How important is woman's English abilities?

[jb]

Go for it guys! Who needs to know anything about anything?

My thoughts exactly.

[Turboguy]

TG ~ There are many ways to attain failure, often there is only one way to achieve success. Am I right about the benefits of a woman with whom you can share a language - Frankly it is REALLY hard to suggest that a woman who can not speak your language is a better choice, from the point of of a successful long term relationship. That is not to say that one can not succeed, but having done it both ways, I know were the sensible approach lies. I would ask you the same question, in different words as I did Swindoom: If you had your choice of one from two girls, twins, one of whom spoke no English and the other who spoke a little English, which would you choose to get to know better?

The reason there are so many French words in Russian (and there are LOADS) is that during the 18th and 19th century many, if not most of the aristocracy spoke French and to a lesser degree German in preference to Russian. There are whle blocks of vocabulary that are from these languages and in the case of naval usage, Dutch.

If you can not read cyrillic, you can not read Russian. If you do not know Russian words, knowing the alphabet does not help you much, but if you can read cyrillic one of the first things you notice is just how many imported words there are. If you have an active vocabulary of 1000 words, in Russian, then you have a greater degree of proficiency than I, but you and I can both read and learn.

525i ~ I agree with most of what you have just written. There are gems who speak no English, but they should not be in agencies, promoting themselves to English speaking guys. When they do not prepare for their stated desires they are making a statement about themselves and demonstrating their less than 'gemness'.

Secondly, English language TV programmes are broadcast with the English soundtrack and overdubbed. DVDs almost always have an English soundtrack, unless they are from the Baltic markets. It is not too difficult to hear the English and listen to it alongside the Russian overdubbing.

As far as many ways to fail and only one way to acheive success,  I can't see that at all.   There are many ways for both.  You can be president of the US which some would consider a great sucess and still be a failure.   You can succeed in many occupations. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of FSU women, success and failure could have thousands of possiblites.   You can be a street sweeper earning a low wage and married to an ugly, overweight woman and still be a terriffic success.

Humm, two identical twins, one speaks English one does not.  Can I bring them each in on a K-1 to try them out and then tell you.:noidea:  Can I go someplace where they have polygamy and keep them both:clapping:

Yes, I have to agree the communication would draw you to the one with English. 

Does that teach us anything?   No.  Suppose andrewfin, the world almost ended.  You are the last man and there are two woman.  One is beautiful beyond belief, built like a brick whatever, long flowing blond hair a beautiful smile, spends all her time bringing you things to eat, rubbing your back, smiling at you and holding your hand.  Doesn't speak a word of English.  The other girl still alive weights 350 pounds, had a face that would stop a truck.  yells at you all the time, actually kicks the sh!t out of you if you don't do as she commands.  Speaks perfect English.   Now the laws are caput but your religious upbringing tells you that you must pick one and only one for your wife so the human population of the world can continue.   You are going to take the English speaking one of course because you could not communicate with the other, Right.

 

 

[Bruno]

Ken is right, how the hell do you make an informed choice about somebody with whom you can not communicate?

Very simple... learn communicate...

How do you make friend if you never speak to stranger ... similar problem...

Language is not the main problem... if both are ready to start a basic dialogue AND give the time needed for learn a common language... a relationship is possible...

Of course, people who speak only English, who visit a women during one week, where the women don't know the language have not real relationship...

Time is a keyword... same in own country, with women who speak your own language... courtship can take several month, time needed to know each other...

I am not like TurboGuy... i know maybe 300-400 words of russian... but i am able to make my own shopping in Russia ( in little open market ), take taxi, ask in Nikolaev the bus to Odessa, etc ... language was never a problem for me in all my visit in FSU... same in little village...

And if you think that word is the only method of communication, ask BC about Italian people... they speak more with hand that with mouth

[Jay Patches]

Go for it guys! Who needs to know anything about anything?

