# Street Smart



## RhoKappa

This is a very common English expression.  Street smarts refer to not academic intellect, but rather a keen understanding of what goes on around somebody in real-life situations that may adversely affect him if he does not cleverly handle them.  For example, a college professor may have a doctorate degree, but he gets robbed in a bad neighborhood and does not know how to deal with a suspicious thief always following him; such a man had little or no street smarts.  Another example would be a man who is a high school dropout, but when confronted by three thugs who ask him for a dollar, he knows better that he should not flash his money, but would rather give them the impression that he is too poor to have a dollar; such a man in this case has street smarts.  Is there an expression in Russian that best defines such an important skill in everyday life?


----------



## Budspok

ушлый на улице


----------



## Saluton

There's probably no equivalent of this but Russian has many expressions about people who can think fast and are able to figure out quickly what to do in a difficult situation. I could suggest
смека́листый (http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?l1=2&l2=1&s=смекалистый)
сообрази́тельный (http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?l1=2&l2=1&s=сообразительный)
сметли́вый
нахо́дчивый
не будь дура́к (could fit the context well: он, не будь дурак, сказал, что был у друга - as a savvy guy, he said he was at his friend's place)
не ла́птем щи хлеба́ет (мы тут не лаптем щи хлебаем, знаем, когда надо дать взятку - we are not idiots, we know when a bribe is the best solution)
уме́ет верте́ться (a reference to the proverb хочешь жить - умей вертеться)

(ушлый на улице? What was that?)


----------



## Maroseika

There is no any stable expression in Russian for "street smart" but some descriptive expressions can be used: знающий, как вести себя на улице; знающий законы улицы. 
In my dictionary I found "уличный мудрец", but on my ear it sounds weird and confusive. Maybe it can make sense as an opposition to a book smart - книжный мудрец.


----------



## WordOrder

We haven't got «bad neighborhoods» here in Russia, so we don't have such words like _streetwise_ or _street-smart_, but in general you can use the expressions derived from *зако*́*ны у*́*лиц* (lit. _the laws of streets_).

_Tyler grew up on the streets, so he was a real street-smart guy — Тайлер рос на улицах, и поэтому он хорошо знал их законы._

_This motion picture is a streetwise cop comedy in the tradition of '80s faves like 48 Нrs. and Beverly Hills Сop — Эта комедия об уличных полицейских снята в лучших традициях любимых фильмов 80-х, таких как «48 часов» и «Полицейский из Беверли-Хиллз»._


----------



## rdimd

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that the word "street" leads us in a wrong direction. Smart is smart, смека́листый, сообрази́тельный, maybe у́шлый, (но НЕ ушлый на улице) whatever. And it does not matter where the smart person is - on the street or inside a building or somewhere else. 

I am not sure if there are places without «bad neighborhoods» (or, for example, jails) but to my opinion in the former Soviet Union it is more important to distinguish between different (sometimes, "bad" and "good") people. So, a "people smart" person should be able to deal with a person with criminal background or to use four letter words intensively if necessary or at least not to get involved in unnecessary conflicts.

I can't find a proper term for this notion but I hope that this has helped us to better understand the problem.


----------



## Maroseika

WordOrder said:


> We haven't got «bad neighborhoods» here in Russia.


Right. That's why street smartness may be usefull in any place of a town. However we really do not have such an expression.


----------



## Ёж!

RhoKappa said:


> Is there an expression in Russian that best defines such an important skill in everyday life?


«Он хорошо понимает законы улиц»; «он хорошо ориентируется в обстановке»; «он хорошо понимает людей/разбирается в людях»; «он умеет избегать опасностей»; etc. Some of such expressions, like the second one, are _context-dependent_ and in general don't make much sense.


WordOrder said:


> We haven't got «bad neighborhoods» here in Russia


That depends… Every country has got bad neighbourhoods where it's better to «держать ушки на макушке».


> so we don't have such words like _streetwise_ or _street-smart_, but in general you can use the expressions derived from *зако*́*ны у*́*лиц* (lit. _the laws of streets_).


