Thread: I was wondering . . .

What does tol'ka mean?

только - only

How do you say "I was wondering . . ." in Russian?

Russian doesn't really have a word for wonder. The closest thing anyone ever told me was like Я хотел узнать.

Ещё можно сказать "интересно".

It's much more complicated than that, Dogboy. "I was wondering" doesn't really translate as "я хотел узнать" - it should be "я хотел бы узнать" (or better "мне хотелось бы узнать") at the very least, but even that would be a bad translation as we don't normally use such constructions in Russian. It really depends on the context. I wonder if "I often wonder" could be translated as "я часто задаюсь вопросом" - please note "задаюсь вопросом", not "задаю себе вопрос" - the difference in meaning between those two is enormous. It's a situational verb and different situations call for different verbs or turns of phrase in Russian - sometimes the idea of "wondering" of the original English sentence is best omitted in the Russian translation, sometimes not.

Originally Posted by JJ

Ещё можно сказать "интересно".

Absolutely.

Thank you.