Nobody, of course!  Here's how it works:

1. Surf to page 2 of Olga_Smokinhotkova.com, profile 27.
2. Fill out the form, and buy her address online using your mastercard.
3. Send her a letter online, asking her to send you some photos.
4. Photoshop those pic's into a picture with you, so it looks like you're together.
5. Hire a lawyer to fill out your k-1 forms.  You can get one via legalmatch.com
6. Send money for plane ticket when the time comes.
7. Call a taxi service and have them pick her up from the airport.

Wait until day 731.

Rinse and repeat.

JP

[Rvrwind]

Well I gotta say I am totally insulted & a bit pissed at the attitude I'm reading here!!! 

I had a big long thread written & decided to delete it as it would serve no purpose other than to point out that intelligence & learned on this board don't mean crappola. But gotta say thanks for insulting me & my wife, I really appreciate that.

I will say if you believe Andrews line of bullsh!t then you are in for some big disapointments & will be passing up some of the best women you will ever have the pleasure to interact with.

I will remind you of 1 statistic however - 100% of all women scammers knows the language of those she is scamming!!!

Thats all I'm gonna say on the matter as I'm gettin' to pissed to think straight!!!:burnedup:

RVR-Canadian Cowboy/Agency Owner

[andrewfi]

TG ~ Answer the question. When you have the answer then my point is made. It really is that simple. Making a joke is not an answer.

Richard ~ Think about it...

[Leslie]

Andrew,

We have known each other for a while.  When you speak from personal experience your views are usually relevant and germain. 

You have little experience of using  MOB agencies (None?).  How many hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars have you spent with the agencies to organize dates?  Again I reckon close to none.  You passed on Marc Dayton's offer to visit LTP.  You have virtually no personal experience of using agencies. 

You should examine the utility of your views concerning "preparing by learning a language" in conjunction with Bayes Theorem.  Maybe then you will come to the correct conclusions via academic reasoning.

RICHARD (RVR)  IS RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG.

By the way Bruno  Your simple English fragment -

"Very simple... learn communicate..."

Is some of the best advice given on this thread


 

[Rvrwind]

Richard ~ Think about it...

I did think about it Andrew & my conclusion is simple & cannot be refuted. 95% of the women I have met or comunicated with in a foreign country who have good to excellent English skills (I say English but it likely applies to all languages) has an agenda & top of the list is not finding love but rather a mule. You can argue till your blue in the face & insult me & my relationship all you want but facts do not lie.

100% of women scammers know the language of those they are scamming, period! This is fact. If a woman cannot speak read or write the language then it is pretty hard to scam you now isn't it. I submit that yes at first you may have to use an interpreter, so what. In the beginning of a relationship you are not discussing phylosphy & crap & the need for excellent communication is not needed. However as the relationship matures & you learn her language & she learns yours then you can advance your communication skills.

People were communicating for hundreds of years without a spoken language other than gunts & pointing as you so aptly put it. There are many forms of communication besides speaking. I can tell more from a womans body language & facial expressions than I can from what she speaks, words can lie, body language cannot. That is communication & non verbal. If your hypothisis is correct then both Leslie & I are in relationships that are on the rocks & doomed to failure. I submit your hypothisis is incorrect & anybody who has met & seen my wife & I together will back that up 100%.

I also submit that perhaps your inability to find yourself in a successful relationship with a foreign woman, be she Russian or otherwise, is because of your inate capacity to judge people by what they say not by what they communicate non verbally. By limiting yourself to women who only speak fluent English, not only are you limitng your chances in the longrun of finding a compatible mate but in your case being the intelectual you are, I also submit that even finding a woman in your own country & native language that could meet your standards would be next to impossible or to say the least very difficult. By adding that level of crteria to a Russian Woman you are holding her up to standards she can never meet, therefore sabotaging your chances of finding a woman that could turn out to be the best one for you. No foreign woman who is not a native speaker of English will ever measure up to your standards, period.

