Columbus Ohio

[eekee 182]

Not a critique at all. In fact, I'm guessing you probably said it right just spelled it wrong.

eekee is somewhat of a Russian language expert. She probably knows more than all of us put together and was merely pointing out the fact that with the misspelling it changed the word to indicate you were talking to a female instead of a male.

A little RUB humor, if you will.

I think the spoken language is really not all that difficult since it's not too distant from our own. Written, however, is something that has to be practiced for a while to really get good at.

I still read like a 3rd grader.

Hmm, I don't know which is easier. I think it's whatever you have more practice with. I don't write that much in Russian, aside from quick messages to friends, so my speech is much better.

I do think there is a point with Russian where you think you know it, but you actually know very little. My friend and I were arguing which is harder, Russian or English (I voted for English), and he was like, "There are so many words in English!" and he pointed to a little metal fence and asked me how many names we had in English for this object, trying to make a point that we must have a lot. I was like, uh, one, "fence." And then he and another friend proceeded to rattle off seven or eight different words for "fence," including like, village slang. I mean, foreigners might be able to carry on a conversation just fine, but there's mat, prison slang, village speech, and just so many damn words. I don't know if I've ever met a foreigner who has made me go, Whoa dude, your Russian is flawless. I know people who have excellent grammar and pronounciation, but then those people also tend to have a huge knowledge gap in terms of slang and mat. Too much studying, I guess. People tend to be one or the other. But I've met a lot of foreigners whose English is practically indistinguishable from my own.

I don't think it's similar to English, really. Russian works very differently, and not just in terms with cases, aspect, etc.. We just don't have the same morphological flexibility in English.

Edited June 10, 2011 by eekee

[MishaMoose 2]

Hmm, I don't know which is easier. I think it's whatever you have more practice with. I don't write that much in Russian, aside from quick messages to friends, so my speech is much better.

I do think there is a point with Russian where you think you know it, but you actually know very little. My friend and I were arguing which is harder, Russian or English (I voted for English), and he was like, "There are so many words in English!" and he pointed to a little metal fence and asked me how many names we had in English for this object, trying to make a point that we must have a lot. I was like, uh, one, "fence." And then he and another friend proceeded to rattle off seven or eight different words for "fence," including like, village slang. I mean, foreigners might be able to carry on a conversation just fine, but there's mat, prison slang, village speech, and just so many damn words. I don't know if I've ever met a foreigner who has made me go, Whoa dude, your Russian is flawless. I know people who have excellent grammar and pronounciation, but then those people also tend to have a huge knowledge gap in terms of slang and mat. Too much studying, I guess. People tend to be one or the other. But I've met a lot of foreigners whose English is practically indistinguishable from my own.

I don't think it's similar to English, really. Russian works very differently, and not just in terms with cases, aspect, etc.. We just don't have the same morphological flexibility in English.

This is very interesting to me and I will try to form a coherent reply when I get home form work.

Thank you both, Slim and eekee!!

I find there is zsignificant disconnect at this stage of my learning process between speaking, hearng, reading, and writing Russian. I understand more of what I read than what I hear - probably becuase I can control the speed of input, and speak more correctly than I write. But I can only claim that I have been somewhat seriously working at learning for a bit over a year of the last 3. Taking 1 90 minute lesson a week without conversation opportunities outside of class is not a great way to master a language.

I still have issues with the changes of vowel sounds on the ends of words (i.e. но as spoken in приятно still sounds a lot like приятня to me) and I think I wil never really pronounce ы correctly.

Anyway I would liek to explore this subject of russian and english a bit more if y'all are willing.

[eekee 182]

Well, unstressed o sounds like ah. "Pryatna" is correct speech.

I didn't learn all that much in the classroom, more so "on the ground," so to speak. I had to take a state certification exam last month, and had to learn all these grammar rules and ####### I had just ignored before.

Edited June 10, 2011 by eekee

[ONA 133]

I do think there is a point with Russian where you think you know it, but you actually know very little.

True for any foreign language. The problem is that your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation can be great, but you will still have so-called 'pragmatic' accent, which can cause misunderstanding (and which is probably the only reason for my arguments with my fiance).

My friend and I were arguing which is harder, Russian or English (I voted for English), and he was like, "There are so many words in English!" and he pointed to a little metal fence and asked me how many names we had in English for this object, trying to make a point that we must have a lot. I was like, uh, one, "fence." And then he and another friend proceeded to rattle off seven or eight different words for "fence," including like, village slang.

