What does PATZAN mean in Russian?

[Bucic]

Up to yesterday I thought it's an insult similar to 'durak' (idiot). Even more that 'patzan' in Polish also means 'idiot'. But yesterday I watched an interview with Semen Semenchenko and from all what I could understand he used 'patzany' (plural of patzan) when referring to Ukrainian army low-ranked or draft soldiers. They're on the same side so I doubt he called them names. I'm confused. Could anyone explain this.

 

I don't have the exact moment in the interview at hand, sorry.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Bucic

[Joe Kurr]

According to Google Translate, "пацаны" (patsany) translates into "boys".

[maturin]

Yeah, but boys in the sense of 'dude.'

 

Most often you'll call someone a normalny patsan, which is sort of like "he's a solid guy."

 

It's definitely a slang word, and one that sort of hovers on the edge of the vocabulary of prison-inspired male subcultures.

 

It's almost like the officer was referring to his homies, only patsan doesn't necessarily denote friendship.

[Bucic]

Thanks, patzany ;)

It confused me also when a separatist was telling a story on Ukrainian soldiers panicking or attacking each other by mistake. He did this with a clear despise. Notably he used a term 'horoshyie', 'horoshyie patzany'. 'Horoshyie' is 'good' in plural but I'm pretty sure it meant 'what f#%&g', combined 'what f#%&g idiots'. So a kind of amplification of already negative tone, as it would be in Polish.

 

You may be thinking right now that this is one of those weirdo threads of mine but I assure you, if you don't know this part of the vocabulary it's really hard to understand the guys on both sides even if you can communicate in Russian normally :D

Edited November 6, 2014 by Bucic

[Yo-Yo]

Thanks, patzany ;)

It confused me also when a separatist was telling a story on Ukrainian soldiers panicking or attacking each other by mistake. He did this with a clear despise. Notably he used a term 'horoshyie', 'horoshyie patzany'. 'Horoshyie' is 'good' in plural but I'm pretty sure it meant 'what f#%&g', combined 'what f#%&g idiots'. So a kind of amplification of already negative tone, as it would be in Polish.

 

You may be thinking right now that this is one of those weirdo threads of mine but I assure you, if you don't know this part of the vocabulary it's really hard to understand the guys on both sides even if you can communicate in Russian normally :D

 

Patzan - in the first 8/10 of the XX century was most Ukranian but also wide spreaded in Russia synonim of a young boy (7-16 years old mainly) with neutral meaning. Later it became more popular for para-criminal community, low educated, "abibas"-dressed young people regardless of the age.

 

I think in modern Ukraine both meaning are melt.

 

I rememeber that I used this word in my chidlhood, but I avoid to use it now because of changed diskours. :)

Edited December 11, 2014 by Yo-Yo

[Aginor]

And here we are, in a flight simulation forum, learning something interesting about eastern european language and culture.

 

Thank you!

[Bucic]

Thank you, Yo-Yo!

 

@Aginor

Here's another trivia. Certain words in one Slavic language may sound outright funny or... ridiculous to a member of another Slavic nation. And here you have a Pole saying 'koromyslo' meaning 'a WTF device' (a ridiculously looking or poor device) while it's just a regular Russian word for 'lever' :)

[Flagrum]

Thank you, Yo-Yo!

 

@Aginor

Here's another trivia. Certain words in one Slavic language may sound outright funny or... ridiculous to a member of another Slavic nation. And here you have a Pole saying 'koromyslo' meaning 'a WTF device' (a ridiculously looking or poor device) while it's just a regular Russian word for 'lever' :)

As someone totally unfamilar with slavic languages ... how similar are they? I know that there is/are some families of languages that have an common ancestor, but could one ("almost") understand someone elses language?

 

I don't exactly know how true this is in reality, but the nordic languages share some similarities - at least if I, as also unfamilar with those, looking from the outside at them. Some words are at least looking very similar in Norwegian, Swedish or Danish. Same is true for i.e. Dutch and German.

 

So, how different are slavic languages? How hard is it for the native speaker of one to learn an other? (assuming that this is at least easier than to learn a non slavic language?)

[Bucic]

For one AFAIK they all share http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension

Second - declension in language X should be very intuitive for a native speaker of language Y.

Third, Slavs will intuitiveely identify words as nouns, verbs etc. in any Slavic language.

 

Vocabulary similarities vary between languages and I would say they are not word for word. Let's see for 'we were':

Russian and Ukrainian: My byli (myh byhlee)

Polish: 'My byli' it's not how we say it (we say byli-smy) but the above is unambiguously understood at 100%.

Another example, 'to cut':

Russian and Ukrainian: rezat (very soft 't') / rezat (very hard 't')

Polish: ciac (very soft 'c', like in 'chips') BUT rezat is perfectly understood, both by common knowledge of the foreign word and by Polish 'rezat' which meant the same but it's not used nowadays.

 

Polish vs Czech - very hard to understand each other. It would perhaps be easier between Poles and Serbs. Generally you could identify groups of languages of more significant similarity.

 

As you may have noticed the Slavic languages were more similar in the past and tend to drift away. It is said that Polish sounded a lot more like Czech...Czech being very hard to understand for contemporary Poles, as I said.

