(no subject)

[kissystarcowboy.livejournal.com]

So, this morning in class, we were listing off verbs that end in -имать.  Someone said снимать and all the native speakers in the class started laughing.  The three of us non-native speakers were clueless and the professor was blushing. What happened?

I looked it up in the dictionary when I got home and it says it means "to remove."  Okay.  How is that so funny? I'm pretty sure it has some other meaning.  Any ideas?

Comments

[twinofmunin.livejournal.com]

i know pretty much no russian, but from the term "to remove", maybe it means to strip, as in remove clothing?

[oryx_and_crake]

You can say снимать (одежду) to describe the process of undressing, but this is not why they laughed. Снимать means to pick up (girls).

[twinofmunin.livejournal.com]

ahhh. interesting, then, that the dictionary meaning is "to remove". o_O

[oryx_and_crake]

It only means that you have a bad dictionary. Снимать is indeed the main meaning of this word but far from being the only one.

[twinofmunin.livejournal.com]

ah. fair.

[kissystarcowboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was just looking at the pocket one. The big Oxford one says to remove, to rent, to take a photo, and some other ones. It doesn't mention the meanings seen here, however.

[oryx_and_crake]

It's a colloquial meaning, you usually don't find them in dictionaries. Multitran doesn't have this meaning either, surprisingly. Have a look anyway, it might be helpful.
http://multitran.ru/c/m.exe?l1=1&l2=2&s=%F1%ED%E8%EC%E0%F2%FC

[malim-praedari.livejournal.com]

Another meaning of "снимать" is "to rent". You can figure out the rest.

[yammu.livejournal.com]

it's something like "to pick up with a girl in order to have sex with her".
hope you get it.
in fact it's not funny at all.

[zoa-mel-gustar.livejournal.com]

Well, this word has some specific meanings. On military jargon it means "sniper shoot" ("Он метким выстрелом снял подбирающегося к дому солдата."). But your classmates, I think, meant that on slang "снять девушку" - "pick up a girl" (not literary).

[russian-bob.livejournal.com]

It also means to make a movie or photographs.

If somebody says: "Мы снимали девушек на пляже", it means "We took pictures of girls on the beach." but if could also mean "We picked up girls on the beach". Depends how you say it.

снимать девушку

[mephiztofel.livejournal.com]

it can be quite a derogative expression, which means "arranging sex with somebody (especially for money)", e. g. снять шлюху = to pick up a hooker

[-ufo-.livejournal.com]

For them it was like:
we were listing off verbs that end in -emove. Someone said remove and all the native speakers in the class started laughing.
Maybe they were laughing because it seemed strange to take most part of the word as ending?

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

There others that have such extra meaning: цеплять, подцеплять. The latter is also used to mean to catch some disease from somebody. Look out for the extra meanings like these. :)

[windy-corner.livejournal.com]

I can't really understand the teacher's blushing. The word is not obscene, it's just that the teacher might be young and not used to inspirited reactions. As for the audience, it makes me wonder... No audience I've ever taught would react this way. Was the class exhaustingly boring, perhaps? )))

[apriori.livejournal.com]

Снимать - is undressing, pick up, foto and video (снимать на камеру, на пленку), removing smth (for ex. kitten from roof)...
Russian is a very rich and hard-lern lang. =)
(sorry for my terrible english =))

[konstkaras.livejournal.com]

There is a quite old verb имать - with the same root but no prefix - meaning "to take", "to catch"; possibly it has some sexual meaing too.