Russian MiniLessons: Social Media

There are many different things you can do on социальные сети

social media. One of the first things you do when creating a social media account is to set your настройки безопасности и конфиденциальностиsecurity and privacy settings, then обновить фотографию профиля change your profile picture and редактировать профильedit your profile. When you meet someone new, you may want to добавить их в друзьяfriend them on Facebook or ВК, or фолловить/подписатьсяfollow them on ТвиттерTwitter. On the other hand, if you’ve lost touch with someone, you may want to удалить из друзейunfriend or отписатьсяunfollow that person, or if they’ve really offended you, you can заблокировать его/еёblock him/her. Социальные сетиsocial media are also a great way to установить деловые контакты/налаживать связи с людьмиnetwork with people.

In Russia, the most popular social networking site is ВКонтактеliterally 'in contact/in touch', often abbreviated as “ВКvk.” Many Russians may also have a Facebook account, but ВКvk is by far the more dominant site. You can do all the same things on ВКvk as on Facebook; you can опубликовать что-тоpost something, “лайкнуть” публикацию/фотографиюlike a post/picture, написать комментарийcomment on a post, or поделиться публикацией/фотографиейshare a post/picture. It’s also possible to отметить/упомянуть кого-то на фотографииtag someone in a picture or to скачать фотографиюdownload a picture that you like. If you take a lot of pictures, you may want to создать альбомcreate an album for them. ВК has also long allowed users the possibility to добавлять видеозаписи и аудиозаписиupload movies and music. This has led to several lawsuits against it by media claiming that the company is enabling people to illegally share copyrighted music and even full-length feature films.

Russians also use Твиттер

Twitter, where you can делать пост на Твитерmake a post on Twitter or твитнутьtweet. Another popular site is Одноклассникиliterally, 'classmates', where you can search for old classmates. This site is slightly more popular among older generations than Millennials. The idea for the site came about because Russians once typically went to school together in the same class from kindergarten through graduation. Today, however, Russians are much more mobile and thus the site has less appeal for younger Russians.

Whatever site you prefer, when you входить в систему/залогинитьсяlog on, you’re taken to the home screen, which often contains the лента новостейnews feed. From here, you can обновить/опубликовать статусupdate your status or check your уведомленияnotifications. Someone may have пригласил тебя играть в какую-то игруinvited you to play some sort of game, or you may have a личное сообщениеprivate message from someone. In writing a message, you may want to прикрепить документ/фотографиюattach a document or photograph, or add in a few смайликиemoticons.

Many terms related to computers, technology, and social media have come to Russian directly from the English. This had been somewhat controversial among Russians who view this as an invasion on their language. Many have proposed Russian equivilents for the adopted English words – such as those in the graphics below.