I guess the reason is different. We don't need or like to use such specific terms (in what circumstances one happens to be savvy and how it relates with the kind of his savviness), and so we prefer to avoid expressions like «уличный мудрец» (which I, too, saw for the first time now, and I would rather think it means a street philosopher); the specialities of the kind happen not to be the focus of Russian talking, and so we describe or imply them, not name them.


rdimd said:


> [..] or to use four letter words intensively if necessary [...]


Thanks God, this is never necessary (and always harmful).


----------



## RhoKappa

Street smarts do not have anything to do with particularly bad neighborhoods, as incidents involving street smarts can occur in even the nicest downtown areas.  The bad neighborhoods are merely examples to better illustrate street smarts.


----------



## lectrice

Street smart - он по-житейски умён


----------



## Ёж!

lectrice said:


> он по-житейски умён


... which means he knows where to buy things, how to sell them if not anymore needed, how to speak to his boss or his wife or anybody, how to repair things at home, etc, etc, etc.  Otherwise, it may mean a person who knows why he lives and how he does it – this is another meaning.


----------



## WordOrder

According to the topic starter's explanations, the _street smarts_ is how you accomodate yourself to the life in the city jungle: where you can walk, where you can't, whom you can deal with, whom you can't, who you can touch, who you can't. As far as I understand, this expression comes from and is related to the life in so called «bad neighborhoods». So, as I said, we haven't got them and this is the only reason we don't have such an expression.

Thus the expression under discussion has nothing to do with the Russian words _смекалистый_, _сообразительный_, _дельный_, _ушлый_, _по-житейски мудрый_, etc. All of them can be the part of what is called _worldly wisdom_ and this quality can be attributable to any person starting with the college professor and finishing the dropout student. On the contrary, the _street wisdom_ is a quality of specific people which grows up in specific conditions and it cannot be applied outside that conditions.


----------



## Saluton

WordOrder said:


> Thus the expression under discussion has nothing to do with the Russian words _смекалистый_, _сообразительный_, _дельный_, _ушлый_, _по-житейски мудрый_, etc.


Even if so, the issue of translating the expression still stands and to my mind, the options suggested in this thread can do the trick. I don't think законы улиц would be mentioned by native Russian speakers, though.



WordOrder said:


> the _street wisdom_... cannot be applied outside that conditions


Why not?


----------



## WordOrder

Saluton said:


> Why not?



Because it's understanding of particular people, particular places and  particular circumstances and that knowledge is useless outside those  people, places and circumstances.


----------



## Saluton

WordOrder said:


> Because it's understanding of particular people, particular places and particular circumstances and that knowledge is useless outside those people, places and circumstances.


Thugs can be anywhere and you may have to deal with them anywhere, in a street, in an office or in a desert. Besides, the expression is not confined to dealing with thugs:
_street smarts_
"shrewd awareness of how to survive or succeed in any situation, especially as a result of living or working in a difficult environment, as a city ghetto neighborhood."
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/street+smarts?s=t


----------



## WordOrder

Any environment has its own rules. There's no guarantee that knowledge obtaining in one environment can be successfully applied in another.


----------



## Ёж!

WordOrder said:


> According to the topic starter's explanations, the _street smarts_ is how you accomodate yourself to the life in the city jungle: where you can walk, where you can't, whom you can deal with, whom you can't, who you can touch, who you can't. As far as I understand, this expression comes from and is related to the life in so called «bad neighborhoods». So, as I said, we haven't got them and this is the only reason we don't have such an expression.


Вы правда думаете, что в России у вас не могут свистнуть часы или ограбить в тёмном переулке по дороге в магазин? Люди-то разные бывают, и места тоже разные; вот и изыскивается место для манёвра — для применения житейской мудрости в её уличном проявлении. Не любая сложная обстановка связана с жизнью в гетто: и без того хватает деклассированных людей.


----------



## NagyKiss

Есть такие варианты - *прошаренный, продуманный, чёткий, реальный.*


----------



## Maroseika

NagyKiss said:


> Есть такие варианты - *прошаренный, продуманный, чёткий, реальный.*



Maybe it's worth to mention, that all these adjectives are slangy (the latter two are slangy only in this context) and can be used not with any noun.
Besides, the former two are substandard, for Passive wrongly used in active role.


----------

