Как по-русски «boyfriend»?

[umconfused.livejournal.com]

Hi, I've been taking a beginning Russian class for 8 weeks now, and I decided to join an LJ community to help me learn more. So I have a question... what is the Russian word for "boyfriend"? My dictionary doesn't have that entry and I haven't been able to find a translation on any of the online translators. But then I went to lingvo.yandex.ru and it told me: парень, молодой человек; партнер, сожитель. But I'm not really sure what the differences are between them. I just want to know the general word for "boyfriend". And what are some words for terms of endearment? Thanks.

Comments

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

Сожитель is very official, it sound rather... dirty, i guess :) You can read about сожитель in police documents often ) Usually we say "парень" or "молодой человек", but you can use these words even when you speak about every young man (Тот молодой человек очень симпатичный).
...it's a pity we don't have the exact word for "boyfriend". As for me, I don't like how "парень" sounds... By the way, sometimes they call a boyfriend simply "бойфренд" )

[mihailova.livejournal.com]

it's very popular to say молодой человек now or МЧ for short

[ones-dream.livejournal.com]

Lingvo said you the truth=)
usually when we talk about boyfriends we say "мой молодой человек".
"мой парень" is also frequently used, this variant usualy use girls under 20, but it can be used by older girls as well.
"Сожитель" means that people leave together in one flat in common law marriage.
And "партнер" is not frequently used.

So the best variant is мой молодой человек=)

[eez.livejournal.com]

Just saying "молодой человек" wouldn't really mean "boyfriend", it's just "young man".
Though, if you specify, for example "ее молодой человек" - this would be "her boyfriend".
The same with the word "парень": "мой парень" means "my boyfriend", just saying a word "парень" wouldn't be "boyfriend".

[nodarius.livejournal.com]

I agree - possessive pronoun is essential in such cases

[kalaus.livejournal.com]

The simple anwer is there's no good equivalent in Russian for boyfriend.

Молодой человек (often half-jocularly abbreviated to МЧ or молчел) is probably used most often now, but wouldn't be understood without the proper context adn sound somewhat Victorian to me.

Парень (lit. fellow, lad) just doesn't get across the idea unless put in a very specific context.

Don't use сожитель, as it sounds very technical (as in "unwed male live-in sexual partner") and, as shellesie said, brings up the image of a police report: "Пожар возник по вине нигде не работающей N. и ее сожителя M., которые, находясь в состоянии алкогольного опьянения..." etc.

I know language purists will be all over me, but I would suggest to use бойфренд for lack of a better alternative.

[welgar.livejournal.com]

"Парень" is more colloquial than "молодой человек". E.g., the teenagers use the former more often (especially when talking to each other) while more grown-up people use the latter. It's not a strict rule, it's more of a style thing.

"Бойфренд" is also used in spoken Russian, especially by the young people in cities. Although it's an English word it follows the general rules for Russian masculine nouns (like cases etc.).

[semashka.livejournal.com]

The most popular words are: сожитель, хахаль, сексуальный партнёр.

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

very funny :\

[onodera.livejournal.com]

Ага, хахаль (м.) и зазноба (ж.).

[kitson.livejournal.com]

приятель, молодой человек, парень.
сожитель - это устаревшее понятие из словарного запаса времён СССР, когда считалось неприличным жить вместе, если вы не муж и жена.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The working language of this community is English. It's OK to answer in Russian, but you are expected to provide an English translation as well. Please remember that the most of those who learn_russian with us aren't Russians who cannot speak and/or write their language properly (which is the case with pishu_pravilno,) they are NOT native speakers, and most of them are on a very early level of study. Please do translate your comment.

[kitson.livejournal.com]

*не факт, что я сам на английский это правильно переведу, но всё же:)))*

приятель, молодой человек, парень.
сожитель - is old word from former USSR's language, when it was considered as indecent to live together if you are nоt husband and wife.

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

As a girl flatsharing with a male friend, I often find people presume when they see us that my друг is my boyfriend (and in his case, that his подруга is his girlfriend). I suspect it tends to work the other way too: a friend of the opposite sex is generally taken to be your boy/girlfriend.

So does that mean that друг and подруга are also options?

