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I'm writing a story with a Russian soldier, and I usually put her swearing into Russian so as to not be immediately offensive to English readers.

So, the word that I'm needing is "fuckers". To put it in context, the line is: "How does it feel to burn—just like all the people on all the planets you [fuckers] glassed?"

What's the right word that I would need for this?

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    Looks like your story is set in a quite distant future and you want a FEMALE RUSSIAN SOLDIER to do the swearing for you so the 'good guys' don't have to. I've had enough of this in Hollywood movies. I'm not answering this question. Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 5:58
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    In my personal opinion, using a kind of nadsat is not a good idea at all. Read a couple of pages from "Clockwork orange" to get an impression how readers would struggle through the text with inserted foreign words.
    – Abakan
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 7:44
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    Are you asking how to translate the phrase into Russian? Or what Russian obscenity to put into the English phrase so as not to offend the English speaking readers? The latter question is off-topic on this site, I'm afraid, it'd better be asked on English.SE.
    – Quassnoi
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 10:31
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    Given present status of Russian language, it would be very likely that a pejorative gay word (which I would not mention here) would be used, and not many of the options already mentioned.
    – Alexander
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 18:23
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    @AllenR You're writing in English for English-speaking audience and you're putting Russian words in the mouth of your otherwise English-speaking character. This is a literary device (no real people, even native Russian speakers who speak English poorly, talk this way), and not the best one out there. It's not a good idea to use that at all, but if you still have to, you should be concerned about how familiar with the expletive your audience is rather than its actual Russian meaning. Since you're writing for video gamers, "cyka blyad" would be probably you best (or rather least bad) shot.
    – Quassnoi
    Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 19:11

6 Answers 6

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"Твари" or "мрази" are the best words I can think of. Neither of them are truly obscene, though. The genitalia-derived obscenities offered in other answers have something comical about them, not something you would seriously call a strong and dangerous enemy who has glassed so many planets (unless you want to portray the situation with a degree of humor). When you call a person something like "уёбок" or "долбоёб", the nuance is that he is a somewhat inept person, doing his bad things at least partially out of stupidity.

Can't refrain from offering my very valuable opinion on the matter in general. I am a native speaker of Russian with semi-decent English. I also speak enough Japanese to get by. I like cursing (yes, in all three languages) and often do, but can't remember ever using a curse from a language foreign to the one I am speaking at the moment. That would just feel sooo awkward. The grammar is different, the phrase composition is usually different enough so that there's simply no good place to insert a foreign curse into. The way you [are trying to] pronounce "corresponding" sounds in different languages is also different, should I pronounce it like I would in English, e. g. "moo duck", or the plain Russian "мудак" will do? Switching takes enough time and mental effort to kick you out of the flow. The closest thing to your example I can imaging myself saying is something like: "What are you doing, you... you... [struggling to remember the word "faggot" for a second and failing]... пидор!"

And no, "Clockwork Orange" is not a good counter-example, what's described there is a sub-cultural phenomenon of taking a very limited subset of foreign words and adapting them to English grammar and phonetics.

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It's уёбок or ушлёпок.

I'd go with уёбки (singular уёбок) or уебаны (singular уебан) - this is exactly something like fuckers.

It's comparably more neutral than ебанат, there's also word долбоёб but it's more like stupid fucker.

There's also мудила but it's more like stupid asshole or douchebag.

So, "уёбок", definitely "уёбок" :)

Or if want to use something similar but less abusive (because the root ебать from which уёбок is derived is highly offensive and not acceptable in the majority of cases, it's not like fuck in that sense) - use ушлёпок - this is exactly the same but you can use it, say, on TV without the risk of being ostracized.

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  • Shahen, isn't there another word that looks something like уёбице(?)
    – CocoPop
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 13:21
  • @CocoPop - уёбище (щ, not ц) is yet another form of уёбок
    – shabunc
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 13:23
  • @shabunc, "уёбки" looks to be exactly what I'm looking for in this instance. Would it be properly Anglicized as "uyobki" or just "uebki"? I use English letters in my story for readers who don't know the azbuka.
    – Allen R.
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 16:44
  • @AllenR. "uyobki" is what your need )
    – shabunc
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 9:40
  • But those are VERY tabooed words. Maybe "отморозки" might fit in too. Meaning people "frozen their brains to the point they have no more", absolutely detached from humanity
    – Arioch
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 11:12
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The people above try to get a rough translation, while in this situation I would look for an equivalent, not exact translation

