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Attitude toward Russian in Europe | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 17 of 128 30 November 2011 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
No, but restricting travel there doesn't really help the associated language's profile. As Solfrid Cristin mentioned, the average Western or Northern European can go to most other parts of Europe without a visa and so can go pretty much on a whim. As a bonus, these people will end up being exposed to various languages that they may not have thought of before having gone. For example a Polish acquaintance went to Kosovo in 2008 (no visa required) and fell in love with the place to the point of wanting to start learning Albanian. This is what I think that Solfrid Cristin was alluding to on the relationship between interest in (new) languages and low barriers to travel. It's a pain to get a visa and that annoyance is raised for Western and Northern Europeans when you consider how many countries they can visit without a visa. Perhaps for people who are used to travel visas for the large majority of their destinations, it's fine, but Western and Northern Europeans are lucky (or spoiled depending on your point of view) when it comes to choice of countries not needing travel visas. It's true that most Westerners don't need visas to visit Ukraine, but to be honest a lot of people don't travel to a country to speak the language. I gather that only language geeks or students in classes for foreign languages would seriously consider travelling primarily to improve competency in foreign languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5047 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 18 of 128 30 November 2011 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Russia has a lot of visa-free regimes but no one chooses languages for that reason. Say , "I'll learn Hebrew because visa is not needed there (for tourists)" or "I won't learn German because it is difficult to get visa there". In the Internet era one can easily communicate with anyone else. Russian is also spoken within the EU in Latvia end Estonia, plus there are a lot of native speakers in other countries. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4763 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 19 of 128 30 November 2011 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I, for one, appreciate the indifferent, if at times dismissive, attitude our Occidental cousins have toward The Great and Mighty Language™. If you ask me, the fewer foreign devils defile our Holy Tongue with their ghastly accents, the better ;)
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| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5047 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 20 of 128 30 November 2011 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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As far as I know the interest to the Russian language has also declined in Serbia in the
past decades, despite very positive attitude towards Russia, linguistic closeness and visa-free (for tourists up to 30 days) regime. So, the main reason is utility (lack of it) and people's expectations. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 21 of 128 30 November 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This then reverts to Solfrid Cristin's point that Norwegians aren't keen to learn Russian despite the OP's wondering why Scandinavians don't despite her belief that Russia's area and relatively high political power should make it so. When it comes to learning Russian outside Russia or travelling to countries which have visa-free regimes for Western or Northern Europeans but where Russian is used fairly often I gather that learning Russian in Latvia at least may not be ideal for the foreigner or even the mildly interested traveller as this post from a Latvian suggests:
That's interesting about the Serbs' waning interest in Russian. Although it could be related to Serbia's general but gradual orientation to the EU (but we'll see how long it lasts given the Euro's problems :-P) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6430 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 128 30 November 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The Russian visa situation has dissuaded me from visiting Russia, as of yet. I've gone to Esperanto conferences around Europe; I've avoided the ones in Russia, despite hearing positive things about them. I've been to Ukraine, and it's an interesting country - but it's not Russia. I spend some time with Russians - but it's not the same as spending time in Russia. I've studied a small amount of Russian. The visa situation won't prevent me from studying more Russian in the future. But, as Solfrid Christina has quite rightly pointed out, it's been enough to dissuade me from visiting the country, and is a damper on both tourism and enthusiasm. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4968 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 23 of 128 01 December 2011 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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As far I remember, it exist a few colleges or universities who offers something, though not in middle of norway where I live. At lower levels of schools, highschool level, I've never heard of anything as russian, think Classical Latin is more popular even.
Russians don't come here as tourists, we can't readily go there as tourists, and even if I personally find the little I know of the country and culture fascinating, it's completely unaccessible, Zulu or Quechua is almost as practical to be honest. most of the russians here is without exeption refugees, political opositonals, refugees from some of the conflict zones, or random "mail order brides" who hillbilly farmers somehow married (a lot better cultural match than the asian girls though). Traditionally, I think foregin relations, the army and other govermental institutions got more need of Russian than the people, but I know people who'd without doubt would be interested in learning it, if there was any options beside buying a Pimsleur course or something. Going to the Norwegian Intelligence Service and get an education could be one of the best options available I can think of atm. :/ Remember, Norway is in Nato, despite lots of russian symphatizers of old, we really don't have much relations with them. Exept the refugees or brides, though, who usually learn Norwegian quite fast. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5042 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 24 of 128 01 December 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Come rain or shine, you can always see two lines of people shuffling along the spearhead fence of the Russian Consulate in New York City. Foreigners are to the left of the gate, and Russians are to the right. Both are waiting for the appearance of that unfortunate man whose job it is to lean out the door and shout "Passports! Visa!" As soon as he unfastens the lock, the floodgates burst open from the pressure of all the people who try to force themselves through because nobody wants to stand in line again the next day, and sometimes the day after too. True story, happened to me.
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