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When I asked a Russian friend why he lives in Poland, he wrote:

просто однажды я задумался, об образовании, и пришёл к решению, что в Польше уровень образования будет как-никак выше, и получив польский диплом у меня будет больше возможностей в будущем.

What does как-никак mean in this context? The dictionaries give so many different meanings.

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  • 2
    I'd translate it as 'at any rate'.
    – ach
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 9:39

5 Answers 5

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Here it means "still", "after all". So, the author of the passage means that "if you think about it, the level of education in Poland is probably better, anyway, so I'll have more opportunities in the future with a Polish dimploma".

Note also that the use of adverbal participle here is not completely correct because in Russian grammar such participle is consider to be attributed to a subject of the main clause.; But in "у меня будет больше возможностей" it is "больше возможностей" that is the subject. Obviously "opprtunities" could not be "having received a diploma"

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  • Noted! Thanks for the explanation. So it's a little like "all in all" which we sometimes use like this. Is this a common particle? Does it have other more common meanings?
    – CocoPop
    Commented May 24, 2014 at 19:27
  • Yeah, "all in all" is close. There aren't any other meanings: it always means something like "maybe the matter is not that easy— but THIS is true, after all". The grammatical mistake is kinda like "Having drunk the entire keg, the bartender threw me out the inn 'cause he can't stand drunkards".
    – Shady_arc
    Commented May 25, 2014 at 10:54
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Here it means something like "all in all" (as you write in the comment to another answer) or maybe "after all" would be a little closer. This would be the meaning in any context I can think of right now. I wonder what else you found in the dictionaries.

Your friend made a very common and funny grammatical error at the end of the sentence (not to mention the punctuation): "получив польский диплом у меня будет больше возможностей в будущем". The classic example is from a Chekhov's story: "подъезжая к вокзалу, у меня слетела шляпа".

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The closest synonyms are всё же, всё-таки, уж точно (probably exactly), and наверняка. I would translate it as somehow, I'm sure, at least, they say, by the way, perhaps.

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как-никак = the way of
будет как-никак
will be the way of better

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In this context как-никак means obviously/no doubt:

в Польше уровень образования будет очевидно выше.

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  • This is incorrect.
    – Anixx
    Commented May 25, 2014 at 5:57
  • "очевидно" - если разница большая. Я бы выбрал "все-таки" - разница есть, но она не большая: "в Польше уровень образования все-таки выше".
    – Artemix
    Commented Jun 19, 2014 at 13:42
  • да, пожалуй, я мысленно расширил контекст больше нужного
    – kirillta
    Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 5:48

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