Thoughts on your wife's English situation

[ECOCKS]

A question for those who have been married or in long-term relationships for a while, what are your thoughts about the importance of getting her English skills up to a level for adequate employment?

Granted, we are probably going to have a debate on the meaning of adequate, but at a practical level that should mean one where she feels satisfied with the place she is making for herself in her new world.

That can be followed up with thoughts on how best to enable her to get to that level.  Lessons?  Software?  Audio tapes?  Adult Education programs?  Other ideas and resources?

[beachcomber556]

Language skills and how best to acquire them is one of those "it depends" things.  I can speak with some authority, having been a foreign language teacher for many years.  My wife she enrolled in a private English institute in Odessa a few months before we met.  She continued non-stop until shortly before we came home to Houston nearly two years later.  It was the best investment we could have made.  On a scale of 1-10, her fluency was an 8, and enabled her to take driving lessons and get her license within 60 days.  Shortly after that she made her first foray into the work world.  Today she owns her own bridal boutique in an upscale district of the Houston metro area. 

She tried ESL at the local Community College, but it was totally worthless in her opinion.  As a result, she had her instructor in Odessa send to her the final two levels of the course and she has been working on them self-paced ever since.  This is great for the explanations of complex grammatical structures, but IMHO, the best learning for her now comes from the daily interaction with her clients and vendors, as well as just going through daily life things like grocery shopping, banking, defensive driving (lol).

As to your question, which works best, it depends on the student.  Whatever works best, that's the way to go.  But Viktoriya will tell you and your better half, there is no substitute for a highly skilled teacher to explain in Russian the nuances of English grammar and syntax.

Hope this helps.

[groovlstk]

It's enormously important, beyond practicality it has implications for the health of your marriage. It's sad but all of the RW that we know locally who refuse to learn English exist in this sort of no man's land where they can't really integrate professionally or socially, their only happy moments come when they're surrounded by expats. Otherwise they're miserable and bitter about the US and American people and develop a sort of selective memory about how much better everything is back in mother Russia.

My wife was about a 3 on a scale of 5 in English when we met and before getting her visa she expected to begin working in the US almost immediately. Once she arrived and realized not many people were as patient as I when talking to her, she knew improving her English was a huge priority. She took a mixture of free and paid lessons and after just less than a year felt confident enough to look for work in her field.

We just celebrated our third Christmas and NYs in the US together, and in retrospect she always had my full support and lots of advice in doing what she had to do to bring her English up, but ultimately it was her burden. I also think seeing how some of her new Russian friends clung to their little enclaves vs. those who put the work into integrating (and thus had better jobs, a larger social circle, and were less afraid of trying new things) gave her a sense of urgency which in turn made her work harder.

ECOCKS, I'm sure you have thought this through and realize that your wife will have a much easier time integrating. Whatever her current level of English is, her stress factor upon arrival will be much lower because she has confidence in you and your marriage. Most guys don't have this advantage and no matter how strong the relationship is, his wife will have the added newlywed stress of wondering whether the marriage will work while simultaneously knowing that if things go belly up, the only other people who truly love her are 5000 miles away.

I remember in my uni days I had to take the obligatory freshman psych class, and we read of some egghead who assigned a numerical value to major life events, which could help determine your stress level at given times. Marriage, deaths in the family, starting a new job, etc. were all very high on the stressor list. I'm not a big fan of pop psych, but I'd imagine that a RW marrying a K1 kowboy must simultaneously deal with relocation to a new country and culture, the marriage itself, and having to learn to communicate - all of which would give her a stress factor off the charts. If I might go off on another tangent, it's exactly this reason why I believe one-week-wonders who plan to use the 90-day K1 marriage window to make sure they're marrying the right woman are making a grave mistake - a woman coping with the stress and stimuli of a new life is most definitely NOT going to be herself during these 90 days.

[GoodOlBoy]

It's enormously important, beyond practicality it has implications for the health of your marriage. It's sad but all of the RW that we know locally who refuse to learn English exist in this sort of no man's land where they can't really integrate professionally or socially, their only happy moments come when they're surrounded by expats. Otherwise they're miserable and bitter about the US and American people and develop a sort of selective memory about how much better everything is back in mother Russia.

: DITTO Groovlstk

DEFINITELY same situation here in N. Miami.

If you are an educated, fluent English speaking RW you are on the "inside" track for a good job (down here ATLEAST 50k a year).

If not.....waitress, hair cutting (from home), motel room cleaning, etc. are some of the jobs RW arriving in the USA can look forward to.

