Does “девушка” mean “girlfriend” in Russian?
Моя семья и профессии: Урок русского языка
A1 Russian listening practice · Standard Russian · Picked for people who know a little
Девушка means “young woman,” but у меня есть девушка means “I have a girlfriend.” Russian has no separate everyday word: context decides. The male partner is парень, “guy”: у неё есть парень. Девушка! is also a common way to call out to a young woman, including a waitress or a shop assistant.
It sits between девочка (girl, child) and женщина (woman), and where one ends and the next begins depends a lot on the speaker and the situation. In this family lesson Sasha introduces his relatives and then у меня есть девушка Соня, who adds that she isn’t a lawyer yet: я студентка.