Thread: Are very many words phonetically similar to English/Latin?

As paulb mentioned there are many borrowed words in Russian (mostly of Greek, Latin, German, Turkish, French, Dutch and English origin). Most of these words can be called "international", because their versions are used in many European languages.

For example..

1) sport vocabulary:
sport - спорт, tennis - теннис, баскетбол - basketball, boots - бутсы, goal - гол, boxing - бокс, referee - рефери, etc. Sometimes people use both a borrowed and a 'Russian' word, e.g. goalkeeper = голкипер = вратарь (from "ворота" - gate(way), goal).
2) names of exotic animals, birds and plants (I think you willbe able to translate them on your own ):
Жираф, кенгуру, тигр, горилла, фламинго, баобаб, эвкалипт, панда, опоссум, etc.
3) technical terms:
механик (mechanic), автомобиль, радио, телевизор, мотоцикл, радиатор, трансмиссия, электроника, etc.
4) Economics and politics:
парламент, демократия, революция, митинг, партия, банк, депозит, бартер, брокер, инвестор, дилер, etc.
5) Сomputer-related vocabulary:
компьютер, принтер, монитор, процессор, слот, файл, интерфейс, etc.
6) Music and arts:
музыка, джаз, импрессионизм, балет, танго, соло, хор (choir), баритон, гитара, скульптура, etc.
7) Some medical and anatomy terms:
доктор, анатомия, фаланга, пенис, вагина, мигрень, госпиталь (it means usually a military hospital, for other kinds of hospitals the Russian word "больница" is more common), etc.
Other science-related words:
биология, зоология, математика, геометрия, география, академик (academician), профессор, логика, эксперимент, проект, гравитация, космос, etc.
9) Some military terms:
танк (tank, as a vehicle), генерал (general), майор (major), флаг, ракета (rocket), бомба, бомбардировка (bombardment, bombing), парашют, etc.

And HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of others.


There are also words that are not the same, but resemble each other anyway. Since both English and Russian are Indo-European languages some of these words share the same roots while others are just a coincidence. This resemblance, however slight, makes it easier to memorise these words:
nose - нос
brother - брат
sister - сестра
water - вода
Sun (sol) - солнце
cat - кот
milk - молоко
and so on..

The uniquely Russian words are not so hard to lear either, if you make sure to notice their connections with other words and try to guess their roots and origins.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

There are also words that are not the same, but resemble each other anyway. Since both English and Russian are Indo-European languages some of these words share the same roots...
nose - нос
brother - брат
sister - сестра
water - вода
Sun (sol) - солнце
(etc.)

If you ever studied Latin for at least a year or so, you may remember the four principle parts of the verb for "to give":

do, dare, dedi, datus

And it's not a coincidence that the Russian perfective verb дать ("to give") resembles the Latin participle datus, while the the imperfective verb дарить ("to give as a gift; to make a present of") resembles the infinitive dare. (Russian also has the word дата, "calendar date", but although this comes from Latin datus, it was a relatively recent borrowing, and not example of "evolutionary development" in the Indo-European family.)

P.S. By the way, Alan, as you progress in Russian, you'll learn that words like независимость ("independence") were also borrowed from Latin, despite the total lack of phonetic similarity! (Hint: The Russian verb висеть and the Latin verb pendere both mean "to be hanging; to dangle", and the Latin participle independens literally means "not dangling from something"). This is a phenomenon called "calquing", and it's really a topic for a separate thread -- but I just wanted to give you a heads-up that Russian has borrowed foreign words in various different ways.