Excuse me in Russian: How to say?
Saying excuse me in Russian, as many other Russian phrases, depends on who you are talking to: whether it is one person or several, and whether it is a formal or informal situation.
There are two different verbs that mean to excuse in Russian, they are: извини́ть and прости́ть.
Both words are usually interchangeable, although прости́ть is a bit stronger and often used in the meaning to forgive.
Here are some possible versions of excuse me in Russian:
– извини́те [eez-vee-née-tye] – formal or informal plural
– прости́те [pras-tée-tye] – formal or informal plural
– извини́ [eez-vee-née] – informal singular
– прости́ [pras-tée] – informal singular
Sometimes you might want to be a bit more verbose and add please to your sentence. Please in Russian is пожа́луйста:
– Пожа́луйста, извини́те, я не наро́чно.
[pa-zhá-lus-ta, eez-vee-née-tye, ya nye na-róch-na]
Excuse me please, I did not do it on purpose (formal).
– Прости́те, пожа́луйста.
[pras-tée-tye, pa-zhá-lus-ta]
Excuse me please / Forgive me please (formal).
Listen to "Excuse me" in Russian
The audio recording includes all the examples (in bold and blue) listed above.
