Russian Words: Current Events

It appears that two major themes dominate our news stream of late: the oil spill (or, rather, a series of them) and the illegal immigration related debates.  Both are topics not completely unknown in Russia, so here are the Russian words for you:

OIL (the fossil fuel kind) is нефть ("neft").  Which is why you have company names like Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Gazprom, Rosneft, Transneft, Yugansknefegaz, etc., all oil companies.   

Cooking or salad oil, on the other had, is масло ("MAHS-lah"), or, to be exact, растительное масло ("rahs-TEE-tehl-noh-yeh MAHS-lah"), as opposed to сливочное масло ("SLEE-vahch-nah-yeh MAHS-lah"), or butter.


As far as the illegal immigration issue (you may be surprised, but apparently there are plenty of people interested in  moving TO Russia), the phrase is almost identical to the English one: in Russian we say

 нелегальная иммиграция ("neh-lih-GAHL-nah-yah ihm-mih-GRAH-tsee-yah")

For the most part, нелегальные мигранты ("neh-lih-GAHL-nih-yeh mih-GRAHN-tih"),"illegal migrants", or simply нелегалы ("neh-lih-GAH-lih"), the illegals, as they are more frequently called, come from the former Soviet republics, especially those in South-East Asia.