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Russian, impossible for English speakers? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5679 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 41 of 58 28 March 2010 at 1:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Prince Michael of the UK is said to speak Russian well. Whats-more, they say he also
resembles the former tsar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 42 of 58 08 April 2010 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Here's a typical sentence I have troubles with:
(the context) Is the distance correct, or it should be a distance, or just distance? All the hints you gave me didn't work in this case. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 43 of 58 08 April 2010 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's always tough when you don't have the concept really in your own language or culture. For example, I'm very happy with using basic determiners as an English speaker, but have no real concept or entrenched feeling for the complicated array of Russian or German declensions. I've heard the same said of Russian verbal aspects by Germans only this week too. English grammar is just much simpler in this respect, although I imagine much more difficult in other areas of course. Usually, the best way to get a feel for when to use the indefinite or definite article is just by lots and lots (and did I forget to mention - lots) of input. However, it can still be quite tricky at the best of times and I know a lot of fluent English-speaking Russians who continue to trip over this particular issue from time to time. In this case, where you refer to a mathematical formula, "the distance" is correct, as it refers to a specific distance to be determined between a hypothetical point and a hypothetical line. I guess the general feeling here is that the distance, even though hypothetical by nature itself, will be a finite and deterministic distance once measured or calculated. Whereas "a distance" on the other hand tends to imply an indeterminate distance, emphasizing more that it is far away (i.e. not close) than any specific measurement, such as "she waved to me from a distance". Edited by Teango on 08 April 2010 at 1:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5437 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 44 of 58 08 April 2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is the distance because the text implies that there can be only one particular distance between two points. The article supposes that you think of the Euclidian metric, where the distance is calculated using the pythagorean theorem. This would be the air line distance. Since we are in the realm of mathematics here, the expression a distance would be correct if you assume that there can be more than one metric. One example for a metric other than the Euclidian is the calculation of the difference between two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) according to |x1 - x2| + |y1 - y2| This is called the New York taxi driver's metric, because it accumulates the distances in both dimension like you would do with the street layout in New York. If you have more than one metric then it would be meaningless to talk of the distance. In colloquial speech there seems to be a faint reference to different possible metrics, еven though most people have no clue what a metric is. They still would say they saw someone from a distance, i.e. there might be no way to get to the other point in a straight line and for several possible alternatives the distances would not be same. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gareth Groupie United States Joined 5460 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cherokee, French | Message 45 of 58 08 April 2010 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So is Loom of Language worth a read or not?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5523 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 46 of 58 08 April 2010 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
In fact, that's a perfect example of him NOT mastering the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 47 of 58 08 April 2010 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Isn't that the fellow who actually IS in line for the Russian throne though? So it's not surprising he learnt the language. At any rate, there is definitely a heir to the Russian throne who lives in London - can't recall the name. I happened to be at a social event where he gave a brief speech in Russian - this was a few years ago - not sure how well he speaks it though and he quickly switched over to English with a 110% English accent. Even if it's not the same person these families have been intermarrying for so long that.. they all look a bit similar lol!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kyrie Senior Member United States clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5731 days ago 207 posts - 231 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 48 of 58 11 April 2010 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know a few people who tell me that they "can speak" Russian, but since I don't know this language I couldn't test their claimed mastery. But I will give my Speech teacher credit for acquiring some skill with this language because his accent is almost flawless. (Being one to love foreign films, I know how Russian sounds.)
I will have to agree with this guy, however. Learning to speak a Category IV language just like a native is next to impossible for 98% of the English-speaking population. It takes a true scholar/linguist who understands the twists and turns of Russian grammar/syntax. But is it impossible? I wouldn't say that. After all, people used to say it was impossible to pull a two-ton minivan with your eyelashes. But they were wrong! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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