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German or Russian? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Stephen7878 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 34 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 14 07 September 2013 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm finally going to be doing some traveling soon and will be able to take my Greek and Italian for a spin this
summer. Next summer however, we are planning a trip through most of Eastern Europe (Czech republic, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, etc.) and I was wondering which of the two (or another language) would be the most useful in that situation. Essentially all of those countries speak a Slavic language which is why I thought Russian made the most sense, but I've heard that most people either don't know it or refuse to speak it after the dissolution of the USSR. German on the other hand seems to have a large amount of speakers using it as a second language. If any of you have any insight to this, what do you suggest? Edited by Fasulye on 08 September 2013 at 7:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4706 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 14 07 September 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I met some Polish people and they did not speak Russian (neither German), but the languages are close.
About the other countries I can't really tell... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5325 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 14 07 September 2013 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I cannot speak of Serbia and Croatia, but I have been in both Poland and the Czech Republic recently.
These days, the most efficient language for communicating in a foreign language is English. German might help you communicating with the oldest citizens, Russian might help you with the middle aged (those who have not forgotten it), but English is the language of the young. The advantage of Russian is of course that even though the people in the countries you visit might not speak Russian, your knowledge of Russian would help you understand many words in those languages. However if you really want to understand as much as possible of those languages, I would go for one of them, and not German or Russian. . Polish would have been my choice. Lots of resources, cool language, and nice and warm people. Otherwise, if you have a friend from one of the other countries with whom you could practise, that would be an equally good choice. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 07 September 2013 at 8:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 14 07 September 2013 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Ah, the cheque Republic, where cash and debit
cards are forbidden... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stephen7878 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 34 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 5 of 14 07 September 2013 at 9:27am | IP Logged | ||
I suppose I kind of figured that. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to start studying a new language (already have my plate full but I'm always wanting to add more lol). Although at the same time I was hoping to find one that would give me the most bang for my buck but I guess it won't be that simple. Thank you for sharing your experience of that region. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 14 07 September 2013 at 9:52am | IP Logged | ||
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In the western part of the Czech Republic German is still going strong I hear. Maybe also
in western Poland. But in general the best bet is tourist phrases in each. I would actually learn Serbo-Croatian in your situation. Covers 2 for 1. Edited by tarvos on 07 September 2013 at 9:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5047 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 7 of 14 07 September 2013 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
I was in Bulgaria. Not everyone there speaks Russian. But everyone who knew even three words in Russian tried to use it when speaking to me. The same was in Montenegro. My friends who visited Czech Republic did say that people refused to speak Russian with them. So I don't think the negative attitude is strong now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4659 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 8 of 14 07 September 2013 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Eurostat, these are foreign languages used in Croatia (% indicates how many Croatians speak them at conversational level):
1. English 49% (blame it on Hollywood; no dubbing of movies and series) 2. German 34% (Croatia was a part of Habsburg Monarchy for 500 years, plus 50 years of Croatian emmigrating to DE/AT/CH and millions of DE/AT tourists visiting Croatia) 3. Italian 14% (the coast was a part of Venice for hundreds of years, add Italian minority still living in Northwest, some regions bilingual, plus many tourists visiting) 4. French 4 % (it was never popular nor obligatory) 4. Russian 4 % (it was never popular nor obligatory) 6. Spanish 2% (there are 10-12 Mexican, Colombian and Argentinian daily soap operas on Croatian tv channels, they are very popular, and many people learn[ed] Spanish by watching them) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio n#Knowledge Russian is generally liked by Croatians, because former Yugoslavia was not a part of the Warsaw pact so Russian was not imposed on us (it's always been a school subject for people to choose, just like French). Even though Macedonian, Bulgarian. Slovenian and Slovak are closer to Croatian than Russian is, when people opt for a Slavic language, they choose Russian. Students of Croatistics at universities (future teachers of Croatian) have to study another Slavic language while in college (at University of Zagreb most opt for Russian or Bulgarian). Edited by Medulin on 07 September 2013 at 5:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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