Is it time for the Russian Language to change?

[Trenchcoat]

So as you all know I have been trying to learn the Russian Language. I have made some small progress but find there is the annoyance of there being masculine and feminine, nouns, adjectives, etc.

In the English language we are free from this ridiculousness, we dropped the practice centuries ago in the middle ages as to be honest there is no point to it and it just adds uneeded complexity for its own sake. Yet the Russain language along with most other European language keeps up this bizarre practice making language learning a lot harder than it needs be. The gender assigned does not even relate to a physical gender but is haphaszard and varies betwwwn languages. In one language a table could be defined as feminine and in another language as masculine. Why anyone would want to define a table as either is just bizarre and to be honest ludicrous.

Apparently the German language may soon drop its masculine and feminine in aid of gender neutrality/equality, etc.

To me it would make more sense if all languages did this including the Russian language, it would make it more assessible for people in learning different languages. Who here thinks they should do this too?

Perhaps we could aid this by only using the neutral form when abroad and not bothering with the masculine and feminine, aid it on its way, after all such actions can influenence a lot like it has with the spread od English across the EU counties as the most widely used language.

My guess is that if I just used the gender neutral nouns and adjectives I would be adequately understoood what I meant in Russia, etc? Thoughts?

[Boethius]

Apparently the German language may soon drop its masculine and feminine in aid of gender neutrality/equality, etc.

It's my understanding that German is just using gender neutral language the way we now use "they" as a pronoun rather than "he" or "she", thanks to the trans movement.  They are not eliminating it in everyday usage.


It's not the genders that makes Slavic languages difficult.  It's structuring phrases, and particularly, the declension of nouns, and the use of the correct prefix on verbs.


I wouldn't hold my breath.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[msmob]

Trench,

Do try to read and compehend what Boethius wrote.

You just proved how 'advanced' your Russian lang learning is..

I will never, EVER, be close to getting those endings right and do not try to remember gender..

This poster tries to have fun 'learning' a new language...

Thinking it is too hard work is your failing.

Listen to foreigners trying to cope with all the English rules that get broken and the importance of positioning of words...

Perhaps, they are hoping we will relax our 'rules' or simplify the spelling of words like our cousin's across the pond)

[SANDRO43]

simplify the spelling of words

English spelling is a mess because it's a "mongrel" language (http://www.floriani.it/English-eng.htm).

[Boethius]

Listen to foreigners trying to cope with all the English rules that get broken and the importance of positioning of words...

That and the use of articles.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[tfcrew]

English spelling is a mess because it's a "mongrel" language

Yea thou doth speaketh hence theretofore [try that one on your friends]
But I don't know about that 800,000 BC stuff in that chart

Provincia Britannia of the Roman Empire, Christianity spreading since 200 AD, Roman troops withdrawn in 383 AD, Roman magistrates expelled in 409 AD.

That was interesting.

[SANDRO43]

the importance of positioning of words...

Declensed languages are freer in this aspect.

I remember when in 6-8th grade we were given the assignment of translating into Italian a piece of Latin prose, the first thing we had to do was to hunt for the verbs in its sentences, then reconstruct them into coherent sequences.

Celebrated orators like Cicero would be particularly hard to follow syntactically. Latin poetry was even harder.

[msmob]

I studied Latin to 'O' level 11-15 years and hardly remember anything, now. (

[krimster2]

sic transit

[Boethius]

Yesterday, relatives sent me video of their toddler, who is just now starting to speak.  Well Trench, in all of the videos, the toddler, just learning to speak uses the correct gender for all words - not one error!  So, I asked the better half, who was around younger children his entire life (very common in the FSU), if children ever use the wrong gender, or wrong declensions when first learning to speak.  His response was a resounding no.  He said the most common error for children is to get pronunciation of words wrong.


So, if a two year old can master this, you should be able to as well.  You just need to think like a two year old.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[Trenchcoat]

Yesterday, relatives sent me video of their toddler, who is just now starting to speak.  Well Trench, in all of the videos, the toddler, just learning to speak uses the correct gender for all words - not one error!  So, I asked the better half, who was around younger children his entire life (very common in the FSU), if children ever use the wrong gender, or wrong declensions when first learning to speak.  His response was a resounding no.  He said the most common error for children is to get pronunciation of words wrong.


So, if a two year old can master this, you should be able to as well.  You just need to think like a two year old.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

Well if you were to use Google Boe you would find toddlers have it much easier on this front than poor ol' Trenchie here

Scientists have found that up to 10 months old babies have a unique ability to absorb the languages it hears. After that age that ability declines, a young child though can still pick up, learn and understand better than older children, teens & adults. We can learn quite well up to the age of 18. After that age it gets increasingly difficult. Someone around my age it can be very hard as ability to learn a language is much impaired.

