Estonian swear words, a double-edged tool/sword

Using curse words can make your stories legendary and help people remember them longer, although if you use them too much you might come off as a bit uneducated. When used in moderation, they can spice up the story you’re telling and also give you the ability to describe things beyond the limitations of polite ways of expressing yourself. If you pair them with good timing, you can steer attention to a specific subject by highlighting it when surrounded with swears. 

Playing with these words for too long can result in using them as filler words, which is a slippery slope from there on, as you won’t notice when you start using them or whether they’re appropriate to the situation or not. And you probably don’t want to be that guy or gal.

So, in order to know how and when to use them, we’ve put together this article with all the necessary information to help you make more progress while you learn Estonian online with Lingvist.

*WARNING: Some Estonian curse words and their translations are very vulgar. Our aim is to provide factually correct information about the usage of Estonian curse words as a naturalistic human behavior to aid Estonian learners in understanding authentic Estonian, which in some cases may be graphic or offensive in their reference to religion, sexuality, or violence.*

Let’s dive into this crash course on Estonian curse words!

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Sending people somewhere

It’s very common to send people to certain places when cursing at them in Estonian. However, many of those phrases can’t even be considered curses, because they can be said either seriously or when joking around with friends and family. Let’s say your friend is teasing you – in this case, it’s perfectly fine to tell them, “Ah, mine metsa.” You’ll see these Estonian phrases in the first table below. 

This second table has harsher-sounding curse words that are generally used when you’re actually angry at something or someone.

Single-word swears

Some of these words you’ve definitely heard while spending time with your Estonian friends. Pagan and kurat are especially popular curse words.

Sitanikerdis

Is used to refer to something that has been very badly constructed, built, or put together. Example: See auto on täielik sitanikerdis – This car is a total piece of sh*t.

Calling someone stupid

In Estonian, the tone you use to say something matters a lot. Thus, the meaning of the curse word can have a very different feeling behind it depending on whether you say it playfully or seriously and angrily. In this list the first two, jobu and idioot, are the strongest sounding, so don’t use them too lightly.

Jobu – moron; idioot – idiot: these are the most common ways to call someone stupid. 

Tainapea – dough head; tainas – dough; puupea – wooden head; jahupea – flour head

Sitaratas – shit wheel; sitavares – shit crow. Used to describe someone who is inept or lacks skill and competence.

Tumba – a type of seat that doesn’t have a backrest; tumbajumba – same as the previous word but jumba doesn’t mean anything on its own.

Turakas – from the Russian word durak (дурак)

Idu – sprout   

Cursed verbs

If you know how to conjugate in Estonian, then you don’t need an explanation of how the verbs work. Almost all of these are harsh, so be cautious of using them.

Multi-word phrases

If you don’t live in Estonia but would still like to hear kuidas ropendada (how to curse) in Estonian, you can watch these stop-motion animated shorts called Vanamehe multikas (“Old man’s cartoon”). Most of the videos have English subtitles and the character Vanamees curses like many older Estonian men do, with kurat and raisk in almost every sentence.

There’s also a movie called Vanemehe film (“The Old Man’s Movie”) that you can watch on this website.

A Word of Caution

When learning foreign languages, learners usually don’t understand and feel the deeper implications of curse words. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to what kinds of words you’re using and if they’re actually appropriate to use in this specific situation. 

It’s also important to pay attention to how native speakers use these words and learn from them. Over time, as you continue learning, you’ll start to understand the deeper meanings behind them.

Some of the milder curse words from this article can also be found in our Estonian language course. Sign up on the web or download the app on your iOS or Android device to enjoy a free trial.