[arjunvpaul]

:-) Interesting to read many describe that feeling you get when you read Chekhov. A Russian friend once told me it is тоска (toska) - an unbearable, inescapable anguish - "Really you have to be Russian to understand it. toska is rent for being Russian. More Vodka?"

[olah_1]

I don’t remember the exact quote, but I think it was Fr Seraphim Rose that said Russian people don’t know what the word “fun” is. They don’t understand “fun” as a general sense or feeling of ease / levity.

I don’t know if this is accurate but I asked some Russians what they like to do for fun and they didn’t actually understand. They asked if I meant hobbies and said they only have fun when they go out to a club or something.

The upshot is that hard people have the best dry humor.

[suryabeep]

There is a section in 'In the First Circle' by Solzhenitsyn where two prisoners argue about the etymology of 'fun' in Russian. I don't remember the quote off the top of my head right now, but one prisoner posed that'fun is derived from the word for "temporary lack of worry"'. Of course, the other prisoner disagreed with him so I don't know if that etymology is actually correct.

[orthoxerox]

Yes, we have "pleasure", "revelry", but not "fun".

[drran]

«Хорошее настроение»

[jepcommenter]

Делу-время, потехе-час

[JAlexoid]

Fun as verb, or noun... or adjective?

In english one word means 500 things. So don't project English language's narrow vocabulary.