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Learning Russian
ege02
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I have the opportunity to learn first-year Russian this year in college.
Should I go for it?
I already have my foreign language requirements met, so that's not an issue.
The main reason I want to learn it is that I want to become tri-lingual and I want to speak languages that aren't very popular these days, such as Spanish and French. This would be more of an investment for the future, particularly in career prospects (especially since Russia is expected to become a major world market in the next two decades).
Currently I speak English and Turkish, and I've had exposure to intermediate-level French in high school (though I forgot it because I never used it afterwards). How difficult is Russian to learn, compared to other languages?
Should I go for it?
I already have my foreign language requirements met, so that's not an issue.
The main reason I want to learn it is that I want to become tri-lingual and I want to speak languages that aren't very popular these days, such as Spanish and French. This would be more of an investment for the future, particularly in career prospects (especially since Russia is expected to become a major world market in the next two decades).
Currently I speak English and Turkish, and I've had exposure to intermediate-level French in high school (though I forgot it because I never used it afterwards). How difficult is Russian to learn, compared to other languages?
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Much like supertall, I've heard that it's a pretty difficult language to pick up, but I don't have any hard evidence.
Murphy: I'm not planning to move to Russia, but I reckon, based on current economic forecasts, that business with Russia should be high in demand in the near future.
I'm mostly worried about the fact that it uses different letters and such, though. I don't know, maybe someone who has learned it or is a native speaker can help?
it uses a different alphabet(cyrillic), which for me is the ONLY difficulty, other than that there's no particular difficulty, and for me that was the neatest part
No articles(a, an, the), no genders, etc., but...oh I forget, 31 "letters"?
Advantages to Russian: Classic Russian literature that's not translated...that's all I can think of, depends on what you do. I work for a contractor that does lots of work for NASA, and one of my coworkers got sent to Moscow since he speaks it, and they're paying him a pretty penny for the trouble
Edit:
Some are similar to their Latin counterparts, some are obviously based on greek letters, and only a few are COMPLETELY foreign. No biggy
Like the cedilla'd C in the Turkish alphabet, some Russian letters are comparable. Admittedly, though, some are different enough to be very jarring. I don't think you'll be completely disoriented, though. As a bright guy, it's a simple matter of lingual acclimation; there are few enough units (letters) that you'll know them intimately within a reasonable frame of time. As an Israeli kid learning English, I was terrified. It's never as challenging as you think.
If you're interested in going beyond the rudiments (as seems to be the case, evidenced by you wanting to do business with the language), you'll need to go beyond one year of undergrad. It'll take some practiced study. I'm sure you already know that, though, since you're bilingual.
Good luck.
Sorry, I don't really have any advice for you to learn Russian but that is just a peeve of mine. I'd say that Spanish and French aren't really unpopular though, why do you have that idea? Because you are in a part of the US where they really only speak English or what?
I could be totally wrong tho.
Speaking is easy. I think it's the bizarre spelling that gets people. Words aren't spelled how they are said, not even close in some cases.
I took Russian in high school alongside German. I found it to be pretty easy once we got past the alphabet. As said above, there aren't any articles or genders. Another thing that makes it easy is that word order is almost unimportant. Take it, you will have fun. Hopefully your text books are from the 70s like mine were.
Well, like I said - I mean that's what I meant to say :P - everyone and their mother speak Spanish. If I learn it, it's not going to distinguish me from anyone, especially for business purposes.
Anyway, thanks for the help so far.
If you want difficult try Czech or Cantonese.
Russian shouldn't be all that difficult though you might just want to stick to a language that uses latin lettering. If you want something that'll actually be useful then try Mandarin.
Your approach is a bit weird, though. You shouldn't think of learning a language that isn't common in order to distinguish you, as it's rarely an issue. In other words, the likelihood of being in a job that requires international travel is low. The likelihood of being in that same job and the destination is Russia? Even lower. And Russian is pretty much only spoken in Russia and ex-USSR-countries.. Even French is spoken in more than France.
Russia has been likely to become a global trading power since the collapse of the USSR, but Putin has done much to set back the globalization of the country. In other words, even if Russia does become a larger business partner, it's still likely to remain hostile to foreign investment for quite some time.
If you want to learn Russian, do it because you like the language, not because of a perceived future business advantage.
Every business exec I talk to says the same thing: "there are two major emerging world markets: China and Russia. That is why speaking those two languages would boost your value as a potential employee tremendously in the future."
Thanks to the Internet, traveling is no longer necessary to use a language in business relations. I don't have to move to Russia to use my skills in Russian. There are many companies here in the PW Northwest who will, for example, employ German speakers to do business with their German clients here in the area as well as overseas. That sort of thing is what I'm talking about.
