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Is Russian worth learning nowadays? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6701 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 9 of 38 22 February 2010 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the other advantages to learning Russian is that a large number of Russians are traveling, either for business or to emigrate. I don't know how many times when traveling through Asia that overheard conversations in Russian at the airports. The Russian expats have a strong sense of community, too, so it would expand your social contacts.
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| 843 Tetraglot Newbie Singapore Joined 5437 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Indonesian*, English, Malay, Mandarin Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 38 22 February 2010 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Absolutely!! Russia is a leading nation in science and physics, especially rocketry
(which I love!) This is one main reason I'm learning Russian. It takes a lot of drive and motivation to learn a language to a high level, and a love of the language and culture are excellent motivators I agree, but it's also a lot easier to learn a whole new language to a beginner/intermediate level, compared to advancing a learned language to fluency. French and Spanish are definitely not SO much more useful than Russian, in a political/economic sense, to justify this imbalance. As an Asian living in Southeast Asia, I hardly get ANY exposure to Russian. I don't think I've even heard of spoken Russian in real life. It's much easier to learn the more popular languages. And what precisely does "useful" mean to you? Most language learners are not too heavily involved in the economic aspects of their language anyway. Usefulness in my case refers to the usage of said language in real life settings, such as for reading an occasional novel or to be able to converse with friends in their native tongue. Language learning is just a casual hobby for me, but it is one that is very worthwhile. Edited by 843 on 22 February 2010 at 7:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 38 22 February 2010 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Which is precisely why, to be brutal, there is less economic incentive for an English speaker to learn another language. Sure, languages may help you get some jobs, but for the most part those jobs are not well paid (e.g. translating, or working in a call center). But the advantage pales in comparison (assuming you are an English speaker) to learning some high value business area. When I ran my own business I spent time in China, in Saudi Arabia, in the United Arab Emirates, in Turkey, in Spain, and in plenty of other many other countries. I cannot think of a single time where it was necessary for financial reasons to learn the local language. In almost every case the people I dealt with spoke good to excellent English (this is often close to essential for high level business appointments in many countries) or there were plenty of interpreters on hand. Far more valuable than language knowledge was knowledge of the industry in which the clients worked (primarily Oil and Banking in my case). So, if it is money you are interested in, you may be well advised to spend the thousands of hours it takes to learn a language doing something else that gives a greater economic benefit. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 843 Tetraglot Newbie Singapore Joined 5437 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Indonesian*, English, Malay, Mandarin Studies: French, German | Message 12 of 38 22 February 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree Splog, financial incentive is a very poor motivator. I only learn languages
because I'm passionate about them. PS: Is there any reason why all my posts are wrapped? Edited by 843 on 22 February 2010 at 7:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 13 of 38 22 February 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'd rather not answer the first part of your question because it's blatantly political and responses here would probably lead to this thread eventually getting locked. However if you love the culture and language, that should far outweigh any economic considerations. I'd say keep that you should continue with Russian if it keeps you happy. Over the past 50 years, the economic argument for learning languages has been used quite a bit but I've observed that it's often naive and actually distorts the discussion. During the 1970s, German was pushed as THE language for science, technology and business. In the 1980s, Japanese was pushed in a similar way (especially in business - it was sometimes extreme enough that I met some American businesspeople trying to "get into character" by likening themselves to samurais with their disciplined/martial ethos). In the 1990s, Russian was pushed in a similar way as some Westerners started salivating at the prospects of Russia's transition from Communism to (state-)Capitalism. In the 21st century, Spanish in the USA, and Mandarin globally have been pushed in a similar way as Latin America's buying power slowly rises while China has the apparent promise of 1,000,000,000 pairs of armpits (as a salesman from the consumer staples industry once put it to me). The only times I've seen where economic considerations should become important for learning a language are if someone has a single-minded approach from day 1 to work with people speaking the target language down the road (and even then there's no guarantee of getting that job in the future), or if someone sees a job posting or gets a job-offer which as a condition of acceptance requires that he/she learn or already know that target language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dantalian Diglot Senior Member Bouvet Island Joined 5681 days ago 125 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 14 of 38 22 February 2010 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Future is always vague.:) If you've meant mostly economic future then much depends on oil and gas prices. Try to predict them and you'll have the answer. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6124 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 15 of 38 22 February 2010 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree, maybe it's hard to imagine for non-English speakers, but for us to study a language, and to benefit economically from it here in the USA is pretty rare. That's because most jobs that require language are filled by immigrants who are native speakers. The standards for actually using a language in a job are quite high. Here, language learning is like taking up knitting or something like this. Theoretically it might be possible to benefit from this, but as an investment in time versus money earned it doesn't pay off. I study Japanese and Finnish only for my own personal pleasure. Really, that is enough. If anything comes of this, well, that's nice, but I'm not counting on it. Anyway, to drag this back on topic, from this perspective, Russian is as good as any other language. If you like it, go for it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5574 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 16 of 38 23 February 2010 at 12:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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In my opinion, Russian is a great language to learn rich in culture, history, literature
and it is a major lingua franca with several hundred million speakers. The language is very wide spread over a large geographic area, unlike some languages with many speakers but contained within a small area. In short the study of any new language opens doors and languages from different families open up new ways of thinking and communicating. Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 23 February 2010 at 12:55am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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