# вернуть долг vs взыскать долг



## anisoara

In the text I'm looking at, the speaker has just explained that he's saved the father's life and now the son's life. Then he says: 

За твоим отцом должок, должок ценою в  две жизни. И я надеюсь его вернуть.​
I'm familiar with долг перед кем-нибудь, but I can't find examples using за in this way. The context suggests that he's saying: 'Your father owes a debt, a debt worth two lives'. But it doesn't make sense for the speaker to then say that he hopes to return the debt - I would expect him to say that he hopes the father will returns the debt - so I think I must be misunderstanding something. Am I???


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## Vadim K

"Я надеюсь его вернуть" means the same as "Я надеюсь, мне его (долг) вернут" or "Я сделаю всё, чтобы мне его (долг) вернули". In other words the speaker said "Я надеюсь его (себе обратно) вернуть".


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## Drink

"За" means the debt is _for_ the father, not that the father owes it. The person he is speaking to presumably owes it. So he's probably saying "You owe me for your father..." Now I don't really get exactly what the speaker means by this or how he intends to return this debt, especially without further context, but that is the literal meaning.


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## anisoara

Thanks both of you. Vadim, it seems this is another ellipsis (which is also what confused me in my previous post). 
Drink, that does make sense, then, as the speaker is addressing the son, whose life he has just spared.
You all are wonderful, thank you again.


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## Sobakus

«За кем-то должок» (usually in the diminutive) is an idiomatic expression meaning "somebody owes a debt to the other party". So if I were to say «за мной должок» to my friend, I'd be thanking him for doing me a favour and promising to return it. «За тобой должок» would be a friendly way to say "you won't get away with just a thanks". In this case the speaker says that the father owes him one, or rather two, and hopes to have it returned.

It doesn't mean "a debt for someone", not just because I don't think this even makes sense, but because grammatically it has to be «за твоего отца».


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## Maroseika

I think вернуть долг is not correct in this context, although quite comprehensible. It should be взыскать долг. Вернуть долг - this may refer only to the one who owes.
Вернуть долг себе would literally mean that I will return the debt to myself so that it becomes my debt, i.e. I will start oweing the debt to somebody. Which is senseless here, of course.


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## Sobakus

Maroseika said:


> I think вернуть долг is not correct in this context, although quite comprehensible. It should be взыскать долг. Вернуть долг - this may refer only to the one who owes.
> Вернуть долг себе would literally mean that I will return the debt to myself so that it becomes my debt, i.e. I will start oweing the debt to somebody. Which is senseless here, of course.


I beg to differ: this word clearly has this meaning in the literary language.

Ушаков:
*2.* Возвратить себе, получить обратно (утраченное). _Вернуть убыток, проигрыш. Вернуть капитал, затраченный на предприятие. Вернуть себе имущество. Не плачь, слезами его (покойника) не вернешь._

It may be somewhat ambiguous if you think about it, but I don't think it would cause any misunderstanding in real conversation. Many verbs dealing with debts naturally mean both acts at the same time (or opposite acts in related languages), it's a cross-linguistic phenomenon.


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## Drink

Sobakus said:


> It doesn't mean "a debt for someone", not just because I don't think this even makes sense, but because grammatically it has to be «за твоего отца».



I think it could make sense, but you're right it would have to be in the accusative, I must have misread it.


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## Q-cumber

Sobakus said:


> «За кем-то должок» (usually in the diminutive) is an idiomatic expression meaning "somebody owes a debt to the other party". So if I were to say «за мной должок» to my friend, I'd be thanking him for doing me a favour and promising to return it. «За тобой должок» would be a friendly way to say "you won't get away with just a thanks". In this case the speaker says that the father owes him one, or rather two, and hopes to have it returned.
> 
> It doesn't mean "a debt for someone", not just because I don't think this even makes sense, but because grammatically it has to be «за твоего отца».



I second that. As far I understand from this tiny context, the sayer actually means that the father is responsible for two deaths and he is about  to take revenge either on the father or on the son.


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## Rosett

The context is quite ambiguous and does not sound very friendly, with two lives at stake. Actually, I'd like to see a little bit more of that in order to clarify what indeed had happened and what the guy wants for a requital.


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## Maroseika

Sobakus said:


> I beg to differ: this word clearly has this meaning in the literary language.
> 
> Ушаков:
> *2.* Возвратить себе, получить обратно (утраченное). _Вернуть убыток, проигрыш. Вернуть капитал, затраченный на предприятие. Вернуть себе имущество. Не плачь, слезами его (покойника) не вернешь._



I think this is a different thing. Your examples from the dictionary look all right, because in all of them I return something mine: my lost sum, my capital, my property, my dear person. But a debt is not mine - it is of the debtor (мой долг can mean only something I owe to somebody). As soon as a debtor returned debt, it ceased existing (unlike lost money, property etc.).
Therefore the debtor is the only one who can вернуть долг - to me, the lender. The lender can only получить, взыскать долг.


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## Awwal12

I'm sure about one thing: you will hardly hear the verb взыскать in the everyday speech, it's a clear marker of a formal or archaic style. Another possible variants are забрать долг and собрать долги (to collect debts).


