What the REAL women in Russia think: ask your questions

[Shadow]

Having built a circle of Russian friends, there is one who has access to a large group on one of the social sites. We were discussing the current opinions of RW and the situation for foreigners, and he has offered me to ask questions to his groups.

The women in these groups are very diverse, from Siberian village girls to Moscovite high maintenance ones. But most of them are not in any relationship with a foreigner, nor are they considering it.

If you wish to get opinions of real RW, who are not involved in any foreign relationships, this is your chance.
Try to get original quastions, and not the ones that most here can already tell the answer to...

[ML]

OK, ask them why they insist on having an accent when they speak in English.

[Doll]

OK, ask them why they insist on having an accent when they speak in English.

[Shadow]

 

OK, ask them why they insist on having an accent when they speak in English.

Simple answer: foreigners are too lazy to learn understandable Russian.

[lakecreek]

Russian is hard language to learn when your a native English speaker. I took a Russian language class at a community college, and  I dropped it about 2 weeks later.
Cyrillic alphabet I thin what spook me out of the class, and I will give every Russian high respect for learning English because I know it didn't come easy. Maybe when I graduate from college next year, I will go to one of these small local language schools that offer classes twice a week to learn it. It's good to speak another language.

[ukthesis]

Do they not say that English is one of the easier languages to learn?  Seems like half the world understands it to a degree.

[Anotherkiwi]

Do they not say that English is one of the easier languages to learn?  Seems like half the world understands it to a degree.

I don't think it's that so much; more that so many other languages have borrowed so many English words over the last 50 or 100 years as science and technology have taken over the world.  English may be easier than Russian, but it still has more than its fair share of irregularities and weirdness  .

[Gator]

Do they not say that English is one of the easier languages to learn?  Seems like half the world understands it to a degree.

Not true. English is more difficult than Spanish for example. 
 
English became the international language because of business.  The British with their many colonies and trading outposts started it.  With the global domination of American business after WWII, English became cemented as the most widely understood language for international trade.   Besides, American businessmen were too lazy to learn French, so anyone who wanted to do business with the wealthy Americans had better speak English.  The technology wave only reinforced what was already in place.

[ML]

Not true. English is more difficult than Spanish for example. 
 
English became the international language because of business.  The British with their many colonies and trading outposts started it.  With the global domination of American business after WWII, English became cemented as the most widely understood language for international trade.   Besides, American businessmen were too lazy to learn French, so anyone who wanted to do business with the wealthy Americans had better speak English.  The technology wave only reinforced what was already in place.

Now, let's look at the intermediate and more distant future.

I believe I read that there are actually more Chinese speakers world wide than English speakers.  Because just in China alone, what 1.5 billion or so.

And persons (mainly those of Chinese ancestry) who can communicate in Chinese are spread across virtually every country of the world.

Yes, granted there is currently more business transacted in English than in Chinese but . . . how long will this last given the increasing economic and political power of China?

I advise young students now to be thinking about studying Chinese; even as I would hate to do it myself.  In fact I almost always get a headache when I hear people conversing in Chinese; it is so jarring to the ear.

[andrewfi]

Lakecreek, if you gave up because learning an alphabet was hard then I kinda wonder whether you have the right stuff to do tough stuff.

Learning Cyrillic should only take a matter of hours and needs to be the basis of whatever you learn because if you can read then you can learn. It is much harder to have to learn a language by remembering everything that you are told or hear.

My Russian is far from great but I suggest going back and learning the alphabet and associated sounds and all of a sudden a world will open up to you.

[GQBlues]

Now, let's look at the intermediate and more distant future.

I believe I read that there are actually more Chinese speakers world wide than English speakers.  Because just in China alone, what 1.5 billion or so.

And persons (mainly those of Chinese ancestry) who can communicate in Chinese are spread across virtually every country of the world.

Yes, granted there is currently more business transacted in English than in Chinese but . . . how long will this last given the increasing economic and political power of China?

I advise young students now to be thinking about studying Chinese; even as I would hate to do it myself.  In fact I almost always get a headache when I hear people conversing in Chinese; it is so jarring to the ear.

Ok devil's advocate here...
 
Technically, no one in this world speaks 'Chinese'. The majority of Chinese folks,or those who speak Chinese langauge, speak Mandarin, which translated in English is 'Standard Language', IIRC. The next oft spoken language will be Cantonese.
 
Chinese languages, unlike many other languages, do not have an alphabet. They use 'figures or characters', which is one reason out of many, that make them arguably the most difficult languages to learn.

[SANDRO43]

Technically, no one in this world speaks 'Chinese'. The majority of Chinese folks,or those who speak Chinese language, speak Mandarin, which translated in English is 'Standard Language'.

Almost correct although, to play devil's solicitor , that was the language that developed over 500+ years at the Chinese central seat of power, i.e. the Emperor's court at Beijing where Mandarins were the all-powerful bureaucrats 'speaking' to the whole nation on his behalf through laws, edicts, etc.

The Forbidden City

Chinese languages, unlike many other languages, do not have an alphabet. They use 'figures or characters', which is one reason out of many, that make them arguably the most difficult languages to learn.

Yet the Chinese logographic script has the advantage of being understandable throughout China, regardless of how a given character (word) is pronounced locally - it has been like that for 3,000+ years:

Shang script (ca. 1,200 BC)

For me, what is even more difficult is that Chinese(s) over time lost all endings, tenses, etc. etc., all words whittled down to monosyllables. One wonders how the Chinese manage to THINK, without all those language paraphernalia we are so dependent on . Not to mention their 4/5 tones .