 

Understandably this is my layman perspective of a Pole. It would be valuable to combine it with a perspective of southern Slavs and Slavs further North I.e. Belarussians and Russians.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages

And a great vocabulary similarities reference

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_vocabulary

Donate Wikipedia! :)

Edited December 11, 2014 by Bucic

[Flagrum]

I love such topics or information about language. Not that I am very good at languages in general, but especially the similarities catch my eye. And english is there a great study object as it inherited from so many european languages :o)

 

But sadly the slavic languages are quite alien to me - as they are a whole different family of languages than, i.e. the germanic (is that the term here?) languages. As far as I know, slavic differs from germanic languages quite a lot, especially when it comes to grammar, right?

[Bucic]

I love such topics or information about language. Not that I am very good at languages in general, but especially the similarities catch my eye. And english is there a great study object as it inherited from so many european languages :o)

 

But sadly the slavic languages are quite alien to me - as they are a whole different family of languages than, i.e. the germanic (is that the term here?) languages. As far as I know, slavic differs from germanic languages quite a lot, especially when it comes to grammar, right?

I wouldn't say they are similar in any significant way :) Except two things:

1. Where it comes to common influence of Cristian culture and thus Latin language. Both in terms of grammar (?) and vocabulary.

2. German vocabulary making its way to vocabularies of other countries related to trades. Carpentry, masonry, printing...

 

If you're interested in learning a Slavic language I'd do a research on which is the recommended approach. Vocabulary first or vocabulary and grammar in parallel. Personally I'd recommend the first approach. And reading the http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_vocabulary at least every few days. Reading, not memorizing.

[Bucic]

? (assuming that this is at least easier than to learn a non slavic language?)

Definitely easier! Excluding the factor of omnipresence, as in the case of English.

[Namenlos Ein]

Thank you, Yo-Yo!

 

@Aginor

Here's another trivia. Certain words in one Slavic language may sound outright funny or... ridiculous to a member of another Slavic nation. And here you have a Pole saying 'koromyslo' meaning 'a WTF device' (a ridiculously looking or poor device) while it's just a regular Russian word for 'lever' :)

“Pozor” in Czech mean “danger”, but in Russian “pozor” (позор) mean “a shame”.

[Falcon_S]

...“Pozor” in Czech mean “danger”, but in Russian “pozor” (позор) mean “a shame”.

 

''Pozor'' or cyr. ''Позор'' - in Serbian mean warning of something or draw attention, for example: lat. "Pozor! Visok napon!" or cyr. "Позор! Висок напон!'- eng. ''Attention! High voltage!". And Serbian alphabet is Cyrillic.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Falcon_S

[winz]

My favourite is "krasny zivot" in slovak/czech vs russian. Krasny in slovak means beautiful, in russian (красный) it means red. Zivot is life in slovak, belly in russian (живот). So krasny zivot means "beatifull life" in slovak, but "red belly" in Russian :)

 

Also one foreigner had told me that he founds the slovak-czech interaction fascinating. Because we lived in a single state for a long time most slovaks understand the czech language and vice-versa (sadly, this trend is fading in younger generations). So unsually when slovak speaks with czech they both use their own language. And for foreigners these languages are not as similar as we perceive them. So, while my foreign friend was able to speak czech, he wasn't able understand almost half the conversation when czech was speaking with a slovak.

[Bucic]

Zapomnij (a commanding form)

 

Polish: forget

 

Russian: remember / memorize

 

Russian 'delai uroki' (do homework) sounds to Poles like 'cast magic spells'.

:D

 

 

Also, Czech sounds to Poles like some funny baby talk while Polish sounds to Czechs like a 'Slavic German' :) You could somewhat compare it to how Arabs and Persians pervieve each others languages.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Bucic

[Aginor]

Russian 'delai uroki' (do homework) sounds to Poles like 'cast magic spells'.

 

:D :D

 

I love this thread, it is funny and informative!

[GeorgeLKMT]

Also, Czech sounds to Poles like some funny baby talk while Polish sounds to Czechs like a 'Slavic German' :)

 

Funny is how similar words often mean something totally different:

 

 

April is kwiecień in polish while květen (similarly spelt) in czech is actually may.

 

Zachod is west while in czech it means toilet.

 

Opona is a tyre while in czech, theater curtain.

 

Polish jagoda vs czech jahoda

 

And probably the number one favorite polish word for every czech out there.... szukać means "to look for, search", while in czech.... expletive for copulation :D

[winz]

And probably the number one favorite polish word for every czech out there.... szukać means "to look for, search", while in czech.... expletive for copulation :D

Yeah, I didn't know that until I watched the witcher TV series, in polish, and they went to search for a dragon (szukac smoga). I was staring at the monitor "what do you want to do with that dragon ???" :D

Edited December 12, 2014 by winz

[Aginor]

I know things like that in other languages as well. One example is in Spanish: A word people in Spain use for "take" means "f***" in Argentina (or the other way round) IIRC.

 

In German such things happen in dialects. In parts of Bavaria (south-east Germany) people use a word for "face" that is a colloquial word for a woman's private parts everywhere else in Germany...

[Namenlos Ein]

 

In Russian “grob” (гроб) means “coffin”, so no joy here.

[Aginor]

Yeah, it easily happens between very different languages (There are dozens of examples), especially with names. The most interesting cases however are those where it happens in languages that are very similar or even the same, just with a dialect.