So there we have it, we are wasting our time and resources learning languages later on, even as older children.

We should be exposed to languages in the first few months as babies. If I ever had kids I would play a tape in the first 10 months in particular and also for a while thereafter, a learn Russian recording. All the hard work would then be done without the baby even realising it.

Scientists don't know how many languages can be learned at this age. There may be a chance of the babies brain ending up too confused if too many languages are heard for a long time.

Russian of course would be good for any boys since they would likely always be able to score easily in the FSU

[msmob]

Trench,

Your generalisations know no bounds..

I can still learn a language when immersed, I will never be fluent.

In the meantime you are learning Russian when you keeping visiting Ukraine..and refer to Kyiv as Kiev...

Let's discuss stubbornness and stupidity...

..You have yet to learn how to date in ENGLISH...

[krimster2]

communication.....
many cross-cultural relationships, fail to some degree over this issue...
my conclusion...
if you’re not willing to learn Russian, then stay with the “locals”....
because you can’t make the language issue one sided and say it’s ONLY HER problem...
and that once she masters English, problem solved....
IT WON’T BE!!

everyone in my family, myself included is multi-lingual
my family and I have our own unique dialect of mixed Russian/English we use between us
depending on the nature of our guests, we may switch completely to Russian or English at dinner

if you marry a Russian, you can’t go back to your old life
you have to move forward and embrace your new identity....
and those who don’t move forward - often end up alone!
and this has happened to plenty of people on this board...

y’all seem to be focused on finding shortcuts....
when as usual, there is no shortcut to doing the hard necessary work on yourself...
without this work, you’re gonna fail....

(warning! brief boring anecdotal story!)
when I was working on my master’s thesis, my circuit design failed
and I sat at my bench dejected...
one of my mentors “saw my sad face” and offered his sage advice...
“listen to the failure - and what the universe is trying to tell you”
good advice!
the problem is, some of you either aren’t paying attention to this message
OR you’re not willing to put in the effort to change...
whatever the reason, you HAVE accepted your own failure
and for some reason you think Russian or Ukrainian women should accept it as well...

well...guess what?
they won’t!

forget trying to find the ultimate social media, etc
all the things that you need to succeed are within you and are NOT external things...

but if you “are weighed and measured” and found wanting...
then don’t ignore this message, do something about it...

[2tallbill]

So as you all know I have been trying to learn the Russian Language. I have made some small progress but find there is the annoyance of there being masculine and feminine, nouns, adjectives, etc.

I haven't read anyone else's posts yet.

My prediction is that you'll get the forum equivalent of a spanking.

[2tallbill]

So, if a two year old can master this, you should be able to as well.  You just need to think like a two year old.

I find the cases the most difficult (and my pronunciation is atrocious)

[krimster2]

I fell in love with Russia...
it's such a tragic place like America 30 years from now....
the people stoic only on the outside
but engliski is a barrier I let slip away over there
on victory day I have talked with veterans of the great patriotic war
tiny frail old men who still march with pride...

ya lubit the smell of rodina in the morning....
it smells like Victory Day!!

language is the main barrier to entry to "Russian World"
get rid of that, and there IS NO LIMIT to the kind of adventure you can have over there!
I've run several businesses in Russia and Ukraine, and I can honestly say it's not hard to make money over there as well as deal with the inevitable corruption...
here's a hint: ALWAYS go with the flow and STAY LOW...

in the future Russia will become more like America and America will become more like Russia
that's why I'm getting in NOW!!!!
with Russian citizenship in the future for me...
as I transcend my current existence and become an obscure Russian patriarch and mentor to an obscure clan of techo-oligarchs and grandchildren in southern Moscva along the river...
Americans have NOT lost their faith YET (but it is INEVITABLE that they one day will!)...
Russia is already POST faith!
what do you believe in?
after you find out EVERYTHING is a lie...


the answer is NOTHING....
the bolshoi nichivo
and then we're all dead anyway, so WTF right?
so what does it matter if a couple of thousand people get killed in Ukraine
they were all gonna die eventually anyway, so what harm have I REALLY done by working "on PUTIN'S PLAN"
the GRU even had a priest bless our operation, so I know I'm not getting any flak from that quarter!!!

all because of this...

these gas pipelines are worth 5 times as much as Putin's armies for controlling half of Europe...
Brexit, was only the first part of fracturing Europe
after Putin takes Ukraine, then will come the second part

[Patagonie]

I find the cases the most difficult (and my pronunciation is atrocious)

Cases are a nightmare but perfectvive vs imperfective is worse

[Boethius]

in the future Russia will become more like America and America will become more like Russia
that's why I'm getting in NOW!!!!

