Russian?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Scholarly Pursuits
Forum Name: Linguistics
Forum Discription: Discuss linguistics: the study of languages
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25283
Printed Date: 12-May-2024 at 15:22
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Russian?
Posted By: Kevin
Subject: Russian?
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 02:15
| I'm trying to learn Russian, how hard is it and does anyone have any advice in terms of learning it? |
Replies:
Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 09:55
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Advice? Well, I've tried to learn it for years now, but my poor head isn't up for it. So, I guess you can work as hard as possible, and still not make a difference if it's not meant for you... ------------- |
Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 11:06
| Well, the Swedish surveillence conscripts learn it in 6 months, so I guess it should be possible. Personally I find it difficult though, I've been planning to learn it, but haven't *really* started. The alphabeth is a threshold. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 11:31
|
...having been with my Russian partner for some 3 and half years now, my Russian language ability remains appallingly bad, i still can only manage a few basic words such as 'thank you', 'your welcome', 'how are you?', 'fine', 'grandmother', grandfather', and a motley collection of swear words..!!....
....most of what i know refers mainly to my 2 year old son....'come here', 'don't put that in your mouth', 'lunchtime', that kind of thing.....my son actually understands more Russian than me which is quite scary...!!!...still, my failings are down to a touch of laziness combined with the English incapability of learning anyone else's language while still struggling with my own!!!...
 ..good luck Kevin, and i hope you can do better than me!!!......AoO... ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 16:37
The British equivalent used to take a year to bring interpreters/interrogators up to degree standard in the language (not the literature, though I will always remember having to read Crime and Punishment in the original, which is both a crime and a punishment). There was a shorter course (nine months?) for translators and radio monitors.
But that was close to total immersion, at least during the working day.
I'm not sure about advice, but your biggest srumbling block won't be the alphabet, which will only be a problem for a few days, it will be getting to understand the verb forms. You probably need to concentrate more on them than anything else. The rest isn't really any more difficult than learning German or any other I-E language (that's coming from English anyway). ------------- |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 16:37
 6 month?It's impossible. Russian is a very difficult language with a crazy grammar and a complicated spoken language.
You of course can learn some basics at home but for more or less good command of Russian you would need to Russia and spend there some years.
I, personally, saw very few foreigners with good command of Russian. ------------- Σαυρομάτης 
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Posted By: Al Jassas
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 18:54
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Get a job there.
Al-Jassas
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Posted By: Roberts
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 18:57
| Find Russian friends and play football and drink together - thats how I learned Russian language. |
Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 19:06
|
Well. I must say Sarmat is right, for the first time from my point of view. The grammar is crazy - I've tried to learn four conjugations (of a total of six, I believe) for nearly three years and I still don't understand them.
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Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 29-Aug-2008 at 21:29
Sorry, for going off topic.
Dear Rider, I hope you could you make an effort and read some other posts of mine besides those in the several Georgia-Russia threads. ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 30-Aug-2008 at 20:46
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I won't. Sorry, [Or, only if you give me a link... ] ------------- |
Posted By: mamikon
Date Posted: 30-Aug-2008 at 22:34
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Russian grammar is really hard...so I would concentrate on that |
Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 31-Aug-2008 at 11:04
I checked it was more than 6 months, rather a year. You learn almost 1500 words per month, and there are vocabulary and grammatical tests each week. If you fail you're out. Too obvious to say, but many fail. Or used to at least, I think they cancelled these services because of lack of money. |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 31-Aug-2008 at 13:47
Both in Britain and in Sweden I suspect we are talking virtual total immersion in the language. All our instructors were Russian emigres or defectors except for a couple of Poles and a Yugoslav (you didn't ask what kind in those days), and you did nothing else - inside normal military working hours - but study Russian. Studying the Red army and its tactics and organisation and so on came later.
Granted you still didn't end up with native mother-tongue fluency in the language. In Britain, as in Sweden, if you failed the regular tests you were dumped ('back-squadded'), and since that very likely meant being downgraded from officer cadet to sergeant on the lower level course, or back to the infantry as a private from there, the motivation to succeed was pretty high. About 5,000 people went through the course in the decade or so it was running.
There's a book Secret Classrooms by an ex-colleague of mine[1] on the British system, which was declassified in the early nineties.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Classrooms-Untold-Story-Cold/dp/1903608139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220186635&sr=1-1 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Classrooms-Untold-Story-Cold/dp/1903608139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220186635&sr=1-1
[1] Now Professor Emeritus of Russian at Oxford.
PS: If I recall correctly, the equivalent course in Chinese took 2 1/2 years, so it was not open to conscripts serving only two years. Russian isn't as difficult to a Western European as unrelated languages elsewhere are.
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