Nov 11, 2020

How to wish luck in Russian | Free Russian Video Lesson

Updated: Oct 12, 2021

Different ways to wish good luck to someone in Russian

Do you know how to wish good luck in Russian? Or how to ask a person to wish you good luck in Russian? It is actually quite easy. There are several most common phrases that you can use to do it.

This post is a part of the video lesson on how to encourage, praise someone and how to wish good luck in Russian. You can find a free Russian video lesson at the bottom of this page (if you haven't already watched it).

I recommend you to watch a series of these free Russian lessons to learn basis Russian words and phrases, like How to encourage someone in Russian, How to praise someone in Russian, How to be polite in Russian, etc.

Here is a list of Russian words and phrases to wish good luck to someone:

1) Пожелай мне удачи (pazhilái mne udáchi) - Wish me good luck (informal)

Пожелайте мне удачи (pazhiláite mne udáchi) Wish me good luck (plural / formal)

This is a way to ask someone to wish you good luck in Russian. For example, when you have an important exam, you can ask your friend to wish you good luck.

Ex.: У меня завтра важный экзамен, пожелай мне удачи! (I have an important exam tomorrow, wish me good luck).

2) Удачи! (udáchi) - Good luck!

It is the most common and short way to wish someone good luck. You can personalize it by adding a pronoun

Ex.: Удачи тебе! (informal)

Удачи вам! (formal / plural)

Fingers crossed in Russian - wishing good luck in Russian

3) Ни пуха ни пера (ni púha ni pirá)

Break a leg / Fingers crossed

Direct translation: neither fur nor feather

It is an outdated wish of good luck to someone. Has to be answered with “к чёрту!” (lit. – to the devil)

This Russian expression comes from hunters' traditions. It was believed that if you wish a hunter to have a good hunt, the devil was going to prevent him from this. So, they were 'tricking' a devil by wishing to have no catch. The hunter responded "to the devil" in order to please him. You can still hear this expression, at schools and universities before exams.

However, it was commonly used in Soviet times among people, but nowadays people prefer saying just "Удачи!" to wish someone good luck in Russian.

You can find the audio files with pronunciation of these Russian phrases in my free guide 'Essential Russian Words and Expressions to Understand Spoken Russian'.

This guide also contains audio files so that you can listen to these phrases on the go: while driving, walking, doing sport or brushing your teeth. Make sure that you repeat these phrases yourself and try to imitate my accent.

It's also very important to know how to pronounce Russian words correctly as not every Russian letter is pronounced the same way as it's written. There are certain Russian pronunciation rules that are really easy to learn.

You can also learn different ways to wish something nice in Russian in another blog post - 'Good wishes in Russian'.

You can watch a full explanation of these Russian expressions in the video lesson below.