If you adhere to proper nutrition, then avocados are probably in ...
Today, September 26, the European Day of Languages \u200b\u200bis celebrated - with the aim of maintaining linguistic diversity, bilingualism of every European, developing the teaching of various languages in the world and their study.
Our experts from different countries answered the question "" - "Why should foreigners learn Russian?"
Elena Eremenko prepared a material on multilingualism in Europe.
My brother and I were ordinary Soviet children, very independent. Like everyone else, we ourselves were going to school, we ourselves went to different circles-sections, entertained ourselves while our parents were at work. Then, quite a long time ago, we had a favorite game - when the rhythms of foreign pop music or songs performed by artists of the Union republics sounded on Mayak radio - we played the game invented by us "Guess the language" - the one who guessed in what language the song sounded won.
I must say that it was quite difficult, the sound background of radio and television in those distant years of our childhood was surprisingly polyphonic.
Languages of the Warsaw Pact countries, polyphony Soviet Union- all this linguistic diversity sounded daily, sang in radio receivers. Remember how everyone joked about the mandatory quota for all "fraternal peoples" at any holiday concert? But on the other hand, I can still learn most of the languages \u200b\u200bof the former Soviet Union and, in fact, I am very happy when, somewhere in Berlin, in a museum where tourists from all over the world are crowded, I recognize not only Polish speech, but also guess Latvians and Estonians .
Today, September 26, Europe, where I now live, celebrates a wonderful holiday, the European Day of Languages.
The idea is very nice - there are 47 states in Europe, many languages, and it is important that all these languages are preserved, not gone into oblivion. A few years ago, a large and much needed campaign was launched in Europe to promote the policy of multilingualism. Its goal is to keep European languages and ensure that every inhabitant of a united Europe has the opportunity to master the languages of neighboring countries.
This very wise decision should have protected European languages from the onslaught of the English language, which, of course, continues to be very popular in all corners of Europe. And, as a rule, it is English that Europeans choose for interethnic communication, forgetting that there are many other opportunities.
It even seems to me that multilingualism in Europe has somehow not worked out yet. At least in the most advanced in all matters, Germany - if you turn on the radio, the only foreign language, of course, will be English.
You'll be lucky if you find Radio Kultura - there you can hear some Italian, French, Spanish and maybe more Portuguese. But what about other languages, you ask. And there are none, practically, they do not sound. And this is very sad.
Why teach Russian to foreigners? This question was answered by residents of several European countries.
Snezhana Bodishteanu ( Malta): Oh... If you start with humor, then - firstly: find yourself a Russian beauty! Secondly: US government agencies are now recruiting specialists with knowledge of Russian ...
Well, from my point of view: the Russian language, in spite of everything, is the main one in science, since most of the laboratories in the West are under the guidance of specialists nurtured by Russia.
And one more thing - if you learn Russian, then a foreigner can get a very strong language for free. technical education at our Russian university.
If we talk further about the promotion of linguistic diversity, then we need to go to bookstores and look at translated literature. Here the picture is somewhat rosier - a lot of translated literature from the Polish language, the result of long-term cultural projects. It goes without saying that the quality factor also played - Polish literature is interesting reading.
As for literature, for example, the Baltic countries, here is a failure. It is difficult to judge how things are with the authors now, but as a child I read fairy tales of Lithuanians and Latvians and, by the way, I also learned about the island of Saaremaa thanks to a book about the adventures of an Estonian boy. Then I always wanted to visit those places, I memorized words from these languages with pleasure and still remember them.
If we talk about practice - about learning a language, you need to look at what is happening at school. As the first foreign children, as a rule, they learn English, this is understandable. And then, you need to choose a second foreign language, often from the fifth grade, but there are not so many offers and the situation has not changed due to the growth of the European Union. The language policy of Germany was influenced only by an agreement with its neighbor France, on the symmetrical study of languages.
Ravid Gore (Israel): The role of Russia in the world economy and geopolitics is constantly growing in last years. It is useful for foreigners to learn Russian in order to discover new opportunities in different areas activities: business, politics, culture, media. Especially given the fact that Russian is still slightly easier to learn than its closest competitor, Chinese.
A foreigner who speaks Russian will get a huge advantage over competitors, and as a bonus, he will always be able to feel at home in a vast territory the globe, finding mutual language with representatives of more than one and a half hundred nationalities.