To the newbies I say this. Do not buy into this bull. Had I & Leslie & many others done so, we would not have found the treasures we now have. I also say that it has nothing to do with whether or not an agency is involved. If the agency is honest then the people who work there are honest & they will do all they can to help you. Leslie did not meet his lady through an agency, I did, & we both have the same results. It is not the method in which you choose to persue this adventure that counts. It is the amount of time, effort & patience that you put into it that will bring the desired results.

Sure many such relationships fail but 99% of the relationships I have read about or been a party to that have failed have been those who have jumped into it too fast. The so-called one week wonders & even had these been women from their own country, they would have failed because they didn't take the time to get to know each other. The ones that have lasted long term & then split as a few have, were for reasons that would have caused the split even if she wasn't a Russian Woman. Don't set yourself up for failure, take your time & get to know her, don't choose to persue a woman 20+ years younger than you & don't limit your choices to only those that speak your language well & you may just strike gold in them thar hills!!!:D

JMHO

RVR-Canadian Cowboy/Agency Owner

 

[jb]

95% of the women I have met or comunicated with in a foreign country who have good to excellent English skills (I say English but it likely applies to all languages) has an agenda & top of the list is not finding love but rather a mule. You can argue till your blue in the face & insult me & my relationship all you want but facts do not lie.

I think you've just insulted my wife.

I would argue that there are lots of people, women included, who know and use a second language for purposes other than subterfuge.  As for scammers knowing English, I've read all these scam letters posted on the black lists and my best guess is they are translated using one of the translation softwear programs.  Those people don't know English as well as my Labrador.

I also think you should question why so many Russians study English in school.  Did you ever think about that?  I know the answer, does anybody else?  Sometimes it helps to dig a little deeper into the Russian culture before handing out blanket assessments like that.

[Jooky]

I can't even understand women who do speak English.

[Michelangelo]

I also think you should question why so many Russians study English in school. Did you ever think about that? I know the answer, does anybody else?

Yes, I do.

In the old days of the USSR, they exported their language into the surrounding countries they conquered. There was a need to have a common language for communication.

Today, English has become the world's second language.  It's the most practical language to study in school, and that's the simple truth.

My experience with dating Russian girls is that since the fall of the USSR, many FSU younger girls now know English to some degree.

Older girls (past 32 or so), are not as likely to speak English.

I have dated lots of FSU girls.  It is a BIG advantage if they speak English.  Marriage is such an important step that I think you need to have lots of DIRECT talk with one another before taking that giant step.

So, responding to the topic of this strand, "How important is woman's English abilities?" I'll say VERY IMPORTANT.

Yes, we have stories here of vets who navigated the waters of marring a woman with no English.  But consider the odds....and ask, given a choice, what should I do?

The answer is to play the percentages and go with the girl who speaks English.  Just like a baseball manager who wastes an out with a sacrifice fly to move the runner into scoring position, the percentages here say date the girl who speaks English...

[jb]

Today, English has become the world's second language. It's the most practical language to study in school, and that's the simple truth.

Too simplistic.  My wife is not one of the "younger" girls, yet her English was excellent.  There is another reason many people who went to school before the fall of the USSR studied English.

[Michelangelo]

Today, English has become the world's second language. It's the most practical language to study in school, and that's the simple truth.

Too simplistic. My wife is not one of the "younger" girls, yet her English was excellent. There is another reason many people who went to school before the fall of the USSR studied English.
[/quote]That was then;  this is now.

I hold to my answer of why today's students study English.

But JB, you can enlighten us as to "why" some girls studied English prior to the fall of the USSR... :-)

[jb]

That was then; this is now.

With that as the caveat, I guess you don't really want to know.

[dorogoyroberto]

Mr. Michelangelo,

A gentle hint: they wanted to know what the Beatles were singing!

More seriously, Lilya and her schoolmates were very curious about  Western culture and believed learning English would assist in their  understanding of it...

