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Ceasing study of a language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 17 of 24 10 February 2010 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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To thread starter:
I think you have been exposed to too much negative perspectives from the western media. Russia, like my native land China, always receive negative images from the negative news reported by the western media. More often than not, I can always expect from the western news that Russia (or China for that matter) has grave social problems, social unrest, racial problem, economic opponent of the west etc. I have been to Russia and I can tell that there is almost nothing that the Western media has reported. To my surprise, there are Russians who addressed me as brother! You certainly do not expect that if Russia is dominated by racist, don't you? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mdkhoury Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 24 11 February 2010 at 5:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Doviende, your post was very helpful, thanks. In regards to most other posters... I don't
have any exposure to "the media." I don't own a television and I don't read American newspapers or magazines. My original post may have come off rather blunt, but your assumptions that I gobble up vulgar media are just as poor. Most of my sources have been from friends and acquaintances from Europe, word-of-mouth (Yes, I'm aware this isn't objectively reliable,) and research, or scholarly sources, if you will. I should have just said "I don't have a great interest in contemporary Russia, and only wanted to learn it to read." I wasn't aware I would be starting such a heated thread. Thank you to all for sharing your opinions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6618 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 19 of 24 11 February 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My only advice to the OP is, don't quit on a foreign language because of a few bad apples. There are racists in every culture but they don't necessarily represent their countries. Heck, there are even KKK and skinhead gangs in America but that doesn't prevent English from being the most widely studied language on the planet.
I think what probably happened to the OP is he tried to practice his Russian a few times with some native speakers and they ridiculed him for learning Russian when "everybody knows English." OP, I think being able to read in a foreign language is a great reason to learn the language, even if you don't have a great "contemporary interest." And there is no shortage of good literature in Russian. In many big cities across Europe and America, you'll be able to find Russian expats that you can be friends with and practice your Russian. And after all that hard work, at the end of the day you'll have an accomplishment to be proud of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mdkhoury Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 24 11 February 2010 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Someone please close this thread, for our collective good. No, I wasn't ridiculed by native
speakers. As a matter of fact, Russian ex-pats were puzzled why I'd even attempt, because they left Russia and never wanted to look back. I was mostly influenced by friends and other people who had visited Russia as foreigners, and they very much discouraged me to even think about going there. I'm not easily persuaded, but some stories left me quite troubled. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wilco Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6330 days ago 160 posts - 247 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian | Message 21 of 24 11 February 2010 at 6:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Can you elaborate on those stories? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| unityandoutside Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6014 days ago 94 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin, Mandarin | Message 22 of 24 11 February 2010 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not that this is any excuse, but young Russians have much to be frustrated about. And, like has been stated many times in this thread, no nation is without its bad apples. It could certainly be argued that contemporary Russia has more than its share, but for the most part these types will not be the kind you will by likely to encounter in your studies, as their bigotry is in most cases a product of their poverty. And in my experience, if you speak the language, you should have little problem making sincere friends among the Russian people. Learn some Pushkin by heart and you'll be golden ;) (yes, I'm aware that this is quite a generalization, but it does have some basis in reality). If the Russians ridicule you for learning their "useless" language, tell them that you learned French first. And even if contemporary Russia doesn't interest you at all, there's enough non-contemporary Russia to last you a lifetime. On the other hand, if you really have completely lost interest, you should probably should move on to a language that you can really fall in love with. But don't completely close yourself off to Russian. The time may come when you become interested again. Edited by unityandoutside on 11 February 2010 at 6:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nadia Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5514 days ago 50 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Hindi | Message 23 of 24 11 February 2010 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't think this thread is heated at all... If you've completely lost interest, it's quite all right. Of course, as a Russian, I think there are a lot of good and interesting cultural things to be enjoyed when you know Russian, like books and movies. It's all right to walk away from a language but I just wouldn't want you to walk away with a notion that Russians are all racist or something because of a few stories.
As I said, it does seem that there is basis now to claim the existence of bigotry and racism on the part of some imbeciles in Russia, which is very-very sad. Russia has always been a multinational country. We used to live quite peacefully with representatives of various nationalitites. There's Kazan which is the capital of Tatarstan, with about 50% Muslim and 40% Russian population (plus other nationalities) and it seems everything's ok there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cherepaha Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6589 days ago 126 posts - 175 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Polish, Latin, French | Message 24 of 24 21 February 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Coming from a person who has university degrees from both Russian and American universities, and who has been in the work force for about ten years since graduation, I can say that hardly anyone I know works in the field they’d studied for. Hence, the idea of wasting time in studying is somewhat dubious to me. You study in order to broaden your ability to understand how the world functions. You study to enhance your enjoyment of a great variety of things in life (things that if you are not familiar with will fly right by you without leaving any trace on your consciousness). The more you know the more interesting your life could be. So, I would say, whether you continue with the language or not, there is no need to regret the wasted time – whatever you'd learned through that study may just come in handy at the most unexpected time.
All I can say is that my Mexican husband with a noticeably darker skin tone and generally an appearance where he gets taken for a Native American in the U.S. has never once been harassed in Moscow during the two years that we spent living there after grad school. My Caucasian looking jewish friend, on the other hand, had rocks thrown at her in Chicago last year, when she went to listen to a gospel choir in a black church. So, it is definitely wise to exercise common caution while in a large city.
You can definitely just go for reading texts in any language and not invest any time in speaking it. It’s a very recent development that we have access to the audio and video materials of the languages we study. Historically just written texts were available, so the majority of language learners throughout the history read in other languages first and spoke them, if at all, only when they were wealthy enough to travel or hire a foreign born governess, etc. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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