In the set of offers of German schools, Spanish is the leader, which everyone wants to learn, but there are not so many opportunities, and French, which children do not choose so willingly. But here they did without democracy: French was ordered to be taught, so that German was taught in France - such an exchange. There is Latin, but not much of it either.
A slightly different picture at universities - there is a larger choice of languages in the language centers, you can find Czech, Polish, but the rest of the linguistic diversity of Europe is still uncharted land.
And what about the Russian, at this celebration of life?
How are things, for example, in Germany? The Russian language is not for Germany the language of a neighboring country and does not belong to the language of the national minorities of the European Union, therefore it does not fall under the rules formulated by the policy of multilingualism. (But you need to remember that Russian is a neighbor language for several EU countries.)
Well, not everything is so bad here - the Russian language has its own special destiny and road in Germany. Of course, the Russian language is heard here quite often - several million of our compatriots have moved here for permanent residence and Russian remains the first language of communication in their families for them. Russian, as a rule, is also spoken by citizens who are already free, independent states- Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries, Armenians, Georgians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs - the generation that is over thirty.
Our compatriots opened hundreds of schools with their public organizations, where you can learn the language on weekends, there are already schools full cycle. These schools from the very beginning were designed not only for children from Russian-speaking families, but also for those Germans who want to learn Russian.
Ekaterina Blinova-Villeron(France): "Judging by the foreigners who go to our courses, this is a business - they already work in companies cooperating with Russia.
And personal life - married to a Russian, or going to.
There is another contingent, small - just like it as an unusual hobby.
By the way, on September 26-27, the Coordinating Council of German Compatriots is holding a round table In Russian. The German Pushkin Society is currently meeting in Weimar. Still, the Russian language belongs to Europe and life only confirms this!
The Russian language is taught in German schools - much more in the eastern lands than in the western ones. It is often chosen by the children of those who learned the language in GDR times, often families explain the choice by the fact that they expect to help the child, based on their knowledge.
Politics, politics and nothing personal
Until relatively recently, Russian experienced a real surge of interest in Germany and was willingly taught, hoping for professional growth and future careers. Now there is a new situation for the Russian language. And this is not even connected with the crisis of the last two years; Slavic scholars sounded the alarm a few years ago.
In higher schools and universities, departments of Slavic studies were closed everywhere, and this naturally affected the reduction of Russian. But a delicate balance was maintained - there was a surge in the activity of German-Russian business, and Russian was no longer taught in Slavic, but in other places, for example, in technical universities and language centers. And Russian even grew, reaching the fifth place (104 thousand students) among foreign languages in schools and universities, ahead of Italian, Turkish and Greek.
Two years of tension and a year of sanctions have not fundamentally changed the situation, but trends have emerged.
Ludmila Sigel(Sweden): If people learned Russian, they would be able to figure out what is going on themselves, but for now they will be thrown media in their language, then they will swallow it. The global threat is terrorism, and Russia is leading a coalition against the most terrible threat to the world. So you need to be able to communicate with this main force, so learn the language.
And yet - how can I tell them about the war, about the stories of my father, uncle, mother-in-law, about what they experienced? If they understand the Russian language, they will be able to learn from EVERY Russian what horror EVERY family has experienced, what losses, because people here do not know anything about 27 million. They would understand HOW we "WANT" war. I would tell them that people here really say, like my friend’s grandmother: “Oh, granddaughter, we will survive everything, if only there was no war.”
They would still understand our jokes, our humor, ditties, they would laugh with us to tears.
The author of the article refers to a specialist from the Goethe Institute, who determines the conditions that affect the choice of language - the more economically developed the country, the more interest in its language. The ease of learning also affects the choice: if you can learn a close language, they choose it: this, according to the author of the article, explains the success of French in Moldova.
The author believes that the historical factor also plays a role, they say, in countries of Eastern Europe taught German, as the language of the "fraternal GDR" - and this is still valid. Here you stumble a little - the logical arguments of the Goethe Institute specialist give some kind of failure when they touch the Russian language. In his opinion, Russian plays practically no role for European students and is of little interest to them, except for the Baltic countries, where many Russian speakers live. That is, the author directly refutes his statement about historical connections, made a paragraph earlier.
