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Do Russians find English difficult? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 25 of 28 20 March 2010 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
I'm from England and have only very rarely heard it being expressed in that way - I've never heard anyone say "I've got cold" and I'd never say that myself, either. I have however heard some people say "you'll catch cold" - but that sounds like a somewhat childish way of saying it to me. Saying that, it may be a northern England thing - I live near London. I would always say "I have a cold/I've got a cold" and "I have the flu/I've got the flu". I'd like to suggest another possibility concerning articles, although I've only just now really thought of it so it might not hold any water at all. "I have a cold" - I agree with the reasons we say "a" instead of "the" which have been discussed before. BUT "I think I have caught *the* cold which has been going around" - do relative clauses prefer the use of definite articles instead of indefinites? Just another small question to throw in. Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 20 March 2010 at 11:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5818 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 26 of 28 21 March 2010 at 5:52am | IP Logged | ||
This is really interesting because my Korean students have the exact same problems. 1. Same for Korean speakers. The article will haunt and evade even the highest level students. Something I tell my students when you learn a new noun, put 'a' in front of it if it's countable and singular (for example, a chair). A Korean speaker and I assume a Russian speaker will look at an object and think "pen" but an English speaker would think "a pen". We can't think of it any other way so try to learn it the same way we did as babies. It's a completely different perspective. 2. Too many tenses - I completely agree with this. If I remember Spanish has one or two extra tenses and it completely destroys me. One way to practise is to tell a story about the present ("I live in Russia. I've lived here for 10 years. I'm going to a restaurant now etc") then tell it in the past ("I lived in Russia. Before I came to England, I'd lived in Russia for 10 years etc"), then in the future ("I will live in Russia [intention], I'm going to live there for 10 years [pre-arranged plan], By 2012 I will have lived there for 2 years [future present perfect] etc). 3. Prepositions are a nightmare (Korean has about 1 preposition for in/on/at and though it has quite a few particles, their uses are quite distinct/functional so prepositions are tough). Again this kills my Spanish ("I'm of loved with you" huh?). Mixing prepositions and Phrasal verbs together gets worse (the 3 types of "He sat down"; "He turned the light on/He turned it on", "He looks after his family"). Not a single preposition there (technically they're particles) and it's still tricky. With Phrasal verbs you can learn the types and then categorize them/use them in that manner for future (there are so many phrasal verbs though). With prepositions the best thing is to remember a list of them depending on use (location = in a park, on a bench; time = at night, in 5 minutes) and in their seperate categories of in/on/at etc ("at 5pm, at midnight" etc). 4. Vowel sounds - ship/sheep etc. Yeah exactly the same for my students even though Korean has many vowel sounds (but doesnt' formally distinguish between a 'short e' and a 'long e'). The best thing to do is to practise the two sounds seperately out of context. Then record your voice saying them while listening to a CD of a native saying them for comparison. Finally do a tongue twister (Sheep, Ship, Sheep. Ship, Ship, Sheep. Sheep, Sheep, Ship etc) with a native speaker listening to you. 5. That has to be tricky. In that sentence, because it's a command ("Do this", "Call me" etc) there's no way of distinguishing it from a noun unless you notice there's no article there (but that's even more difficult as you already mentioned). Two good books at what I think is your level: English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy [a high quality workbook. There's an advanced and elementary version as well. This one is elementary to at least upper intermediate]. I see non-native English teachers using this all the time. I'd argue it's almost essential. New English File: Intermediate by Clive Oxenden. Though it's more of a classbook (you can find a workbook and there's practise in the book) it's very good for this level of English learning. If you can find a school that uses this text (London School of English for example), then it should help you a lot. I hope some of this helps. Edited by crafedog on 21 March 2010 at 4:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 27 of 28 22 March 2010 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the input, everyone. I've expected that Russians would have some trouble with the articles, as I did when I was learning it.
One more question, how long (relatively) does an English speaker take to become fluent at Russian, and how long does it take vice versa, assuming they put in the same amount of effort at the same kind of environment? Edited by chucknorrisman on 22 March 2010 at 12:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tiberius Diglot Groupie Moldova lawinmoldova.blogspoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6288 days ago 70 posts - 85 votes Studies: Romanian, Russian*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 28 of 28 23 March 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I've been learn English since the 5th form at school. And still I can't say I
master it. The major problem is, YES, articles. I still can't get a clue on how to use them correctly. Yes, I know the rules. My grammar book contains the most detailed explanation of the article usage that I've ever seen. But all the rules just don't help. Simply because they don't apply to most of the situations. So, I read the rules of the articles usage. Then I look into any text, see an article used in a particular situation and understand that this particular usage simply doesn't fall into any rule that I've learned. And it doesn't happen just from time to time. There's always such a problem. I have a reference book at hand, look up certain rules and still can't get why that article is there. Or NO artcile. So, the rules are unlikely to cover even 60 % of all the situations when articles are used. Tenses had been a big problem for a long time until I met a good teacher who explained the very idea that underlies the way there're used. I still make mistake, but generally all the tenses follow a certain logical scheme, and if you understand this scheme there should be no problem. BTW, those who speak that Russian has only 3 tenses probably forget about the perfect and imperfect aspects (совершенный и несовершенный вид). For example: Я сделаю. - Я буду делать. Он гулял. - Он погулял. So, it's not always that easy in Russian :) Then comes the idiomatic character of English. So many idioms, so many phrasal verbs. They sometimes make me feel like I will learn English for the rest of my life. Yes, prepositions are often a big problem as well. I don't think that vowels are a serious impediment (as well as the rest of sounds). It's just about getting used to the pronounciation and training the comprehension skills. Having the possibility nowadays to watch tens and hundreds of films in English (be it British or American films) you can sort it out. And still, trying to analyse the differences bw these two languages I think that for English speakers it would be more difficult to learn Russian than for a Russian speaker to learn English. All those permanently changing endings, suffixes, 6 cases and many other nuances. I can hardly imagine learning them if I were not a native Russian speaker. So, those of you, mates, who learn Russian, I really wish you success and courage! :) Edited by Tiberius on 23 March 2010 at 10:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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