как тебя зовут?
“как тебя зовут?” (kak tebya zovut?) — what is your name? in Russian. Phrase, level A0. Built on the same verb zvat, "to call". The polite twin swaps ty for vy: kak vas zovut. In a live sentence: “Как тебя зовут? — Меня зовут Ольга” — What is your name? — My name is Olga. Written with the characters к, а, к, т, е, б, я, з, о, в, у, т. A word from the everyday Russian course, level A0.
In short
| Written in Russian | как тебя зовут? |
| Read in Latin letters | kak tebya zovut? |
| Translation | what is your name? |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
Built on the same verb zvat, "to call". The polite twin swaps ty for vy: kak vas zovut.
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.
- Как тебя зовут? — Меня зовут ОльгаKak tebya zovut? — Menya zovut OlgaWhat is your name? — My name is Olga
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 “what is your name?” in Russian?
«как тебя зовут?», read “kak tebya zovut?” In a live sentence: “Как тебя зовут? — Меня зовут Ольга” — What is your name? — My name is Olga. Phrase, level A0; written with the characters к, а, к, т, е, б, я, з, о, в, у, т.
How is “как тебя зовут?” written in Latin letters?
kak tebya zovut? 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?
Built on the same verb zvat, "to call". The polite twin swaps ty for vy: kak vas zovut. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.