After all, it is clear that in the countries of the Warsaw Pact, Russian was taught more often than German. But German for some reason continues to be historically in demand because of the memory of the "fraternal GDR", while Russian is not, the author is sure.
It is even more surprising that this is said by an employee of the Goethe Institute, an organization that is called upon to popularize the German language in Russia (where it is still second only to English). It is impossible to explain such logic by anything other than political engagement.
Well, how will Russia take it and say that German is no longer interesting for Russian schoolchildren? After all, this is exactly what happened in France, when they began to abandon bilingual classes with the German language. Germany has already sounded the alarm, the Minister of Education spoke on this topic.
But let's get back to Russian - and we will give the opinion of scientists.
Scientists reveal the language of the future by exploring social networks and using wikipedia. It also dominates English language, a sure first place. But then the picture is somewhat different than in the statistics of learning Russian in schools. More precisely, it is radically different: in social networks and work with Wikipedia, Russian is ahead of all other languages - it is in second place, followed by Spanish and French. Such widespread world languages as Hindi, Arabic and Chinese (Mandarin) are very far from the aforementioned leaders.
Conclusion: if you want to be understood in the future, English, Spanish, French, Russian remain important for you - these are the languages from which and into which most of the books are translated, used on the multilingual Internet, and in Wikipedia translations. - and scientists conclude that it is more profitable to study these four languages.
So, with all of us a holiday of European languages!
Elena Eremenko
P.S. Dear readers! Do you have your own answer - why should foreigners learn Russian? Write to the editor, leave a comment under this material, respond to
September 26 is the European Day of Languages. Russian compatriots from different countries answered the question - "Why should foreigners learn Russian?"
The languages of the Warsaw Pact countries, the polyphony of the Soviet Union - all this linguistic diversity sounded daily on television, sang on radios. Remember how everyone joked about the mandatory quota for all "fraternal peoples" at any holiday concert? But on the other hand, I can still learn most of the languages of the former Soviet Union and I am very happy when in Berlin, in a museum where tourists from all over the world hustle, I recognize not only Polish speech, but guess Latvians and Estonians.
On September 26, Europe, where I now live, celebrates a wonderful holiday, the European Day of Languages. The idea is very nice: there are 47 states in Europe, many languages, and it is important that all these languages be preserved. Several years ago, a large and much needed campaign was launched to promote the policy of multilingualism. Its goal is to preserve European languages and ensure that every inhabitant of a united Europe has the opportunity to master the languages of neighboring countries.
This very wise decision should protect the European languages from the onslaught of the English language, which, of course, continues to be very popular in all corners of Europe. And, as a rule, it is English that Europeans choose for interethnic communication, forgetting that there are many other possibilities.
It even seems to me that multilingualism in Europe has somehow not worked out yet. At least in Germany, the most advanced in all matters - if you turn on the radio, the only foreign language will be English.
You'll be lucky if you find Radio Kultura - you can hear a little bit of Italian, French, Spanish and maybe some Portuguese there too.
Why teach Russian to foreigners?
Snezhana Bodisteanu (Malta) :
- If you start with humor, then, firstly, to find yourself a Russian beauty! Secondly, US government agencies are now recruiting specialists with knowledge of Russian ... Well, from my point of view, the Russian language, in spite of everything, is the main one in science, since most Western laboratories are under the guidance of specialists nurtured by Russia . And one more thing - if you learn Russian, then a foreigner can get a very strong technical education for free in our Russian university.
Ravid Gore (Israel) :
- The role of Russia in the world economy and geopolitics has been continuously growing in recent years. It is useful for foreigners to learn Russian in order to open up new opportunities for themselves in various fields of activity: business, politics, culture, and the media. Especially given the fact that Russian is still easier to learn than its closest competitor, Chinese.
A foreigner who speaks Russian will get a huge advantage over competitors, and as a bonus, he will always be able to feel at home on a vast territory of the globe, finding a common language with representatives of more than one and a half hundred nationalities.
Ekaterina Blinova-Villeron (France) :
- Judging by the foreigners who go to our courses, it's a business: they already work in companies cooperating with Russia.
And personal life - married to a Russian, or going to.
There is another contingent, small - just like it as an unusual hobby.
