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The usefulness of Russian... | ||
Tags: Usefulness | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| roots Newbie United States Joined 4771 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes | Message 18 of 21 08 April 2011 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, i was born in Russia, but my family migrated to USA in 1994. I was 14 years old then. I always thought I spoke good Russian, but recently realized that my Russian was at the level of a 14 year old child. I read a letter by Pushkin to his Father, and I realized that when I spoke Russian I sound like an uneducated bigot. In conversation many words are substituted by English words, and it happened to many of my Russian speaking friends. I found a need to relearn and rediscover russian all over again.
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| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4891 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 19 of 21 08 April 2011 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To me there is a clear difference between a sexist comment and a joke meant to poke playfully and kindly at people, be it regarding sex, culture, hair colour (may I specify that I'm a redhead), or whatever else. This means that the whole point of my writing what I wrote was to have women read it and feel amusingly teased (not 100% sure about the word "tease" here - in French we say "taquiner"). If I offended anyone, I am sorry. I won't say anything else regarding this matter on this thread since it clearly is a useless digression from the discussion taking place here. If you or anyone else wishes to discuss this further, please do so with me, via private messages. Edited by FrostBlast on 08 April 2011 at 7:21pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5826 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 20 of 21 09 April 2011 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Definitely one good reason, and Finland also has a common border with Russia. I wonder if there is demand for speakers of Russian in the rest of Europe.
The expressive power of a language is determined primarily by your mastery. Human languages are incredibly flexible; And infinitely extendible. It is your mind that can be rich or poor, not the language. So I don't buy the argument Russian is linguistically powerful, wonderfully expressive, or magical in some way. But I agree it gives access to a huge body of literature. I'm a fan of Soviet-era science fiction (Strugatsky etc), it would be fun to read it in the original. I could learn the language just to indulge this hobby of mine. But is it practical? Hmm... I'm still not convinced. Edited by Sennin on 09 April 2011 at 11:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| FrostBlast Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4891 days ago 168 posts - 254 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Icelandic | Message 21 of 21 10 April 2011 at 12:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
What I meant comes down much more to matters of personal tastes, life-experiences, interests and personal background in general, rather than a language being "magical" in any far-fetched sense. But your comment made me realize something else as well. To me, learning Russian is forever attached to Russian history, art and achievements. In my mind, I'm learning the language of Dostoevsky, Tarkovsky, Einsenstein, Pushkin, Gagarin, Stalin, the Tsars, Andrei Rublev, Alexander Nevsky, the heirs of Byzantium, etc. Everything about Russian, in my mind, relates to this - I think it's a large part of what makes the language so interesting to me. Edited by FrostBlast on 10 April 2011 at 12:09am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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