I think the reason why that happens is that people in different countries have to deal with different things, different realia. One of the most famous examples of how that works is comparing how many words referring to different types of snow there are in English, Russian and Inuit (Eskimo) languages.

[eekee 182]

True for any foreign language. The problem is that your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation can be great, but you will still have so-called 'pragmatic' accent, which can cause misunderstanding (and which is probably the only reason for my arguments with my fiance).

I think the reason why that happens is that people in different countries have to deal with different things, different realia. One of the most famous examples of how that works is comparing how many words referring to different types of snow there are in English, Russian and Inuit (Eskimo) languages.

Ha, yes. But in general for Russian to me there just seems to be a lot of different words for everything, not just like in the case of "snow" where snow is obviously a big part of Inuit life, so there are a lot of words for it.

[slim 1,525]

I don't write that much in Russian, aside from quick messages to friends, so my speech is much better.

My writing is horrible. I can't do cursive at all and print isn't much better. Looks all out of proportion and spaced incorrectly.

I bought some 1st grade writing books (the notebooks with the lines and dashed lines to help you write your ABCs) and I practiced on those. I can get the point across, but it's obviously foreigner henscratch.

foreigners might be able to carry on a conversation just fine, but there's mat, prison slang, village speech, and just so many damn words.

Words, maybe. But it seems there are less "stupid rules" than we have in English. We have so many irregular words that don't follow "the rules" and so many stupid ways of saying things. In Russian, speech is rather simple. "I go store." And my personal favorite - "Fingers on feet."

I don't think it's similar to English, really. Russian works very differently, and not just in terms with cases, aspect, etc.. We just don't have the same morphological flexibility in English.

We don't, but we still convey the same things. There's subject, predicate, direct object and a verb or two here and there. Learn the proper endings for the proper audience and you're golden.

I find there is zsignificant disconnect at this stage of my learning process between speaking, hearng, reading, and writing Russian.

I recommend the Pimsleur discs because they really help bridge that gap. They'll teach you to "think" in the target language.

I still have issues with the changes of vowel sounds on the ends of words (i.e. но as spoken in приятно still sounds a lot like приятня to me) and I think I wil never really pronounce ы correctly.

Right now you're still thinking in English and trying to convert it. Once you speak the language a little better, you'll hear it better too and instead of seeing the English on paper and trying to convert it to Russian, you'll know the words and have to convert it from spoken/heard to written/read. For most folks, it's a lot easier to write something after they have the word in their head. You're trying to write it (in Russian) before you even know what the word is.

Priyatna is a perfect example. Whether you spell it pryatna, preeyatna, priatna, or some other way, it's still the same word and you still hear it as the word you're saying. When you spell it first, you're not necessarily saying the same word, you're spelling A word, but as eekee pointed out, it could be a completely different word.

I didn't learn all that much in the classroom, more so "on the ground," so to speak. I had to take a state certification exam last month, and had to learn all these grammar rules and ####### I had just ignored before.

I've met many people who "studied" a language and can't speak it to save their life. Then I've met many people who've had a roommate that spoke that language and their skills are 1,000 times better. But, they have no certificate. In the real world, one is important for a job, the other is important for getting by.

True for any foreign language. The problem is that your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation can be great, but you will still have so-called 'pragmatic' accent, which can cause misunderstanding (and which is probably the only reason for my arguments with my fiance).

Exactly why English is the most difficult. We don't say "close the light" we say "turn off the light."

[MishaMoose 2]

Words, maybe. But it seems there are less "stupid rules" than we have in English. We have so many irregular words that don't follow "the rules" and so many stupid ways of saying things. In Russian, speech is rather simple. "I go store." And my personal favorite - "Fingers on feet."

I think part of that is because of the difference in the ways each language assimilates new words it seems (and I have been told by friends who are much more expert in linguistics than I) that russian assimilates new words but russifies them, applying Russian grammer and form to them. English simply assimilates words with out actually making them english. This is part of why we have so many unrelated rules and why russian is more consistant.

My favorite russian word so far is 'chin' .. under beard

I recommend the Pimsleur discs because they really help bridge that gap. They'll teach you to "think" in the target language.

I think they are great and have made it half way through volume one, wil soon be using them again this summer. I find that i have to make sure I sit and concentrate but rarely have to do any lesson more than twice if I can do that. I personally found Rosetta Stone less than satisfactory as it didn't give useful vocabulary for a long time.