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine

[Bruno]

Too simplistic.  My wife is not one of the "younger" girls, yet her English was excellent.  There is another reason many people who went to school before the fall of the USSR studied English.

Your wife have a very high level of education... and in some domain, English is a need... by example, can you imagine somebody working with computer and not knowing english !!! Impossible since the basic instruction ( code ) are english words...

Previous to the fall of USSR, the main second language was German... and for several republic, people was already with two language... national language and Russian...

[ConnerVT]

95% of the women I have met or comunicated with in a foreign country who have good to excellent English skills (I say English but it likely applies to all languages) has an agenda & top of the list is not finding love but rather a mule. You can argue till your blue in the face & insult me & my relationship all you want but facts do not lie.

I think you've just insulted my wife.[/quote]
I know both you and Richard, and let me try to correct this before we go on for another 5 pages.  A large percentage of the English speaking women Rvr has met in foriegn countries have also been associated with 'the Industry', be it as a client or a 'terp.  A large percentage of those that jb has met (including Etna) do not belong to this group.  If Rvr will allow, let me rephrase what I think he meant to write:

"95% of the women I have met or comunicated with in a foreign country who have good to excellent English skills and are actively contacting Western men (I say English but it likely applies to all languages) has an agenda & top of the list is not finding love but rather a mule."

So, I'm sure that no insults were intended.

[jb]

Your wife have a very high level of education... and in some domain, English is a need...

At last, someone knows the answer.  The Former USSR's education system prided itself for turning out world class scientists, mathematicians, and physicists.  These fields of study require a better than average knowledge of either English or German, physics especially is primarily in English.

Andrew has said it often, only the very dim, those who either did poorly in school or did not attend an institution of higher learning at all, will not have some recollection of English.  Why would anyone want to marry just a pretty face with an empty head?  With a just little work on your part, you can have both the pretty face and an intelligent woman.  Trust me, it's a better combination.

[andrewfi]

Richard ~ It is I think true to say that you associate with but a slice of women, through your business and through the friends of your wife, who share similar interests to she.

Most young women will have learned English at school and those that did not will have been taught another language. They are exposed to English on a daily basis. There are therefore some inferences that can be drawn from a woman's claim to not be able to speak English. If she speaks some German or French, fair do's, had she been taught Engolish she would have been, as capable in Englishas she is now in French or German. If she was taught English at school and now claims not to have any command of English then one of three things is true:

1) She lies

2) She was very lazy at school and did nothing to learn.

3) She is very dim and although she worked hard, she absorbed nothing.

There is not a fourth alternative, but none of the three above alternatives are particularly endearing are they?

Now, intelligence as well as being absolute is also relative. A person of average intellectual capacity will seem bright to the subnormal and an average person will seem positively slow to a bright person. So, to a degree, we may be arguing about apples and oranges here. Somebody who is of limited cognitive ability will see no shortcomings in a person similarly blessed, but to another observer, both people might seem a tad dim... I guess this means that when I suggest that a person wh was incapable of benefitting from their school lessons might not seem dim to some, or not even lazy.

[Son of Clyde]

I have some very good news. I met a man in DC who has a small marriage agency and he is visiting Ukraine in a week. He spoke with my wife on the phone for about 20 minutes IN ENGLISH and he said her English is very good. She does not give herself much credit for the hours of reading and studying on her own. She is taking ESL classes again and is doing very well.

[swindoom]

Andrewfin,

Your posts in this thread are very insulting and patronising, according to you not only are non-English speaking FSU women dumb/lazy but men who find happiness with non-English speaking FSU women are even dumber/lazier.

You are just as likely to find a dumb/lazy FSU woman who speaks English as one who does not. Very few women in England speak another language well so by your defected logic they must be either very stupid or very lazy.

If you want to miss out on the perfect woman for you just because when you start communicating she cannot speak English to some abritary standard decided by you then best of luck to you but stop making sweeping generalisations about non-English speaking FSU women based on your limited experience. Stereotyping is not a sign of intelligence.

