Privet - Meaning in Russian

Jun 23, 2020 | What does it mean in Russian?

Privet in Russian means hi / hey / hello. It is the most common Russian informal greeting.

In Cyrillic it’s written приве́т.

Privet is an informal way to say hello and should be used only with friends, relatives or people younger than you.

If you need to say hello in a formal situation, you should use zdrastvuytye (здра́вствуйте).

Possible colloquial variations of privet are:

– приве́тище [pree-vyé-tee-schye]
lit: huge hello

– приве́тик [pree-vyé-teek]
lit: small/cute hello

You can also say salyut instead of privet, it is also quite common (although less common than privet):

– салю́т [sa-lyút]

Listen to Privet in Russian

приве́т

[preevyét] Interjection

hello, hi

Передава́й ему́ приве́т от меня́.

pyeryedaváî yemú preevyét at meenyá

Give him my regards. (Say hello to him from me.)
Приве́т, как дела́?

preevyét, kak deelá

Hi, how are you?
Передава́й приве́т от нас всей семье́.

peereedaváî preevyét at nas fsyeî seem'yé

Say hello from us to the whole family.