GOB

[groovlstk]

GOB, we have a RW in our circle of friends who really cracks me up. She came here about 2 years ago after marrying her Russian husband, who works for an IT firm in NYC. Anyway, she has decent English - easily enough to get by at most jobs - yet is extremely sensitive about her abilities with strangers. She's been looking for work but whenever an HR person phones her to schedule an interview, she ends up hanging up on them the first time she hears a word she doesn't understand.  I sympathized until she told us this happened at least a dozen times in the last year, and after she hangs up she panics further and disconnects the phone so if they call back they can't reach her. It's probably cruel of me to see humor in this but man, the image of her slamming the phone down and pulling the line out of the jack cracks me up. 

[GoodOlBoy]

GOB, we have a RW in our circle of friends who really cracks me up. She came here about 2 years ago after marrying her Russian husband, who works for an IT firm in NYC. Anyway, she has decent English - easily enough to get by at most jobs - yet is extremely sensitive about her abilities with strangers. She's been looking for work but whenever an HR person phones her to schedule an interview, she ends up hanging up on them the first time she hears a word she doesn't understand.  I sympathized until she told us this happened at least a dozen times in the last year, and after she hangs up she panics further and disconnects the phone so if they call back they can't reach her. It's probably cruel of me to see humor in this but man, the image of her slamming the phone down and pulling the line out of the jack cracks me up. 

Groovlstk....I would definitely like to be a fly on the wall to see this. 


GOB

[Mishenka]

RW have the same insecurities we would if the situation was reversed.  I can imagine how hard it would be to live and work in a large FSU city and communicate in the work place.  Galina and I speak at least twice a day sometimes three for about 2 hours at a time. Each time we speak we make it a point to learn new English and Russian words together. I teach her how to phrase sentences and spell correctly rather than set her free to translate in her Russian language mind set. She learns quickly yet she is still insecure about her English while working here. I have two college courses I kept from school to help her with English. She already speaks better than some past RW I was dating who lived her 12- 14 years. As far as my learning Russian, she wants to teach me rather than have me attend some class here. She is not a control freak, she just wants to spend time together. Learning together helps form a closer bond. for a husband to show a keen interest in her culture and language is a huge thing to RW.

Mishenka

[chivo]

Groovlstk....I would definitely like to be a fly on the wall to see this. 


GOB

Why? Doesn't seem that interesting to me.

Maybe some of you need to live in another country to REALLY see how difficult even the simplest of things can be when you can't fully understand the language. No, not just the normal things a tourist deals with when they have a native speaker to fall back on.

I use to think that many of the people in America who didn't have my command of the language were...well to put it bluntly, stupid, as I'm sure many of you do. 

That was until I moved to Russia and was now put squarely in their shoes. Without getting into a long story, let's just say that my view has changed dramatically, and I'm much more tolerant.

RW have the same insecurities we would if the situation was reversed.  I can imagine how hard it would be to live and work in a large FSU city and communicate in the work place. 

Exactly. I imagined the same thing, but it's worse  . Not just at the work place, but in normal, easy, everyday situations that so many take for granted because they can actually speak the language.

As to your question, which works best, it depends on the student.  Whatever works best, that's the way to go.  But Viktoriya will tell you and your better half, there is no substitute for a highly skilled teacher to explain in Russian the nuances of English grammar and syntax.

Hope this helps.

I partly agree with this. First, it does depend on the student (or actually the ambition of the student), but grammar IMO is only a small part. If you know anything about English studies in Russia, then you know that grammar is stressed above all else. They don't even speak in class for up to 2 years, which is ridiculous.

Also, they are asked to do direct translations, which means you get English words and phrases such as; variant, instead of choice or option,  we lived at the Marriott, instead of "we stayed at the Marriott" and I met these words yesterday, instead of "I saw these words yesterday", just to name a few of the simpler ones.

IMO, while grammar is important and necessary, there is nothing better than hearing simple spoken words. Like a baby who's learning. Good English in, good English out.

It's one thing to understand, and quite another to speak. Remember, Russian is a free form language whereas English is not. 

And, while we both might see life similar, Russians express life situations, in some/many cases, differently than English speakers.

Most Russians I know have a decent to great grasp of grammar, yet talk like someone who's had to much to drink.  :noidea:

I've also notice this with private students I teach. We started using dictaphones (all have one at my request), and the lessons are repeated by me after we finish.

I have witnessed a much faster grasp of spoken English by doing this as opposed to my group lessons, which are mostly a combination of grammar, syntax and speaking without a dictaphone.

This also helps them change bad speaking habits acquired over the years, like the ones I mentioned above. No easy feat BTW.

