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Swimming in Russian | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| atcprunner Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5925 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 6 26 November 2014 at 1:04pm | IP Logged |
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What is the difference between купаться and плавать?
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| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5187 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 2 of 6 26 November 2014 at 2:12pm | IP Logged |
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Купаться is listed in my dictionary as "(take a) bath, bathe". It also gives its name to купальня, (swimming) baths.
Whereas плавать (bidirectional) / плыть (monodirectional) are verbs of motion which describe the motion of humans (also boats & ships) in bodies of water. That's where my limited knowledge ends - I haven't seen the first one in context enough to know exactly where the division lies. Купанье comes up as "bathing" whereas плавание is "swimming". Perhaps someone will tell us if we're allowed to плавать in the купальня. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4232 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 3 of 6 26 November 2014 at 2:42pm | IP Logged |
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Well, you're certainly can купаться in a sea or a river, whereas it's hard to плавать in a bath.
Wikitionary says that one can купаться in order to wash (=bathe), improve the health or just for pleasure. I also suggest it's used for animate objects only, not limited by human. The other verb is way more general and works for every type of objects, however, there are situations when it doesn't sound right (like mentioned above). Plus плавать not only means to swim but also to float (В воде плавало много опавших листьев = A lot of leaves floated in the water). Both verbs also have some other meanings not connected to water in any way :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3890 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 4 of 6 27 November 2014 at 8:02am | IP Logged |
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If we're discussing non-bathtub setting, купаться is for fun, плавать is for exercise.
But if you would want to ask "can you swim?" you'd use "плавать", bathing suit is купальник (from купаться). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 6 27 November 2014 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
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One more related word is барáхтаться, which can mean struggling against the water (ie if you can't swim) or simply fooling around in the water.
I disagree about the fun/exercise thing. There's some correlation but it depends on your idea of fun. If you want to emphasize the chaotic movement, maybe even your low swimming skills, you can say купаться or even барахтаться (more common about children). If you swim more or less properly for fun, you can use плавать too. I couldn't care less about exercising but I enjoy swimming :P One more collocation with купаться is купальный сезон, ie bathing/swimming season. Here the emphasis is not on fun/exercise but on a very binary idea of having gone swimming in a particular year. You can also use купаться itself in this meaning, as in Ты уже купалась/купался? (this year or also during a specific trip, or even in a specific sea/river) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5531 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 6 of 6 18 January 2015 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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Плавание is the act of swimming, купание is more like a recreational activity which may
include swimming, but also may just mean being in/near water and/or washing/playing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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