This strange Russian word “nothing”

When Bismarck came to Russia he was taking some Russian lessons.
“Everything was going just fine until he heard a usual Russian word “nothing”.
- How is it – nothing? – Bismarck could not get the meaning and this made him mad.
Alekseev explained to him that nothing actually meant nothing, neither good, nor bad, and when you are doing ничего (fine), it means that everything is ok, living is possible, as Russians say. Bismarck still could not understand…”
From “The Battle of Iron Chancellors” by Valentin Pikul.

If you are foreign to the Russian speaking culture and you happened to appear in the Russian-speaking environment you may find it hard to understand some sayings. And it is not that you don’t know the words – you may have been learning Russian for a while. But the thing is some sayings, used in a certain situation, simply do not make sense to you!
For example, Russian word ничего (“nichevo”) means “nothing”, but can be used in different cases. Let us take some samples.
The translations of phrases are given literally.

Как дела? – Ничего.
How are you? – Nothing.
Quite often Russians and Ukrainians say ничего as a reply to “How are you?” It can mean, Well, nothing special, or Nothing bad, or rather Not bad. Russians mean that everything is going fine, usual, and casual. It is a rather neutral reply, as opposed to Чудесно! - Wonderful! Great!

Не волнуйся, ничего!
Don’t worry, nothing!
When we try to encourage someone, or make someone calm down, we say “nothing” as if we want to say “There is nothing bad going on, please, calm down”, or “Everything will be ok, believe me!”, “It’s nothing!”, “It does not matter”, and “Never mind”. I imagine, it comes from the saying “ничего страшного” ( “nichevo strashnava”) – meaning there is nothing terrible going on. Usually it is pronounced very softly, just like you are giving your shoulder to the one you care so much about.

Ничего! Я тебе покажу еще!
Nothing! I will show you!
One can use “ничего” when being offended or hurt, in the meaning “It’s ok, it’s not the end yet, and I will show you what I can!”, or “It’s not your victory yet!”. Pretty scary example, isn’t it? :) Ничего here mostly serves as antidepressant – one is trying to calm himself down thinking about the future revenge :)


Ничего себе!
Nothing to yourself!
This is just WOW, the expression of surprise. I have no idea where it came from originally :)

Кормят здесь ничего.
They feed you nothing here.
In this and the two following samples ничего means good, well – They feed very well here.

Наша квартира ничего.
Our flat is nothing. – Our flat is nice.

А она ничего!
She is nothing! – She is pretty!

If you happened to hear some other expressions with this strange Russian word ничего, write us, and we will find out if it means something or nothing :)

* Valentin Pikul, “The Battle of Iron Chancellors”
** Concise Oxford Russian dictionary, 2005.