Ludmila Sigel (Sweden):
- If people learned Russian, they themselves could figure out what's going on, but for now - what the media will throw at them in their language, then they swallow it. The global threat is terrorism, and Russia is leading a coalition against the most terrible threat to the world. So it is necessary to be able to communicate with this main force.
And yet - how can I tell about the war, about the memories of my father, uncle, mother-in-law, about what they experienced? If they understand the Russian language, they will be able to learn from every Russian what kind of horror each family experienced, what losses, because people here don’t know anything about 27 million people. They would understand how we "want" war. I would tell them that people here say, like my friend’s grandmother: “Oh, granddaughter, we will survive everything, if only there was no war.”
They would still understand our jokes, our humor, ditties, they would laugh with us to tears.
How are things in Germany?
The Russian language is not for Germany the language of a neighboring country and does not belong to the language of the national minorities of the European Union, therefore it does not fall under the rules formulated by the policy of multilingualism. (But you need to remember that Russian is a neighbor language for several EU countries.)
Leading the German school offerings are Spanish, which everyone wants to learn, but there are not many opportunities, and French, which children are not so willing to choose. But here they did without democracy: French was ordered to be taught, so that German was taught in France - such an exchange.
A slightly different picture at universities - there is a larger choice of languages in the language centers, you can find Czech, Polish.
But the Russian language has its own special destiny and road in Germany. Of course, Russian is heard here quite often - several million of our compatriots have moved to the country for permanent residence. Russian, as a rule, is also spoken by citizens of the former republics of the USSR - the generation over thirty.
Elena Eremenko, editor of the Russian Field website
Our compatriots have opened hundreds of schools at their public organizations, where you can learn the language on weekends, there are already full cycle schools. These institutions are designed not only for children from Russian-speaking families, but also for Germans who want to learn Russian.
By the way, on September 26-27, the Coordinating Council of German Compatriots held a round table on the Russian language in Hamburg. In Weimar these days the German Pushkin Society met. Still, the Russian language belongs to Europe, and life only confirms this.
The Russian language is taught in German schools - much more in the eastern lands than in the western ones. It is often chosen by the children of those who learned the language in GDR times, families explain the choice by the fact that they expect to help the child, relying on their knowledge.
Politics and nothing personal
Until relatively recently, Russian experienced a real surge of interest in Germany, it was taught willingly, hoping for professional growth. Now there is a new situation. And this is not even connected with the crisis of the last two years; Slavic scholars sounded the alarm a few years ago.
Departments of Slavic studies were closed everywhere in higher schools and universities. But a delicate balance was maintained - there was a surge in the activity of German-Russian business, and Russian was no longer taught in Slavic, but in other places, for example, in technical universities and language centers. And Russian even grew, reaching fifth place (104,000 students) among foreign languages in schools and universities, ahead of Italian, Turkish and Greek.
Two years of tension and a year of sanctions have not fundamentally changed the situation, but trends have emerged.
So, recently in "Spiegel" an article was published about what foreign languages and why choose to study in the European Union. A specialist from the Goethe Institute determined the conditions that affect the choice of language - the more economically developed the country, the more interest in its language. The ease of learning also affects the choice: often the choice falls on a close language, which explains the success of French in Moldova. The historical factor also plays a role - in the countries of Eastern Europe they taught German as the language of the "fraternal GDR", and this is still valid.
The logical arguments of the Goethe Institute specialist fail when they touch the Russian language. In his opinion, Russian plays practically no role for European students and is of little interest to them. It turns out that the author directly refutes the statement about historical ties. After all, it is clear that in the countries of the Warsaw Pact, Russian was taught more often than German.
Even more surprising is that this is said by an employee of the Goethe Institute, an organization that is called upon to popularize the German language in Russia (where it is second only to English). It is impossible to explain such logic by anything other than political engagement.
Well, how will Russia take it and say that German is no longer interesting for Russian schoolchildren? After all, this is exactly what happened in France, when they began to abandon bilingual classes with the German language.
Scientists' opinion
Scientists are identifying the language of the future by researching social media and analyzing the use of Wikipedia. English also dominates here - a confident first place. But then the picture is radically different: in social networks and work with Wikipedia, Russian is ahead of all other languages - it is in second place, followed by Spanish and French. Such widespread world languages as Hindi, Arabic and Chinese (Mandarin) are very far from the aforementioned leaders.
