Learn Hardcore Russian: Лучше немного помолчать, а потом спокойно поговорить. - It is better to stay silent for a little while and then talk calmly.

Breakdown of Лучше немного помолчать, а потом спокойно поговорить.

How does лучше work in this sentence?

Here лучше means it is better to... or better to... It is a very common Russian pattern:

Russian does not need a word like it is here. So Лучше немного помолчать... is a natural impersonal recommendation.

Why is there no subject like we, you, or it?

Russian often leaves the subject unstated when it is general or clear from context.

So Лучше немного помолчать... can mean things like:

If you want to make the people explicit, you can add a dative pronoun or noun:

Why are помолчать and поговорить infinitives?

After лучше, Russian usually uses the infinitive to name the action being recommended.

So:

This is very similar to English better to + verb, although English also often says we’d better + verb.