I would go with one of the following

somewhat mild variations

  • Сволочи (literally: any person causing a lot of trouble for no good reason)
  • Гады (similar meaning in modern language, but was used to mean "snakes and their biological relatives")
  • Ублюдки (literally: bastards, but derogatory as well)
  • Идиоты (just idiots, fitting if the effect was unexpected)
  • Нелюди (literally: non-people, used for people with completely screwed or absent moral compass)

obscene variants

  • Мудаки (derived from муды - balls. Male balls. May be used both for stupid and bitchy person)
  • Долбоёбы (derived from ебать : to fuck. Mostly used for fantastic idiots)
  • Уебаны/Уёбки (similar to above, but is well suited for people with very screwed morality as well)

Please, note: obscenities in russian are considered to be obscenities: they are 'beep'ed on tv and are not allowed in civil settings. Refined people never use them, and even unrefined people do not use them in formal settings. Very few people would use obscenities in formal settings, and this is not considered acceptable. A truly refined person should be able to make opponent cry from understanding of own low place in life without obscenities.

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I think "суки" would go good in this situation. It is plural of "сука" which means "female dog" but also has a meaning "bitch" and can be applied not only to female persons.

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  • или "твари" ( ~ beasts ), или "звери", или "черти" - вариантов море. Характер героини надо прорабатывать, надо написать ее подробную биографию до книги, а оптом сжечь. И уже тогда выбирать ей язык, с учетом ее "культурного прошлого"...
    – Arioch
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 8:43
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    English "bitch" does mean "female dog" too, that is its main meaning.
    – Quassnoi
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 10:36
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    English "bitch" has a somewhat different meaning from Russian "сука" as a "called name". "Сука" is perfectly suitable for a male (or unknown gender) party and more close to "bastard" in meaning.
    – Alexander
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 22:45
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Just take explicit-language-aware translations of Hollywood war movies and look at situations what would suit you.

Two lists of movies and download link.

The first link gives you list of movies you might want to look into. The second - the list of movies you definitely need to stay away from, in the context of this work. The third - should let you download subtitles to the movies you selected and read them.


Then, still you would have to make her language consistent with her cultural background, with her past. Because expletives can be translated rather vague, and if you would pick different style, different semantic cloud expletives - it would sound chaotic and weird for her personality.

When Barry Longyear was writing a novel about blinded woman, he not only lived few weeks with eyes covered, he also allegedly wrote a full bio of that woman, that was scrapped later, but that provided all the details and nuances he needed in the published novel.

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  • please update you answer or it would be turned into a comment - answer supposed to be self-sufficient, yours is not - links can change over time. Also, you are not providing answer at all.
    – shabunc
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 11:01
  • if the comment would be able to hole this amount of content and formatting - I would make it a comment myself. But comments can handle neither. W.r.t. answer, the proper One True Translation would only be able to made after knowing full heroine's bio, including one before the plot, which we do not know. So my answer is answer, it is just a "fishing rod rather than fish" kind of answer.
    – Arioch
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 12:09
  • This does bring a good proofreading point to mind. @shabunc (or any Mod), would I be able to link my story here, to make sure that the character's use of Russian is consistent and accurate?
    – Allen R.
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 16:52
  • Perhaps it really would make sense to find some russian fiction forum?.. Stretches a lot...
    – Arioch
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 8:29
  • @AllenR. unfortunately proof-reading hardly can be an on-topic here, so yes, may be some russian ficion forum.
    – shabunc
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 9:40
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Considering the context of your presumably fantastic novel, where the character is addressing an alien life form, I guess the best option would be пидорасы (lit. homos, or faggots).

But since you are writing about a female character, I think a recently developed feministic swearing хуемрази (ед. ч. "хуемразь", literally smth like 'dick-bastards' or 'dick-creatures') would do.

But, again, we don't know much about the races and sexes (if any) of her addressees--

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  • The second is something new and is not widely used
    – Dmitriy
    Commented Jan 15, 2018 at 11:37
  • @Dmitry So what? It's a sci-fi, after all.
    – Manjusri
    Commented Jan 15, 2018 at 11:45
  • I just wanted to say that the typical Russian soldier in this situation will use the first with much bigger probability than the second. But of course, it is always possible to find another soldier, who prefers the second.
    – Dmitriy
    Commented Jan 15, 2018 at 11:49
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    @Allen R Then I think хуемрази [pronounced hooyemrahzi / hooyemruzzi, Nom. Sg. хуемразь [hooyemrahz' / hooyemruzz']) would do fine; it's a nice feminist & lesbian swearing used particularly against men, thnx to my third ex-wife for letting me know it :-D I don't vouch for the accuracy of the transliteration, though :-D
    – Manjusri
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 10:13
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    @Allen R; but, again, that depends on what type of a 'belligerant damsel' the soldier is; if she is more pro-feminist, then she would use the swearing 'hooyemrazi', but if she is more 'soldier Jane'-type, then she would most likely call the aliens 'piddorahssy'.
    – Manjusri
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 10:41

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