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Russian : why so popular ? | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Itikar Groupie Italy Joined 4670 days ago 94 posts - 158 votes  Speaks: Italian* | Message 57 of 107 26 February 2012 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
In high school I often called the thid declension the accursed declension, because Latin dictionaries don't usually list genitives. So if we have to find the nominatives (and therefore the meaning) of: -mentium (it is a genitive) -equiti -anserem With the third we are lucky -->anser, with the second we may have some troubles but we would find out "eques", but with the first we may end looking many words starting with "ment-" only to find out we wanted "mens". Of course it is not a big issue, unless you are doing a test in high school, but thanks to the way modern Russian dictionaries are done, I have never had such problems with Russian. With verbs rarely I got similiar problems (and in Latin as well) but also here Russian dictionaries are more friendly (and Russian verb roots are often longer and more redundant). edit: And I did forget that another thing that I love both in Latin and in Russian (but more in Russian) are the very beautiful proverbs. :****)) без труда не вынешь рыбку из пруда Edited by Itikar on 26 February 2012 at 8:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4672 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 58 of 107 26 February 2012 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Totally irrelevant. Please stop discussing non language related data.
What do you mean by big? Is it the biggest? How do you think it would rank if you took a poll on the reasons why people learn Russian? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 59 of 107 26 February 2012 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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because Latin dictionaries don't usually list genitives.
My dictionaries lists and all the dictionaries I saw do. but thanks to the way modern Russian dictionaries are done, I have never had such problems with Russian. Do they list all the forms of a noun? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 60 of 107 26 February 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Argh. I'm talking about a concept. A concept is the same, regardless of the particularity it's applied to. In this case, the concept is statistical correlation, and the particularity is language popularity. The particularity could be anything, but the concept of statistical correlation does not change. The concept of gravity is always the same—it does not change depending on what planet you're measuring.
You might want to go back and read the thread. I've already stated twice that I'm not saying it's a CONSCIOUS reason for why people study it. It's a major causative factor lurking in the background. Studying a language because it has a lot of speakers? All else equal, more people = bigger economy. Studying a language because a particular country is politically powerful? It takes money to leverage power. Studying a language because you like its music or movies? It takes money to run and export a music or film industry. 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 arashikat Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 4678 days ago 53 posts - 80 votes Speaks: Tagalog*, English Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 61 of 107 26 February 2012 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I really like Russian, and it's definitely one of the languages I will learn in my lifetime.
Russian is not a popular option in the Philippines, but I personally find Russian beautiful-sounding and very intriguing. Like what I've said somewhere in the forum before, Russian seems to have self-confidence built into its linguistic genes. Here in the states, it's pretty common for college students to learn. Also, I think that if you speak Russian (and don't look anything Russian), people would either think you're super cool and/or think you work for the CIA or something. I don't know much about Russian authors/literature, save for Pushkin. Bottomline: I agree with the person who said that Russian is understudied, but it's definitely not on the minority list either. Edited by arashikat on 26 February 2012 at 9:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4672 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 62 of 107 26 February 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
This makes no sense. Please stick to the topic. There is no need to throw in irrelevant data.
You could say everything is related to economy by this logic. You could also say all reasons for studying a language are related to sex by this logic. I think the OP's original question about why people are learning Russian is better answered by the individual learners. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 63 of 107 26 February 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What a truly pathetic thread this has become.
Why is Russian "so" popular? 1.) Russia was a superpower and is currently a major power (and was a major European power before it became a superpower). 2.) Largest Slavic language, so of some linguistic interest. 3.) Spoken by ~300,000,000 native or secondary speakers, throughout Russia proper, eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. 4.) Associated with a culture that has made deep contributions in visual and performance art and music. 5.) Language of some of the greatest works of literature - novels, plays, poems - ever written. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 64 of 107 26 February 2012 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Wulfgar:
My original point was never, "People learn Russian because it has a big economy." I had originally compared the number of HTLAL users studying Russian to Russian's GDP, and compared this ratio to those of other languages, to counter the threadstarter's implicit claim that the language is overstudied. This was my exact post:
As you can see, my original post already implicitly assumed that there are other factors that affect a language's popularity. I was merely using GDP as a neutral baseline with which to compare it to other languages. I then, in subsequent posts, had to defend the notion of GDP being an appropriate measure for how popular a language "ought to be", ceteris paribus. That's where you came in. ;)
I don't think anyone here, aside from the threadstarter, is saying Russian is "too" (or excessively) popular. Edited by nway on 26 February 2012 at 9:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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