My problem with pimsluer is that I stil can spell what I can hear 8^) .. and sometimes it takes me a while to understand the individual words ... but can repeat what I hear and be understood and understand what I hear fro others reasonably well. It was several weeks before I understood

(VERY LIBERAL phonetic spelling alert!!) "ne hatelibuby stonyboot payest" was (still very liberal spelling) "ne hatleba vy chto ne bud pa yest" but when I did make that connection I could parse out and create some other sentences sort of correctly.

I think for now I will concentrate on vocabulary and basic noun verb rules, and phrases .. I think the basic grammer wil come over time and that my russian speaking friends will forgive my ignorance even if they find me funny :D

English and Russian are both language that are very rich in words .. one reason why so much great literature soi written in both languages ...

english tends to have a lot of words for 'almost' the same thing but they have very subtle and distinct differences .. which sadly most english speakers do not know or do not care about and so the are used less than correctly. like often a frequently for instance

I love the feel of language and I am really enjoying everyones input on this!

[ONA 133]

Exactly why English is the most difficult. We don't say "close the light" we say "turn off the light."

We don't say "close the light" (закрой свет??? #######???), we say "turn off the light" (выключи свет) as well. That's not even close to what I was talking about.

What I was talking about is that a Russian person is more likely to say something like "It's wrong", while a native English speaker is probably going to say something like "I don't think it's right". That's exacty why it seems that Russian people speak their mind and we might seem to be pretty rude a lot of times... we're not. The thing is that we show politeness in a different way.

As for which language has more vocabulary - it's definitely English.

But Russian is harder to learn - and it has nothing to do with the vocabulary, really.

Edited June 10, 2011 by ONA

[slim 1,525]

Pimsleur is awesome, but you're going to be speaking very formal Russian. Keep in mind when you talk to folks who are familiar to you you'll have to "tone it down" a bit from the lessons. Also, you'll have to add some cursewords, blat.

Close the light is something I've heard many times from Russians. Although, they were saying it in English so it's most likely a difference in translations from Russian to English. If we said toes, Russians would look at us funny.

[ONA 133]

Pimsleur is awesome, but you're going to be speaking very formal Russian. Keep in mind when you talk to folks who are familiar to you you'll have to "tone it down" a bit from the lessons. Also, you'll have to add some cursewords, blat.

I don't think that adding the curse words into your speech is a good idea (at least until you make sure that people you communicate with use them). Plus it just sounds ridiculous when a non-native Russian speaker says them.

Close the light is something I've heard many times from Russians. Although, they were saying it in English so it's most likely a difference in translations from Russian to English. If we said toes, Russians would look at us funny.

That's very-very weird, cause "turn off the light" is a pretty obvious.. and basically word-by-word translation from Russian. I can't see why anybody would use the word "close"... unless they have a very poor vocabulary.

[eekee 182]

Eh, I use mat with my friends, and if I didn't know mat, I'd understand probably only 30% of what was being said in the first place. But I have been friends with these people for years.

Edited June 13, 2011 by eekee

[tmma 467]

I would like to learn Russian.

Is the sentence structure like Dutch or German?

What I mean is for example in English we would say ' I'm going to the kitchen to make bagels' whereas in Dutch it's Yoda speak ' I am going to the kitchen for bagels to make'.

[eekee 182]

I would like to learn Russian.

Is the sentence structure like Dutch or German?

What I mean is for example in English we would say ' I'm going to the kitchen to make bagels' whereas in Dutch it's Yoda speak ' I am going to the kitchen for bagels to make'.

word order is pretty flexible because meaning is determined by endings and not by placement in a sentence. But where you put a word in the sentence can denote emphasis on that fact.

[tmma 467]

word order is pretty flexible because meaning is determined by endings and not by placement in a sentence. But where you put a word in the sentence can denote emphasis on that fact.

thanks for the reply and explaination!

I found Dutch incredibly hard to learn to speak, even though I am fairly fluent in German. Would you say that Russian is a difficult language to learn to speak?

[eekee 182]

thanks for the reply and explaination!

I found Dutch incredibly hard to learn to speak, even though I am fairly fluent in German. Would you say that Russian is a difficult language to learn to speak?

For a native English speaker, it's harder than German or Dutch, but easier than Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, etc.