[Rvrwind]

No jb I did not insult your Etna, she is likely in the 5%.

Andrew has said it often, only the very dim, those who either did poorly in school or did not attend an institution of higher learning at all, will not have some recollection of English.  Why would anyone want to marry just a pretty face with an empty head?  With a just little work on your part, you can have both the pretty face and an intelligent woman.  Trust me, it's a better combination.

I disagree. I don't speak Russian but I understand it quite well. Many women here are the same, they do not speak English but they do understand it.

The fact that they took it in school is irrelevant considering most English teachers here are Russian themselves & have no better English skills than many of those they teach. And once leaving school they never speak conversational English but always Russian with their friends & family, they soon lose the ability to speak it.

I agree that if they are actvely persuing an English speaking man that perhaps learning some English would increase their chances, however, they don't see it that way. Maybe the younger ones are more able to communicate in English 25 & under at this point in time, but these are not the ones that are going to marry most men in this endeavour simply because most men looking are too old for that age bracket. Therefore that puts you right smack in the group with limited English comprehension.

Do as you will, you will anyway but heed my warning. Many times on many boards this has been hashed over always with the same result, to each their own. In the end the proof is in the pudding & as I an somewhat dim & lazy & therefore so is my wife, we will live our happy little dim & lazy lives & be content to know that at least we did not follow such silly advice.

RVR-Canadian Cowboy/Agency Owner

[Jooky]

This discussion was prompted by Photoguys' thread. In his case it seems to me that there would be a failure to communicate even if he and his fiancee spoke the same language.

If you're going to a foreign country to choose a mate you will definitely pass up a lot of choices by selecting only women who speak your language. Of course it will take more time and patience to get to know someone deeply with whom you don't share a common language. If you don't have time and patience, you have no business in looking for a foreign wife!

As for women in Russia that speak or don't speak English:

Some women have a better natural grasp of languages. That doesn't necessarily make them more intelligent than their peers.

Some women have more or less interest in foreign languages. That doesn't mean they are more or less lazy.

If a Russian woman speaks English well, it doesn't mean she has an ignoble agenda. She could simply have enjoyed the language, had a facility for it, or studied with the knowledge that it could help in future academic or professional achievements

Most women who sign up for a marriage site or agency realize that it's a long shot that they will even meet an English speaking foreigner. For most, marrying a foreigner is a tempting option, not a definitive goal. Most women are listed on various different language sites, and even those listed on English language sites know that they are likely to meet non native English speakers. From their point of view, there is really no motivation to study English beyond what they've already learned until they've met a man they plan to marry.

 

 

[Rvrwind]

Jooky...Well Said...& better articulated than I have been able to manage!:)

RVR-Canadian Cowboy/Agency Owner

[Jet]

Most young women will have learned English at school and those that did not will have been taught another language. They are exposed to English on a daily basis. ........./.........If she was taught English at school and now claims not to have any command of English then one of three things is true:

1) She lies

2) She was very lazy at school and did nothing to learn.

3) She is very dim and although she worked hard, she absorbed nothing.

There is not a fourth alternative, but none of the three above alternatives are particularly endearing are they?

 

Andrew, this is completely flawed thinking. Whilst in Russia in 2003, I had the occasion to meet one of Liliya's colleagues, the English teacher for the HS where Liliya had worked for the past 7 yrs. This woman was absolutely petrified about meeting a native speaker. She practiced for days before the party where we'd be introduced. To say her grammar and pronunciation were atrocious would be a compliment. Even English products advertised on TV are pronounced incorrectly for the benefit of the masses. I'm sure most guys who've spent any time watching Russian TV have seen the ads for Slalom Ploose razors by Gillette. Just because Russians are taught English, does not mean it is taught correctly, or that they can communicate with native speakers. That doesn't make them dim, it makes them unexposed...