болит спина
“болит спина” (bolit spina) — my back hurts in Russian. Phrase, level A2. Ot dolgoy raboty za stolom bolit spina — "the back hurts from long work at the desk" — the ache is yours, not the back's in general: u menya bolit spina; body parts here complain like living beings. In a live sentence: “От долгой работы за столом болит спина” — The back hurts from long work at the desk. A word from the everyday Russian course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Russian | болит спина |
| Read in Latin letters | bolit spina |
| Translation | my back hurts |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Ot dolgoy raboty za stolom bolit spina — "the back hurts from long work at the desk" — the ache is yours, not the back's in general: u menya bolit spina; body parts here complain like living beings.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- От долгой работы за столом болит спинаOt dolgoy raboty za stolom bolit spinaThe back hurts from long work at the desk
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “my back hurts” in Russian?
«болит спина», read “bolit spina”. In a live sentence: “От долгой работы за столом болит спина” — The back hurts from long work at the desk. Phrase, level A2; written with the characters б, о, л, и, т, с, п, и, н, а.
How is “болит спина” written in Latin letters?
bolit spina. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Ot dolgoy raboty za stolom bolit spina — "the back hurts from long work at the desk" — the ache is yours, not the back's in general: u menya bolit spina; body parts here complain like living beings. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.