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Russian is past, Chinese is future? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 7036 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes  5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 25 of 150 10 September 2005 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Way to go? Way to go for what? For doing business? If you want the way to go, just learn English. This might be a bit straightforward, but if you really like Japanese then it's the way to go for you and there's no reason anything/anyone can take it away from you. From what you've said, it seems to me that you're not really interested in Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Inna Newbie Russian Federation Joined 7024 days ago 22 posts - 30 votes | Message 26 of 150 11 September 2005 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Russian the joke runs as follows, " В России оптимисты изучают английский, пессимисты - китайский, а реалисты - автомат Калашникова."
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7196 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 27 of 150 11 September 2005 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Whats the Kalashnikov gun?
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| Inna Newbie Russian Federation Joined 7024 days ago 22 posts - 30 votes | Message 28 of 150 13 September 2005 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Kalashnikov is http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/models/ka50.html, other models are given http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/models/
And, Darobat, the whole text is just a joke, nothing more. Please, dont' jump to conclusions about terrible evil commies, Russian armed bears and so on... Just a joke 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7384 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 150 13 September 2005 at 8:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Kalashnikov enjoys a real personality cult nowadays, I have seen an exhibition about him in the St Petersburg Armory and it included a gallery of M. Kalashnikov (90-something by now) with a collection of presidents, kings and dictators. All seemed very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet the man eponymous for this legendary weapon. I guess that explains why the name becomes a synonym for warfare in Inna's joke.
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| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6875 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 30 of 150 05 February 2006 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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More and more MBA students in my town add in Chinese. Japanese used to be more popular.
But anyway, I'm told that there are really good dictionaries to/from Russian for most languages, and lots of learning material, so it will be useful anyway. One former colleague of mine thought that the Russian was the very best, but I don't remember if it was one of the Arabic guys or the Chinese lady. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eriol Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6874 days ago 118 posts - 130 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Portuguese | Message 31 of 150 09 February 2006 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Official figures from 1989 and onwards will always underestimate the number of people who have russian as their first or second language. The reason for this is purely political, the leaders of the smaller ex-USSR states need to build some kind of "national pride", in some cases almost out of nothing. One of the first steps will always be to start promoting their "own" language, even if the majority of the population in reality speak russian. Changing peoples mothertongue is really, really difficult even if you are a dictator.
I just had a look at the CIA-factbook, and a lot of the language information is just a joke: - Ukraine: Ukrainian 67% (I thought it was about 67% russian, but what do I know I've only been there once? ) - Belarus: Belarusian official language (but their president doesn't even speak it). - Kazakhstan: Kazakh (Qazaq, state language) 64.4% (My guess is 25% maximum. The northern half of the country would rather split and join Russia instead.) If the administrator cares to answer, I would also be interested in where the figures 167 million speakers and 8 countries come from? I'm not claiming them to be wrong or anything, at least not until I know how they were calculated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7384 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 150 09 February 2006 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
He does. The figures were compiled by a friend of mine from figures in the CIA factbook and Wikipedia. I'd be glad to correct the figures if you can point me to a more reliable source. I do not claim to be an expert in language demographics and am always glad to improve the information on this website. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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