Conclusion: if you want to be understood in the future, English, Spanish, French, Russian remain important for you - these are the languages from which and into which most of the translations of books are made, used on the multilingual Internet. Scientists conclude that it is more profitable to study these four languages.
Published in abridged...
Website of the All-German Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots
June 5, 2017
Every year more and more foreign citizens arrive in the Russian Federation. In this regard, the problem of teaching them the Russian language is actualized. This is no coincidence, because some of them remain in Russia to live. That is why it is very important to know how to help a foreigner who wants to learn Russian.
You can find some additional information on this issue on our website.
Why do foreigners learn Russian?
Residents of many countries have recently begun to actively study the Russian language. For example, US government agencies prefer specialists who know Russian. In addition, the number of foreign students in Russian universities, especially in technical ones, is increasing every year. This is due to the fact that it is believed that only in Russia can one get a decent technical education. That is why many foreign students learn Russian. Many choose medical universities. This is no coincidence, because in many countries a doctor is a prestigious and highly paid profession. Within the territory of Russian Federation foreign students can not only get a decent medical education, but also save a lot on it, because in some countries it is the most expensive.
The role of the Russian Federation in the world economy is growing every year. Some residents foreign countries learn Russian in order to discover new opportunities in various fields activities. In many large companies, its knowledge is mandatory. This is necessary in order to cooperate and negotiate with Russian organizations.
The Russian language also plays an important role in the private life of foreigners. It is known that some of them dream of marrying a Russian girl. Knowledge of the language allows you to maintain a conversation without much difficulty.
Russian words and phrases that foreigners learn first
In order to understand how to teach Russian to foreigners, you need to find out which words and phrases you need to pay attention to first. Thanks to the study of this information, a foreigner will not fall into an absurd situation.
- First of all, you need to learn the numbers. There are cases when unscrupulous sellers and taxi drivers take more from a foreigner for the service rendered than from the natives.
It is also important to learn difficult-to-understand phrases. “No, probably” is a common sentence for us, which perplexes almost all foreigners. This is no coincidence, because it combines three possible options answer to the question. An experienced and qualified teacher can help to understand it. When teaching, almost every teacher of Russian for foreigners explains that such a phrase means that the person does not know the answer to the question or is not sure about it.
- It is also important to learn words that indicate direction, such as "up", "left", "there", "here" and others. Thanks to this, it will be easy to explain to the taxi driver where to go. Knowing such words also helps to understand passers-by, whose help a foreigner will need if he gets lost.
The most complex rules of the Russian language
It is no coincidence that the Russian language seems difficult for foreigners. There are many rules that they cannot understand. They must be studied by foreign citizens who wish to learn Russian in the first place.
The most difficult thing for a foreigner is the basics of conjugation of Russian words. For example: mouth - in the mouth. Many foreign residents cannot immediately understand where the vowel disappears from the middle of the word. That is why, not knowing the basic rules, they most often say: "To the company."
Foreigners also find many letters of the alphabet familiar to us strange. They do not understand why it contains several varieties of the same letter, which differ slightly in sound. These include e and e, w and u, b and b. The letter "y" also causes a lot of difficulties. It is almost impossible to explain her pronunciation. This also applies to hard and soft signs.
Russian language and its study. A few nuances
Not every experienced teacher knows how to teach Russian to foreigners. The standard curriculum is not suitable for students and labor migrants. It is important that the teacher is fluent not only in Russian, but also in the one that the foreigner considers native. The first lessons are recommended to be carried out individually. The student can attend group classes only after a couple of months. Such a training scheme will be the most productive.
According to experts, it is important that a foreigner attend classes at least 3 times a week. The duration of the course, as a rule, is up to 160 teaching hours.
The initial stage of study
First stage. Any Russian language program for a foreigner begins with learning the alphabet. It is important to devote enough time to the problematic letters that we described earlier.
The next stage is the basics of reading. Experienced teachers recommend sticking colored stickers with basic words in the house. This will make them easier to remember. When the student has mastered the Russian alphabet and reading, teachers begin to study grammar, phonetics and speech development with him.
