Stop Saying ХОРОШО in Russian

Stop saying хорошо. I hear students use хорошо a whole lot when it's a proper context and when it's not proper context. People use it correctly and incorrectly, but a lot of the times it's kind of in the middle. It's sort of correct, but not natural or authentic to the real Russian language. In other words, a Russian would never say that way. But technically, grammatically, and when it comes to meaning, it's correct. And today we're going to learn five new words that you can replace хорошо with to make it more authentic and more natural and correct. And for all of you guys who want to speak Russian well, incredibly well, join our 30-day speaking challenge, where for 30 days straight you'll be challenged on your speaking, vocabulary, and listening to improve upon all these three things to start speaking better and communicating better in Russian. It starts on September the 3rd. It's the first link in the description. I'm going to bring it for you there. Let's work together to make you speak Russian. Let's learn five new words today when it comes to хорошо and kind of expressing yourself much better when it comes to saying good, well, amazing, all that kind of stuff. First, let's talk about when хорошо is actually used correctly. We can use the word хорошо when we agree with somebody. Let's say they say, okay, Fedor, let's go to the store together and let's chat and hang out. I can say, хорошо, okay, all right, let's do it. I agree with them, with what they said. I agree to do something. In English, that would be okay or all right. And then the second meaning is when we want to describe how an action was done. And typically, in English, that's going to be the word well. For example, я хорошо отдохнул. I rested well. Okay, I'm describing how I rested. Did I sleep good? Bad? Did I sleep for a long time? Or whatever. So, I describe how I did it. And so, only in these two instances can хорошо be used. Also, kind of similar to the second one is when we're talking about a feeling that we have, when we feel good. It can be, for example, imagine you are on a beach. You hear the waves, the breeze is hitting your face and your body, the sun is perfectly shining on you, and you can say хорошо, right, good, or I feel good, in other words. But it's kind of similar to the second meaning of хорошо. So, only in these two cases can we use хорошо. All the rest is incorrect, okay. So, how do we actually replace хорошо with other words to make them sound correct and to make this sound natural? This first word is хороший. And хороший, as you can see, is similar to хорошо. And хороший is an adjective. It does not describe an action anymore. It describes an object, when something is good, when something is like a painting, good painting, right, or good steak. You don't say well steak, you say good steak, right. And so, хороший is going to be used when it comes to describing something. For example, a phone, right, телефон. I can say это хороший телефон. This is a good phone. I cannot say это хорошо телефон, because I cannot say this is a well phone. We don't say it like that, right. So, хороший and other variations of it, when it comes to the gender of it, is an adjective that describes an object. And so, whenever you want to talk about something, some particular object, do not use хорошо, use хороший. Second word is отлично. And отлично is very similar to хорошо, very similar, but it means great. It does not mean good, it means great. And again, just like the word хорошо, it describes an action. Or we can say отлично to talk about agreeing with somebody. But typically, we're going to say and we're going to use it when talking about some action. For example, my sister, for example, she got into university and she comes to me and says, hey, I got enrolled into university. I can say отлично, молодец, great, well done, okay. In that situation, хорошо, good is not enough, right. I want to say amazing, great, like great job. And that's why I'm going to use the word отлично there. Third word is вкусно. I hear students use вкусно, oh sorry, use хорошо a lot when talking about food. Let's say they're eating on the borscht and they go, хорошо. In that situation, it's not correct. We cannot say, well, we don't say like that. Of course, in English, we cannot, we can't say about, we can talk about a meal by saying good. We can't say it, right. It's okay to say it like that. But in Russian, good does not mean tasty. We have a different word for tasty, which is вкусно. And so whenever you talk about a meal or about something that you're eating at the moment, you're eating and you say вкусно. That's perfect, that's correct, that's natural, that's authentic Russian. Number four is понял or понятно. Понял means I understood in masculine form and поняла would be feminine form. So понял is going to be I understood, while понятно is still going to be like understood, but it's more clear, it's all clear. But of course, in English that's not used too often and we say I got it. So понял and понятно both mean I got it in some degree, okay. And so I hear students say a lot, especially when I explain things to them. I say, okay, past tense is this, this and that, and future is this, this and that. And they go хорошо, meaning I understood, I got it. But it's not the most natural and the most authentic way to say it. And we say, as Russians, we say понял or понятно when we understood something. So if you want to say understood, say понял or понятно, okay. And then the last one is мне нравится. I hear people say it wrong all the time when they say, Titanic это хорошо фильм. Titanic is a good movie. In their opinion, that's what they say. But what they actually are saying, Titanic, this is a well movie. It's not the most correct way to say it. What they want to say in that situation is that they like that movie. So instead of saying хорошо in this situation, just say, мне нравится Титаник. I like Titanic. Okay, so now you know five different words and expressions and phrases to use instead of the word хорошо. And I hope that now it's much more clear to you of when to use which, and now you can expand your vocabulary to more things to describe your situation much better. Practice this, put it in the comments with saying different sentences, with practicing each of these five words, to kind of put them into practice right now, to not forget them tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. And we're going to see you guys in a 30-day speaking challenge. It's right under me right now. Let's improve your speaking.