стихийное бедствие
“стихийное бедствие” (stikhiynoe bedstvie) — natural disaster in Russian. Phrase, level B1. Navodnenie obyavili stikhiynym bedstviem — "the flood was declared a natural disaster" — stikhiya is water, fire, wind, earth: a flood, a storm, a fire; bedstviye is the big trouble. In a live sentence: “Наводнение объявили стихийным бедствием” — The flood was declared a natural disaster. Written with the characters с, т, и, х, и, й, н, о, е, б, е, д… A word from the everyday Russian course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Russian | стихийное бедствие |
| Read in Latin letters | stikhiynoe bedstvie |
| Translation | natural disaster |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Navodnenie obyavili stikhiynym bedstviem — "the flood was declared a natural disaster" — stikhiya is water, fire, wind, earth: a flood, a storm, a fire; bedstviye is the big trouble.
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.
- Наводнение объявили стихийным бедствиемNavodnenie obyavili stikhiynym bedstviemThe flood was declared a natural disaster
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 “natural disaster” in Russian?
«стихийное бедствие», read “stikhiynoe bedstvie”. In a live sentence: “Наводнение объявили стихийным бедствием” — The flood was declared a natural disaster. Phrase, level B1; written with the characters с, т, и, х, и, й, н, о, е, б, е, д…
How is “стихийное бедствие” written in Latin letters?
stikhiynoe bedstvie. 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?
Navodnenie obyavili stikhiynym bedstviem — "the flood was declared a natural disaster" — stikhiya is water, fire, wind, earth: a flood, a storm, a fire; bedstviye is the big trouble. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.