln

I've also heard "девушка" used instead of "miss" like:

Excuse me, miss, how much do the notebook cost?
Извините, девушка, сколько стойт тетрад?

small edit: how much do --> how much does

Yes, it's interesting .. it seems that it doesn't matter how old the woman in the shop is .. she is always 'dyevushka' .. or , would you say, that there's an age limit? and i guess the equivalent for a man in a shop is 'maladoy chelavek'?
(Quick edit: For the Russians reading this, I guess that you all already know that a direct translation of 'dyevushka' in this context would be appallingly rude in English )

Originally Posted by emka71aln

Excuse me, miss, how much do the notebook cost?

how much does

Could also be "how much do the notebooks cost"

OK, OK, I'm sorry! I guess I oughta pay more attention to my English...

Had this been several months ago, I would have added "As do several others," but I've noticed that Dogboy is actually typing and spelling correctly for the most part now