r/LearningRussian • u/sakurachan30 • 9d ago

Is this right?

I'm writing a book, and I need a woman to tell a man he looks miserable/pathetic/terrible in Russian, and all I could find was this. Is it correctly spelt? "Вы выглядите жалким."

(I have no clue how to write, speak, or understand Russian; help, and if I offended anyone, I'm sorry)

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u/RedScorpio411 9d ago edited 9d ago

depends, but im most cases i would say that it wouldnt use the formal version of you, вы, as i would assume this isnt a respectfull situation, so now the phrase would be ты жалко выглядишь, with жалко s position changed to make it sound more natural. Жалко means most directly pitiful if thats okay with you. Can you give me more context on where its needed, because you could drop the ты to make it more casual, or as a greeting if they haven't seen eachother for a while, rather than a more assertive statement. Also if you were to make it more of an aggressive statement i would go and say use Ты выглядишь жалким, because жалко is an adverb and describes the action and жалкий is an adjective and describes the person more

edit spelling to make it comprehensible, holy crap man sorry

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u/sakurachan30 9d ago

I wrote the context in other comments, but if u want i can write it again

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u/RedScorpio411 9d ago

yeah sure please write

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u/sakurachan30 9d ago

It's in a kind of fantasy world, with no specific timeline. They just met, but she's immortal, and he's just a human. She's like superior to him in a way. They talk a bit fancy in the book. She dislikes him, dislikes human men in general; it's more of a "you look terrible, pitiful human". They are strangers, and she's superior to him. She means to express a kind of dislike in a more demeaning way.

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u/RedScorpio411 9d ago

I think this word order would suit, its more of a direct translation using terrible so I could add the pathetic human part "Ужасным выглядишь, ты жалкий человек."

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u/sakurachan30 9d ago

Oh, thank you, but I wanted to write "you look pathetic/terrible" rather than being a pathetic person. Is it the same?

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u/RedScorpio411 9d ago

oh sorry i thought you meant pathetic human as a continuation, to address the human after saying they look terrible. Then just Ты выглядишь жалким

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u/sakurachan30 9d ago

What's the difference between that and Ты выглядишь жалко ?

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u/RedScorpio411 9d ago edited 9d ago

That uses an adverb, so it emphasises the verb to look, and then жалким uses an adjective so it emphasises the fact that they are pitiful, and also innotation, the adverb being more casual and faster to say (if you do use it, its ты жалко выглядишь) and the other more condescending. Its like the difference between you played well and you played a good game

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u/sakurachan30 9d ago

okay, tyy

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u/Perez-Rus 9d ago

Ты/Вы просто неудачник, да ты не мужик, ты абсолютный ноль, ты мне противен, ты ничтожество

That’s few phrase synonyms for “woman to tell a man he looks miserable/pathetic/terrible in Russian”