Word of the day - плотник
плотник (plotnik), noun = carpenter
After a break of a few weeks, I started studying Russian again today. This week’s lesson is about occupations. It provides the Russian words for various jobs, but unfortunately doesn’t tell you how to say “I am a …” or “I work as a …”. Such sentences will hopefully appear later in the course.
Other words for occupations include:
секретарь (sekretar’) = secretary
доктор (doktor) = doctor
медсестра (medsestra) = nurse
зубной врач (zubnoj vrač) = dentist
учитель (učitel’) = teacher
пекарь (pekar’) = baker
механик (mexanik) = mechanic
студент (student) = student
7 Responses to “Word of the day - плотник”
Joseph Staleknight on 20 Jun 2006 at 11:47 pm #
“медсестра (medsestra) = nurse”
Hmmm, that sounds a lot like “mid-sister”. Is that the etymology?
Simon on 21 Jun 2006 at 8:30 pm #
сестра (sestra) is sister and I think мед (med) might be related to medical matters - another word of doctor is медик (medik), which also means medical student.
k on 27 Jun 2006 at 7:21 pm #
to say “I am a carpenter” is too easy to mention “я плотник” (ya plotnik)
he is a carpenter - он плотник (on plotnik)and so on.
Chase Boday on 08 Jul 2006 at 7:32 am #
k is correct, but there are other ways to say this, too.
If you say:
я плотник, you are implying that there is an idea that you are inherently meant to be a carpenter, but say you were trained to be a linguist, but gosh-darnit, the soviet of linguists won’t let you in, and you have to work in the carpentry profession, then you would say:
я роботаю плотником. “I work as a carpenter” with ‘carpenter’ in the instrumental case. Hope this has been helpful!
Nieta on 30 Mar 2007 at 10:20 am #
Chase Boday,
your comment has compicated everything. Forget USSR.. here is a language portal. If someone says I am a carpenter, he means it…
K is right.
I am a carpenter. Я - плотник.
(nice example by the way.. i have never met travelling carpenters as well as nurses)
Chase Boday on 08 Apr 2007 at 5:03 am #
Yes, K is right, I was just adding some details that I learned from my khazjain, (can’t type cyrillic on this infernal computer right now). The conversation went like this:
Me: Mne skazali chto vy professor…
Ilja: Net, nepravilno. Ja byl enzhinir, no schas (sejchas) ja robotaju veterinarom.
Ok, so its not word for word, but the grammar is the important thing.
Mel on 27 Dec 2007 at 5:00 pm #
You’re both right above. Most Russians would just say ‘Ya plotnik’ etc etc, as gramatically, the construction ‘ya rabotaioo plotnikom’ is a little complex as it uses the ‘instrumental’ case.