Maroseika said:


> But a debt is not mine - it is of the debtor


Curious enough, some people might disagree. 
_Зато я уговорю Антипа вернуть твой долг. Ты мне - Антип тебе._ - Ф.Искандер, "Антип уехал в Казантип"
_А кто уговорит тебя вернуть мой долг?_ (Там же.)
Despite such use is clearly marginal, it exists.
It seems the whole debt matter expresses some ambivalency, especially in colloquial Russian; people seemingly cannot fully agree what does "мой долг" mean ("то, что мне должны" or "то, что я должен"), let alone they (illiterately) use "одолжить" and "занять" absolutely interchangeably, as Google perfectly indicates (the same refers to Hebrew and, in some part, English as well; cf. widespread "I loaned it from..." instead of "I borrowed..."). The explanation is simple: the object loaned and the object borrowed is essentially the same thing, and the debt is an abstract concept; do we interpret is as the very object loaned/borrowed, or the loaner's lack of that object - isn't a simple question at all.


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## Q-cumber

I'd say this expression is almost never used in relation to money debts nowadays.  The noun "должок" (unlike "долг") is rather associated with some favour or an unavenged insult than with a small money debt.


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## Maroseika

Awwal12 said:


> Despite such use is clearly marginal, it exists.


That's exactly what I meant. Formally it's wrong although comrehensible and really used. By the way, занять in the sense of одолжить is marked in the modern dictionary as low colloquial (разговорно-сниженное), i.e. not standard.


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## Awwal12

Maroseika said:


> By the way, занять in the sense of одолжить is marked in the modern dictionary as low colloquial (разговорно-сниженное), i.e. not standard.


And одолжить in the sense of занять, if I remember correctly, isn't mentioned in the dictionaries at all, yet is widely used. "Одолжил у меня"  (~"loaned from me") gives 146 actual results in Google, "одолжил мне" (loaned me) - 319 actual results; the correct phrase happens only ~2 times more often!
But we digressed.


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## Rosett

Maroseika said:


> Therefore the debtor is the only one who can вернуть долг - to me, the lender. The lender can only получить, взыскать долг.


Current usage is not that straight as what you are trying to prove.
Брифинг официального представителя МИД России М.В.Захаровой, Москва, 12 мая ...
May 12, 2016 - ... Небезызвестный руководитель Украины обращается в молитвах к Всевышнему и говорит: «Помоги вернуть Крым», а он ему отвечает: «Крым Вы уже вернули, а теперь пора вернуть деньги».


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## Rosett

Awwal12 said:


> I'm sure about one thing: you will hardly hear the verb взыскать in the everyday speech, it's a clear marker of a formal or archaic style.


Positively not:
Революция крови - Google Books Result
Артем Бук - 2016 - ‎Juvenile Fiction
рыжий не собирался униматься, – кто-то порешил наших братьев, и мы пришли взыскать должок.
О Дне Победы 2.0
May 9, 2014 - Пришла такая история ко мне и сказала: «Вот тебе, Семён, Победа в долг». Будешь не достоин — приду взыскать должок. И вот, по ходу, пришла


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## Okkervil

anisoara said:


> In the text I'm looking at, the speaker has just explained that he's saved the father's life and now the son's life. Then he says:
> 
> За твоим отцом должок, должок ценою в  две жизни. И я надеюсь его вернуть.​
> I would expect him to say that he hopes the father will returns the debt - so I think I must be misunderstanding something. Am I???


И вы совершенно правы. В данном контексте(если только вы правильно описали предысторию) *"вернуть"* означает _*"получить"*_, что характерно для разговорной речи. Только и всего.
Можно было бы так прямо и сказать: "_И я надеюсь его получить"_. Но "получать" можно что угодно, а _"возвращать_" чаше всего лишь то, что причитается тебе по праву. Так уж сказал этот недобрый дяденька.

_За твоим отцом должок, должок ценою в две жизни. И я надеюсь его вернуть. 
Your father owes me a trifle - his life as well as yours. And I want you to meet the debts someday._


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## Awwal12

Rosett said:


> Positively not:
> Революция крови - Google Books Result
> Артем Бук - 2016 - ‎Juvenile Fiction
> рыжий не собирался униматься, – кто-то порешил наших братьев, и мы пришли взыскать должок.
> О Дне Победы 2.0
> May 9, 2014 - Пришла такая история ко мне и сказала: «Вот тебе, Семён, Победа в долг». Будешь не достоин — приду взыскать должок. И вот, по ходу, пришла


Ahem. You know, books are positevely beautiful examples of everyday speech. As much as phrases "и тогда свершится правосудие" (in the same book, just a bit lower), I always speak to my aunt like that. Well, I may just stand corrected that it also may mark bookish style, but surely it is not an element of colloquial speech.


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## Rosett

Awwal12 said:


> Ahem. You know, books are positevely beautiful examples of everyday speech. As much as phrases "и тогда свершится правосудие" (in the same book, just a bit lower), I always speak to my aunt like that. Well, I may just stand corrected that it also may mark bookish style, but surely it is not an element of colloquial speech.


Well, mixing styles is an essential feature of colloquial language, there is no contradiction with it. Both examples above represent direct speech, albeit fictional.
The live colloquial examples are plenty around, too:
lawofattraction.ru › ... › Письма Вовану
Apr 3, 2014 - ... а воз и ныне там. Вов, взыщи должок. так и быть, половина тебе "на булавки", а тыщенка мне. очень надо...
Прямые грузоотправители - Lardi-Trans.com
Apr 27, 2015 - ...откат, господа - никто не отменял... С нерезов попробуй взыщи должок, а вот с экспедиций белорусских проще и рядом ...
Вятский наблюдатель - Лента новостей - Кировские ...
... некому будет управлять страной. Вспомни кем был ПУТИН и остальные члены пЕДРа. Взыщи должок.


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