5

I am very curious about the Russian word “Toska.” The word that is difficult to translate in English and means loosely: melancholy, longing, boredom, spiritual anguish. How is this word written and accented in Russian using Russian letters? What does it look like? Also, how do you pronounce it? Thanks.

Dmitry Alexandrov
  • 3,477
  • 1
  • 18
  • 31
Julia
  • 61
  • 1
  • 2
  • Тоска is pronounced as "таска" with the stress on last syllable. – Artemix Aug 08 '14 at 17:40
  • Thank you so much... just a quick follow-up.. In English you would not call it "toska?" with an S? What would it look like in Russian using cyrillic? Thanks again. – Julia Aug 08 '14 at 18:11
  • 2
    I don't understand your question. "Toska" in cyrillic letters is "тоска". – Artemix Aug 08 '14 at 19:14
  • I mean how it's pronounced if you are speaking English and saying the word. You wouldn't say "To-s-k-a" you would say "t-a-ck-a" with no soft "s" sound correct? – Julia Aug 08 '14 at 19:17
  • 1
    Google Translate reads aloud [tuskaah] similar to how "тоска" is pronounced in Russian: https://translate.google.com/#en/ru/tuskaah Just click on "speaker" icon at the lower right corner of the left text box. – Artemix Aug 08 '14 at 19:26
  • 1
    Have you heard about Forvo? Answers questions like these really quickly. http://www.forvo.com/word/%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0/#ru – Shady_arc Aug 11 '14 at 12:37
  • Tosca ("Тоска" with the stress on first syllable) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini. – BrainsFeeder Sep 11 '14 at 09:04

3 Answers3

6

Тоска - [tʌˈska]

стеснение духа, томление души, мучительная грусть; душевная тревога, беспокойство, боязнь, скука, горе, печаль, нойка сердца, скорбь.

further reading a definition from the dictionary by Dal you can find here

and good web formatted description and further meanings you can find here

  1. сильное душевное томление, душевная тревога в соединении с грустью и скукой, тягостное уныние

...

enter image description here

Community
  • 1
Ruslan Gerasimov
  • 992
  • 4
  • 7
1

You can hear the exact pronunciation here for example:

http://slovari.yandex.ru/тоска/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqJKMv09mww&t=25m30s

Опять тоска, опять любовь!

installero
  • 152
  • 6
0

How is this word written and accented in Russian using Russian letters?

Тоска.

It accented (big character means accent):
taskA.
Like "task"+"A". Where A=[a]

Andrey
  • 1
  • 2
  • It seems like using latin letters to show the pronunciation is not a best idea. Task, for instance, sounds like "тэск". This is misguiding. – Artemix Sep 20 '14 at 11:25
  • May be you are right. Wiktionary gives two pronunciatons -- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /tɑːsk/ ; (US) IPA(key): /tæsk/ .

    So Rus. word has pronunc. [tɐsˈka] (from Wiktionary) or simply [tasˈka].

     – Andrey Sep 20 '14 at 16:33