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Cities with Mandarin and Russian...

  Tags: Mandarin | Russian
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
nebojats
Triglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5197 days ago

89 posts - 120 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai
Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian

 
 Message 1 of 4
13 July 2011 at 6:26am | IP Logged 
Pretty self explanatory. Are there any cities where the dominant languages are Mandarin and Russian? I'm
thinking that maybe a city in northern China or southern Russia might fit the bill? Does anyone know of or
has anyone been to such a city? I was just in San Francisco and the neighborhood directly to the south of
the Golden Gate Bridge had significant Russian and Chinese populations... But English was still of course
more dominant than either of the other languages.

Edited by nebojats on 13 July 2011 at 7:02am

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jarm
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Australia
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Speaks: English*

 
 Message 2 of 4
13 July 2011 at 7:40am | IP Logged 
Harbin in China is supposed to be fairly heavily influenced by Russia, but as for the amount of Russian speakers, I don't know... Only the real far far eastern tip of Russia touches China. There might be something along the Trans-Siberian Railway, because I think an offshoot of that goes to China.

The problem is, both countries have had (not uncommon) policies of pushing their respective national languages, so any older communities probably don't speak their ethnic language anymore.

I would probably place my bets on a major Russian city, instead. There are significant populations of Chinese people pretty much everywhere; they have a habit of "getting around"... :P I reckon there would be a fairly large Chinese neighbourhood in Moscow, if you checked it out.
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jasoninchina
Senior Member
China
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221 posts - 306 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Italian

 
 Message 3 of 4
13 July 2011 at 7:49am | IP Logged 
On Hainan Island, there are two main Cities: Haikou and Sanya. The foreigners in Haikou mainly speak English and the Foreigners in Sanya speak Russian. There are so many Russians in Sanya that it is not uncommon for the waitresses, shop owners, etc. to learn russian. And it's a resort town to boot.

But I think you already know that any northern Chinese or southern russian town will have lots of speakers from both languages. I really don't know that you will find a city that speaks both equally. And I agree with jarm, Chinese people are everywhere.
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Wilco
Triglot
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Canada
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Speaks: French*, English, Russian

 
 Message 4 of 4
13 July 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
Base on my personal experience in the Russian Far East and in Northeastern China, the
best candidates would be :

Suifenhe, China - Small border town on the way to Vladivostok. I went there a few times
and every single chinese I've met there spoke basic to decent Russian. Everything is
translated, so you could actually live there a lifetime without speaking one word of
Chinese.

Heihe, China - Another border town, facing Blagoveschensk. As in Suifenhe, expect every
restaurant or shop to have at least one employee who speaks decent Russian.

Hunchun, China - Same as the above, except much smaller and with a large community of
Korean speakers.

Ussuriysk, Russia. - The local Russian population do not speak Chinese, but thanks to
the huge local chinese market, it would be easy to find Mandarin speakers.

I guess Vladivostok, Blagoveschensk and Habarovsk would also qualify, but only because
of their Chinese markets and impressive number of Chinese students.

I am currently living in Haerbin, and English is much more commonly spoken and
understood than Russian.



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