I'm curious - to the Russians reading this: would you make that assumption? If you met a girl who had a good friend who was male, would you immediately presume they were going out (and visa versa, boy-girl)?

Terms of endearment - well, I can only remember the translation and they come mostly from old babushkas, so perhaps use them with caution. I (and my flatmate) have in turn been labelled "golden ones", I've also heard "kitten" being used and (sorry, can't be bothered to type in Cyrillic), "medovnaya" or something along those lines (ie, "honey")

You might want to get a look at a good slang/idiom dictionary. I have one at home which makes very entertaining reading (remember: Russian swearwords are much worse than their translation!) and will probably provide some of the vocab you're looking for:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764110195/qid=1098090697/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-2540662-3277435?v=glance&s=books

If you are really interested in terms of endearment, I can look some up/ask my flatmate (who speaks very good Russian) when I get home and post them here for you.

[kitson.livejournal.com]

From Russians;)
It's a tricky thing - friendship between man and woman;) In Russian it's disputable question, many people (and me too;)) are consider that friendship between man and woman is impossible because anyway anyone thinks about sex with his/her friend. Therefore if girl says about some boy that he's her friend (друг) in most cases it means he's her boyfriend.
By the way, Russian word for "boyfriend" can be "бойфренд" too. It's quite normal world for modern Russian language.

[yk4ever.livejournal.com]

So does that mean that друг and подруга are also options?
I'm curious - to the Russians reading this: would you make that assumption? If you met a girl who had a good friend who was male, would you immediately presume they were going out (and visa versa, boy-girl)?
"It depends" :]
Yes, you can sometimes use подруга as euphemism to girlfriend, but this would be very uncertain.

(remember: Russian swearwords are much worse than their translation!)
[sigh] Lemme assure you - nopey. Russian swearwords are no worse than their foreign analogues. Hypocrisy ("these words are TOO BAD, good people NEVER use them") is just an old Soviet tradition. Other reason is that there's no age-ratings for movies and whatever, any kiddie can go and watch bloody action movie, so translators prefer to change all these "shit"s and "fuck"s with just "черт" or something.

np: Nastya Poleva - Veter

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yeah... I had a discussion about with my "бойфренд." He said that English curse words are actually worse...

[gdt.livejournal.com]

>and (sorry, can't be bothered to type in Cyrillic), "medovnaya" or something along those lines (ie, "honey")

"медовая". used quite seldom.

[yk4ever.livejournal.com]

On endearment:
солнышко (sunny), зайчик (bunny), котёнок (kitty, for girls only), крошка, малышка (little one, fgo), детка (baby, fgo), золотце (goldy), милый/милая (prety), прелесть, красавица (beauty), умница (clever one), дорогой/дорогая (darling).

np: Depeche Mode - I Feel Loved

[rednameless.livejournal.com]

All translations are right less or more, but they have dual meaning.

You may call young man in the street saying "Эй, парень!" or "Молодой человек!" ("Hey, guy!" or "Hey, young man!"). But "молодой человек!" more polite.

"Сожитель" also may be translated as roommate.

"Партнёр" = "Partner", but there is many varyous "partners". Business-partner, dance-partner, ..., sexual partner (that's it!).

Frightful? =)

So, if you have to ask to girl "Where is your boyfriend?", you must say "Где твой парень?" (or "Где твой (ваш) молодой человек?" if you don't know that girl well enough). And girl will answer "Мой парень здесь" ("My boyfriend is here").
i. e. to say "парень"="boyfriend" but not "guy", you must use "my/your/her" (мой парень, твой парень, её парень...) or something like that, except "свой (наш) парень!" (it means nearly "this guy is our friend!", like "That's my son!").

But if you are male and you say "он мой парень!", all people around will think you are gay. :)

[kostya-moskowit.livejournal.com]

Pls look to the punctuation marks more carefully. You received from Yandex two meanings:
1. "парень, молодой человек"- male 15-25
2. "партнер, сожитель" - man who live with someone but not a husband, lover or fiance
What sense you need?

I can add to your attention - муж (м.) - husband and permanent boyfriend even if that's not officially registered.

[little-honda.livejournal.com]

well, I'd say чувак, it's very familiar
бойфренд will do as well)