language
Why Russians Say давай
A small verb that means let’s, go ahead, come on — and sometimes goodbye.
2 min read5 September 2026
In one sentence
Давай is the everyday imperative of “to give,” stretched by use into let’s, go on, all right, and see you.
If you only learn the dictionary verb, you will miss how Russians actually start, agree to, and close an action.
The grammar is modest. Давай is the second-person singular imperative of давать (davat’), “to give.” Wiktionary records both the literal command and the conversational extensions: encouragement, agreement to start something, and, in informal speech, a way of taking leave.
Let’s
With a verb in the first-person plural or infinitive, давай often means “let’s.”
Давай пойдём.
Davai poidyom.
- давайlet’s / come on
- пойдёмwe’ll go / let’s go
This is how plans begin at a table: not always with a full sentence about desire, but with a push into motion. Related forms include давайте when you are speaking to more than one person, or politely to one person you do not know well.
Go ahead
If someone asks whether they may take the last pastry, давай can mean “go ahead.” The original “give” is still somewhere in the room: permission is being handed over.
A casual goodbye
Among friends, давай can close a phone call the way “all right then” or “catch you later” does in English. It is informal. It would sound odd in a formal letter. Learners who only studied до свидания are often surprised by how often the day actually ends with давай.
What it is not
It is not a national slogan, and it is not meaningless filler. It is a workhorse of spoken Russian: a verb that learned extra jobs because people needed a short word for “shall we begin the next thing together?” Once you hear it that way, you will hear it everywhere — including on the way на дачу.