About English being easy - English is very versatile in that you can speak it functionally or expressively. This is why it is pretty easy to learn basically, but takes some time to master. If English was the hardest language to learn, it would not be the world's business language.
Russian is different. There are far less synonyms with subtle differences. There aren't as many different ways to say one thing. Things said in English tend to be more lengthy in Russian, but that actually true for most languages I have heard spoken. What's going to bite you in the ass is the grammar - my girlfriend speaks French and I've taken Spanish in high school, and from what I've gathered Russian grammar is more complicated - words change a lot more from sentence to sentence than in English. There's no articles, thank god, because the grammar doesn't need to be more convoluted. Not being in the country for nine years, I conjugate nouns incorrectly all the time. Yes, I said conjugate nouns. :twisted:
The alphabet is longer than English, but here's the catch - every letter is only pronounced in one way, ever. There's no combining of letters (th in English), silent letters (i.e. through), or any other tricks. The worst it gets is that there are two letter of the alphabet which are not actually pronounceable, but used to change the sound of the consonant immediately before it, making it "harder" or "softer". In a way it makes the alphabet harder to learn initially because all the letters sound kind of strange, but this is because what every letter is called is how you say it in a word, so when you construct words/read it is a lot easier than English. Some sounds can be very complicated for an English speaker - there is a letter I wouldn't even begin to know how to explain phonetically.
One thing you should be aware of is there is a LOT of cultural reference in the Russian language, so if you participate in non-business interaction between Russian people don't expect to understand some things even if you know all the words.
There's a little quirk about writing: noone ever writes in print in Russian. When I moved here I wrote English in cursive, because I couldn't fathom handwriting print.
Honestly, I can't tell you whether learning it will be easy or hard or a good idea or not, as I learned it natively. But I think I've summed up the main points about the language.
PSN/XBL: dragoniemx
And yeah, the prononciation is mostly phoenetic, though the "soft signs" and infrequent "hard signs" make it kind of tricky. There are sounds that violate English prononciation rules (like the standalone "c" and words like transliterated "vsye"). And occasionally the "G" (it looks like a gamma) is made to sound like a "V".
Also, there are basically no common roots between Russian and English, so those mnemonic tricks that worked for you in Spanish, French, Latin or German are all useless to you in learning Russian.
It's a pretty hard language. I'm finding Mandarin tougher though.
Are they the only languages you're learning/learned though?
Anyways, like I said I know a guy in Russia doing aerospace industry work, and coincidentaly enough, our newsletter today(from Johnson Space Center) mentioned taking Russian lessons for job enhancement and stuff, so someone thinks it's useful here for sure
Honestly, if you like to read, I've never been totally satisfied by any translation of Dostoevsky(won't pretend I can spell it)or Tolstoy. I dunno, that might almost be reason enough for me. Not enough to spend needless money on lessons, but if you need a language class anyways...
I still don't know a damn thing, and I'm pretty quick with languages.
I know that's anecdotal, but Russian is certainly not something you're going to become proficiently conversational at within a year, unless all you need to say is "hello, my name is Ege02, would you like to go to the cinema/library with me? oh and here have some bread..."
My school offered full immersion courses over the summer in our languages, you go like 5 hours a day 4 days a week for 5 or 11 weeks or whatever, and you NEVER hear a word of English after stepping in(except for the basics or if you're having trouble I assume). Counts for like two or three language credits, and immersion is often the best way to learn
I was once in your spot. I studied Russian for 3 years in college (and got a major in it) just because I didn't want to take Spanish for a gen. ed. requirement. I had no vested interests aside from the challenge of learning a new language. It was hard. Half the starting class dropped out the first semester because it was demanding. By the second day of class - two days later - we were expected to know how to read, write (block & cursive) and pronounce the Russian alphabet, along with a few introductory phrases. When I recieved my diploma, I was sitting next to the other 5 Russian studies majors at my university of 25,000.
Now I can curse out taxi drivers, slip in double entendres and crack jokes comfortably all in Russian. Of course you won't get this from a college education. You'd need to work and live abroad to gain these skills, but taking classes is the first step to making yourself a well-rounded person. I'd say go for it man, the work is tough but the payoff is huge considering you have the rest of your life to cash in on this skill.
I speak Kyrgyz, Spanish & Russian. And I consider Russian the hardest by far.
Note: Russian is the business language of the FSU. You get this duality where the native language is spoken at home and on the streets, while Russian thrives in the capitals, marketplaces and government.
I took Spanish for a few years and have picked up a tiny bit of French and German.