On the initial stage a foreigner may prefer group lessons and feel comfortable with it. It is important that the teacher explains to him what polysemantic words are. He must understand their use in a particular context. It is important that the teacher communicates with a foreigner in Russian as often as possible. All the described tips will allow a foreigner to achieve maximum results in learning as quickly as possible.
Tutorial
Not every foreigner wants to study new language with a teacher. Some are trained for self-development. Self-taught Russian for foreigners is a great option for those who want to learn a new language without anyone's help.
To date, there are a lot of video and audio tutorials. Thanks to them, you can learn the Russian language without much effort and money in a few months. You can engage in such self-development at any time of the day. However, this method also has disadvantages. As a rule, foreigners do not fully understand some rules. In this case, you will need the help of a qualified teacher.
Language classes
Often, foreigners prefer special courses to study the Russian language. They have both positive and negative sides.
The advantages of language courses include:
high professional level of teachers;
group form of classes;
motivation.
Language courses also have disadvantages:
high price;
time binding.
Every year more and more foreigners choose language courses to study Russian. This method of learning is not suitable for everyone, but is considered one of the most effective.
Some "oddities" of the Russian language
— The Russian alphabet is strange in itself. Some letters in it are exactly the same as in Latin, but others look the same, but sound very different. And two more letters - "b" and "b" - do not have their own sounds, why are they needed at all?
- The letter "E" can represent two different sound: [y'e] and [y'o]. That is, for [y'o] there is a separate letter, Yo, but these two dots are almost never written, so it turns out not Yo, but E. You can get confused.
- AT modern language the word "comrade" is no longer used, so the Russians were left without a special word for another person or group of people. Sometimes you can hear "ladies and gentlemen", but it sounds a little pretentious and unnatural, and the word "citizen" is official. People can use "man, woman, girl," but that's a bit rude. Over the past 20 years, Russians have not been able to decide how to address other people, so in each situation they choose the most appropriate address.
- The verb "to be" is not used in the present tense. But in the future and the past - it is used.
- Word order in Russian is considered free, but this does not mean that you can put words in any way you want. The meaning of a sentence, its stylistic coloring, can radically depend on the order of words. For example, the phrase "I'm going home" literally means "I'm going home" (although, of course, a lot depends on intonation), but in the phrase "I'm going home" the emphasis is on the fact that I'm going exactly home, and not where then there still. And the message “I am going home” means that it is “I” who is going home, and not you and not someone else. Everyone else stays here and works! So in Russian, the meaning of the message depends on what you want to say, and this is achieved with the help of word order and intonation.
— To turn a proposal into general question, you don’t need to change anything at all, only intonation. "Are you home." is a statement, a statement of fact; and "Are you at home?" - already a question.
- The numerals "one" and "two" change by birth, but the rest do not: one boy, one girl, two girls, two boys, but three boys and three girls.
- The numerals "one", "thousand", "million", "billion" form plural(one, thousands, millions, billions), other cardinal and collective numerals have no category of number.
- In the past tense, verbs have a gender, but in the present and future they do not.
Play - he played, she played; he plays, she plays.
- Russian nouns have "animation"! This means that some "animate" nouns are considered more alive than inanimate ones. For example, in Russian the word "dead" is considered animated in comparison with the same reality of reality, denoted by the word "corpse":
see who? - a dead man, but I see what? - dead body.
- A two-letter word in which you can make 8 mistakes - "shchi". Russian empress Catherine the Great, while still a German princess Sophie, wrote a simple Russian word"schi" like this: "schtschi", and these are 8 letters, all of which are incorrect!
- Five letters of the alphabet, going in a row D E E F, form the sentence: "Where is the hedgehog?".
- A completely complete sentence may consist of some verbs, for example: "We sat down and decided to send to go buy a drink."
- And how to explain to a foreigner what it is about: "Behind a sandy scythe, a lop-eared scythe fell under a sharp scythe of a woman with a scythe."
- And another language "explosion" for a foreigner:
Have a drink? Eat, drink, don't eat.
- And what would it mean: "Barely ate ate ate"? It's simple: very slowly (barely) some Christmas trees ate (i.e. ate) other Christmas trees.
Or this:
- Foreigners are very surprised how it is "hands do not reach to see."
- I oversalted the borsch and overdid it with salt - the same thing.
Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thanks for that
for discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us at Facebook and In contact with
Every day everything more people on the planet decide to master the "great and mighty". Everyone has different reasons: some want to know the meaning of the popular word “grandmother”, others dream of a grandiose trip around Russia and personal communication with local residents, and others will be captivated by culture, and the language becomes one of the keys to understanding the mysterious Russian soul. Having gone through all the horrors of learning the alphabet and cases, foreigners shared their experiences and impressions, and we have collected all the most interesting in one article.
Grammar
- A nightmare for a foreigner is to make a sentence with the word "go". One has only to imagine a lot of variants of declensions and cognate words, as you immediately want to stay at home and not go anywhere.
- The most common question among people who have begun to learn Russian is how to find out which subject is lying and which is standing? And to prove that it is impossible to understand this rule, they cite famous example: There is a glass on the table and a fork lies. You can stick a fork into the table and then it will stand. Conclusion: there are vertical objects, and horizontal ones lie. But the plate and pan are on the table. But if you put a plate in a pan, then it will lie. Nothing is clear with dishes, but what about animals? If a cat climbs on the table, then she will sit on her ass, but the bird will sit, despite the fact that she is standing on her feet. In Russian, a bird will stand on the table only if you make a stuffed animal out of it. It turns out that only animals can sit? No, for example, the boot has no priests and it is not alive, but it still sits on the leg.
- What surprised me most in Russian was that you need to say forty, not fourty.
strange letters
- I saw a solid sign when I studied the alphabet, and then I didn’t see it in words for about a year and I forgot about it. And when the professor saw how confused I was when I discovered this letter, he said: “When studying Russian, be prepared to be constantly surprised.”
- I don't understand how you can make the "oo" sound. For example, in the words "messages" or "Pacific".
- Once, at a lecture, I told a teacher from Britain that we have two letters in the alphabet that do not have a sound (ь and ъ). But she was more shocked when I added that they are pronounced when reading.
- My Spanish friend's enthusiasm to learn Russian is shattered by attempts to reproduce Y. He says that the mechanism for making this sound is beyond his understanding.
sound
- The Russian language is similar to many languages that were included in the entries backwards.
- As an American woman with whom I lived said, “Russian is very similar to Chinese. Probably because you are borderline. What I hear is more like the sounds made by a sick bird: “Cherek schik chik th th thrbyg.”
A British acquaintance (English teacher) said that this is not the first time he notices such a thing: Russians understand only if a foreigner speaks “angry Russian” (“evil Russian”), if you say it in a calm and soft tone, then you will not be understood .
Once in a hostel in Germany, a friend and I were learning phrases in Klingon (a made-up language). We did not notice how the Germans entered the next room, and when we, red with shame, asked if our wild cries had scared them too much, they replied that everything was fine, they thought that we had been talking in Russian all this time.
The funniest "word" for the British turned out to be "because", and one day they asked for an explanation of the meaning of this word. It turned out that "because" they heard as one word "patamushta" and they thought that it was something like a shamanic curse or summoning a spirit from the underworld.
My young man from Germany said: "Russian is almost the same as the language of the minions."
An Austrian friend asked everyone who speaks Russian to say: "Nizhny Novgorod." He considered this combination of sounds a work of art.
Features of Russian people
- I thought for a long time about what the elephant on the scoreboard in the subway car means. I was told that this was a pun related to the Russian word written on the door: "do not lean."
) - half smile;
)) - a rather ordinary smile, like:);
))) - laughs out loud;
)))) and more - you definitely would not want to meet such a person in real life.
If you hear the Cuban dialect Spanish, but at the same time people do not open their mouths, which means that this is Russian.
Russian names are hard to remember. Not only do some translate them (Hope - Nadya or Light - Sveta), but then it turns out that one name has many more options: Svetlana, Svetik, Svetulya.
It always surprises me that Russians cannot just wish good luck and always add something, for example: “Have a good rest, good weather and good luck!”
To figure out a Russian in a crowd of foreigners, I approached people with the words: “Hi! I'm Chris" ("Hi! I'm Chris").
As the Canadian answered: “Hi! Do I know you?” (“Hi! Do we know each other?”)
As the Italian answered: “Whata can I help you with a?” ("Can I help you?")
As the Russian answered: “Hello. And what? ("Hi. So what?")
Have you been in funny situations when communicating with foreigners?