1,000 years of history suggests you are mistaken.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[ML]

communication.....
many cross-cultural relationships, fail to some degree over this issue...
my conclusion... if you’re not willing to learn Russian, then stay with the “locals”....
because you can’t make the language issue one sided and say it’s ONLY HER problem...
and that once she masters English, problem solved....
IT WON’T BE!!

everyone in my family, myself included is multi-lingual.  my family and I have our own unique dialect of mixed Russian/English we use between us depending on the nature of our guests, we may switch completely to Russian or English at dinner

What you write is very specific to your own particular situation.

'Most' of us live in an entirely different reality.

My wife knew from the very beginning that she wanted to learn English to highest possible degree of proficiency.  Thus she wouldn't even consider trying to get me to learn any Ukrainian (or Russian.)

And the same holds true for the 8 or so Ukrainian couples that we interact with a few times per year.  Both spouses for each couple are professionals and use English exclusively on the job.

Now it is true that when we have our get-togethers, if a few of them are off to themselves, they will speak in Ukrainian.

That doesn't bother or affect me in any way; and they NEVER do it when even one non-Ukrainian speaking person is within hearing distance.

Further, I suggested at our last invitation that wife go without me so that she could relax and talk in Ukrainian.  She would have nothing of it and would only go if I accompanied her.  I will work on that idea some more in the future though.

[krimster2]

"1,000 years of history suggests you are mistaken."


oh you silly Canadians!
it must be all that Maple Syrup y’all pour all over EVERYTHING!
I hope you don’t have some kind of “give me your tired, huddled masses, blah, blah, blah”? view of America?

late at night, in a long, long walk down a Moscva city ulitsa
I can see that the people in Moscva now all bow and pray
to the same neon money God they made in the West...

if this were Chicago in the 1920s with Al Capone and “The Chicago Outfit”
then it would match Volchik and Moscva today!

everything seems so comfortably familiar when viewed from this perspective...
so what would’ve happened if there were no “Untouchables” to take down Capone?
what if a Capone took over an entire country?

what if the president was criminal?
what if the ENTIRE political and economic system was criminal?
the difference between Russia and America is no longer one of opposites
but one of only slight degrees of difference.


ML,
“What you write is very specific to your own particular situation.
'Most' of us live in an entirely different reality.”


Indeed, this is TRUE...
I have lived over there for several years, and will be doing so again part-time starting next summer...
I’d rather spend summers in Moscow than north Houston!!
I also come from this culture, my father’s parents were both born in Ukraine
and maya babooshka govorila so mnoy po russki when I was a malenky malchik...

I agree that if your partner’s English skills are at your own level then communication shouldn’t be a problem...
most of my wife’s Russian friends are MUCH more comfortable speaking with me in Russian instead of English,
and because I am the only American husband who speaks Russian they are always flattering me
and that makes my wife smile! hirroshie moosh!

but in Russia, this means I can have direct one-on-one with the “right people”
and I KNOW how to “do business” there

you make money for your patron
who supplies you with a krisha
and because you’re a smart guy, you figure out how to make money for yourself out of the deal without it coming out of his pocket...
as long as you deliver, then no one will ever hurt the golden goose...

[Boethius]

Maple syrup has many unique polyphenols.  It isn't indigenous to my region.

I wasn't referring to making money.  That was easy to do in Imperial Russia as well, which is why the Russian Empire was multi-ethnic.  I am referring to freedom, or the illusion of freedom, in general.  A lack of freedom has been a distinct feature of Russia through the centuries.

This post was composed without the aid of google.

[Boethius]

I find the cases the most difficult (and my pronunciation is atrocious)

Cases are mostly memory work. 


Your tongue learns certain patterns of pronunciation, and that is difficult to undo.


The better half says a Moscow based Italian journalist (in the USSR) was the best non native speaker he's ever heard - perfect grammar, native level use of phrasing.  But some of her pronunciation was foreign.  However, Italians have a pleasing accent in Russian.  English speakers, not so much.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[krimster2]

"I am referring to freedom, or the illusion of freedom, in general. "

that's REALLY all it is BO, an illusion...
In America you have Fox News AND MSNBC in Russia you basically just have Fox News...
and it's COLDER....

[Boethius]

Perhaps.  But, America doesn't have a history of sending its citizens to prisons in Alaska because they pissed off the powers that be.  It hasn't, AFAIK, assassinated American politicians who disagree with the president (assuming conspiracy theories are correct, let's say, since, oh, the seventies).

I'm referring to physical freedom.  One can be physically incarcerated, but still be free, as the state does not yet control our thoughts.


This post was composed without the aid of google.

[SANDRO43]

However, Italians have a pleasing accent in Russian.

Why? Because our language is more musical, due to its abundance of vowels?

Major hurdles for us are the sounds of the velar vowel Ы and the alveolar consonant Л, because no similar articulations exist in Italian.