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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6422 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes  Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 25 of 66 05 August 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A friend of mine got the top first in Russian at Oxford and, despite this, still claimed not to be any good at the language. Accordingly, he applied for jobs that used his other major - French - but didn't dare touch application forms that requested Russian. That is somewhat discouraging, isn't it.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 66 05 August 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, just to cheer up those who want to tackle Russian: the writing is not a problem, the vocabulary isn't a problem, reading is a problem that can be overcome - it is just the tiny little detail of getting all the elements to stick together in something that a native Russian can accept that is a bit hard. And I would also like to mention that even my mediocre Russian has proved its worth in the study of other Slavic languages. I have visited the ex-Jugoslav countries before, for instance as late as last year. By then I could read Bulgarian street signs and other simple texts, and sometimes I could even understand spoken Bulgarian. However Serbian, Makedonian and Croatian seemed further away, but now - just one year later - I can almost read Serbian texts without training. So my conclusion is that it isn't a waste of time studying Russian, - it takes longer, but then you get the other Slavic languages almost for free as part of the deal. Go for it! Edited by Iversen on 05 August 2009 at 11:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7224 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 27 of 66 05 August 2009 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It is possible to tackle Russian. I agree with Iversen that it, more or less, requires one's undivided attention. I respectfully disagree, however, that vocabulary is not an issue. The vocabulary is immense; and while a fair number of words will be recognizable to speakers of West European languages, the size of the native Slavic lexicon is still gigantic.
I have been studying Russian for about seven years, and I still come across words I wasn't familiar with. Often it is yet another synonym. The grammar is, overall, not extremely difficult. The difficulty lies in learning to instinctively use the multitude of verbal prefixes, the many, many exceptions to the case system in random words, and the largely unpredictable stress both between similar words and in the declension of many "irregular" nouns. I would also disagree that one gets the other Slavic languages for free in learning Russian. I've been learning Ukrainian for about year, and while reading it is largely transparent, there are still thousands of words which are either somewhat different or completely different. This makes it much harder to understand than one would think and impossible to speak correctly without significant training. But I would agree that it makes learning the next Slavic language much, much easier. Once again, it is possible, but it requires a lot of work. To that end, I would recommend those starting Russian not to distract themselves with other languages (something I was guilty of at times). Edited by Seth on 05 August 2009 at 11:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 66 06 August 2009 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was studying the Russian language for a year and my impression was that this language has an irregular grammar which makes it difficult to learn. I don't like extremely irregular languages so much. Another point against Russian was that I am not so interested in Russian culture. So for this language I never had a strong motivation to learn it, as I have it for my other language projects. Learning Turkish is also not an easy game and seeing other people having difficulties with Russian reminds me of all the mistakes I make with Turkish. However, for me this is no hinderance, I just continue my learning project, which will last for years anyway.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 06 August 2009 at 12:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6120 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 29 of 66 06 August 2009 at 1:03am | IP Logged | |||||
That's not suprising. School is mostly a waste of time. Its common here in the States for people to get degrees in French and other foreign languages from prestigious universities without being able to actually speak those languages at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5861 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 66 06 August 2009 at 1:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Might I suggest Thai? There is no better place to vacation.
This is encouraging. Russian will be my next, and last target language that I want to learn beyond basic conversation. My only strong point in learning, maybe my only point at all in learning, is conversation, so it sounds like I have a shot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 31 of 66 06 August 2009 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Don't they get a year abroad at Oxford?? As far as I know, language majors in decent universities have a compulsory year abroad. I don't see how anyone can end up completely in the dark after a whole year in Russia. Edited by Sennin on 06 August 2009 at 1:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5861 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English* | Message 32 of 66 06 August 2009 at 2:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Do tell. For everybody, or just the posters friend? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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