The eyes allow you to understand (i.e., grammar, reading, writing), but it's the ear (listening) that allows you to not only improve your speaking, but gives a person a better understanding of the speed of the language. Something to keep in mind, especially if she's still in Russia. Good luck.

chivo   

[ECOCKS]

Excellent observations chivo.

[SANDRO43]

Remember, Russian is a free form language whereas English is not. 

Chivo, what do you mean by that? Up to now, I only heard it applied to programming languages .

[I/O]

Getting her language up to employable level is, IMO critical to her progress. Employable can of course be a range of levels. I don't know about USA, but from what I can gather the FOC type courses are somewhat lacking in substance. Down here, IMO the 510 hours of free tuition provided for in the visa process accesses a poor standard of delivery. Much depends on the local provider but there is little or no oversight by the immigration department and as such IMO it is little more than a gravy train for the so called colleges providing it.

We have unearthed a range of services being provided in this area and Mrs has involved herself in several English courses, but at the end of the day, if one requires a decent level of English tuition, I don't think there is any much substitute for University Pre Entry English study or quality private tutition.

I/O 

[Diplomacy]

This is where my going Native theoria served me best IMO.

One I know what it felt like to have to fend for ones self in a much different setting and language.

Second I got a good handle on a few things that are different for sure.

Three I hated being treated like a baby.  Unless it is a dangerous situation like the garbage disposal, I am there to help when fallen only.

Four language and native speakers in a different country are the path of least resistance.  Her friend asked me one time how my fiance's English was coming along?  I answered, why do you not speak to her in English and find out yourself?  It is a crutch and the only factor that makes sense to me.  How someone as bright as many of the woman are can only get jobs working in retail or cleaning rooms in a hotel. 

You should have been a fly on the wall in the hospital.

Her Papa needed water from the market.

She asked if I wanted to go with her or stay with Papa

I said I want to go and buy in Russian

She replies Ok then lets go in English

Then I said "I" not "we" in Russian

She then goes to give me the label

Net

I am a man not a baby I reply in Russian

I went got the water with gas and came back.

Papa says Great in Russian and looks over at my fiance and winks.  I do not think that he was talking about the water. He was glad to see that I put my foot down and stood up for myself.  Plus he was probably at peace with the fact I could handle myself with his stubborn daughter.  Mind you it was probably the first real conversation I had in Russian in front of him.

Plus the other guys in the room with him, had smiles ear to ear when I came back with the correct water.  I guess I was the entertainment for the afternoon.  They all started talking to me after that too.

The only down side was I was asked to drink for all their health a lot.

[ScottinCrimea]

My personal experience with the language and actually living in Ukraine mirror chivo's.

As far as my wife's experience, when she first got here we enrolled her in an ESL class. She tested out at a 6 out of 6 levels.  She continued to attend for a couple of months, though, thinking a review of some of the basics would build on her foundation.  Actually I think she learned more Spanish than English, though.

She wanted to start work immediately so she applied for and got a job with a national retailer.  She handled the job interview and orientation fine, but on the first day of real training she left abruptly and came home in tears.  There were just too many new industry related terms and slang that she didn't understand and she felt totally lost  It took awhile to console her and deal with her frustration.  Here was a woman with a Master's degree who couldn't handle what was a pretty basic job.  I talked to the HR person at the company and convinced them to let her start at a different position at a lower level that didn't require such a high level of language skills.  She excelled in that position, learned what she needed and after less than a year applied for and got a specialty position within the company.  They were a bit worried about her language skills still, as the position required regular e-mails with the corporate office, review of work done by others and the ordering of materials, but those concerns were quickly resolved as she was named executive of the month her second month on the job.  Most are surprised that she has only been in the country for a year.

A funny story that speaks to the directness of RW.  During her interview for this position, she was asked how she would respond to a co worker who was not keeping up with his share of the work.  Her response was, " There is not much I can do, I'm not his boss.  What should I do, cut his balls off?"  I think this response got her the job as much as anything and is still talked about within the company.

She has one close RW friend who has been in the US for over three years, still has very limited English, and does not make the effort to learn more.  She keeps looking for better work but refuses to recognize that her limited English is what holds her back.  She is looking for some way around the need to know English.  Her latest idea is something she heard about where she will become a nurse.  Apparently her sister or someone told her about some program where she will take a year of school, a year of work and then two more years of school and she will be a nurse.  Of course this makes no sense, considering the requirements for nursing education, but she wants to believe this is the path to financial security without having to take the time to learn English first.

Seeing this, it is clear to me that the longterm approach to this is for them to spend the first year in community college or higher level English classes and only then think about further education or job-seeking.  Only then can the job they ultimately find match their intelligence and skills.  Failure to do this leads to low-paying dead end jobs or a very long time in working their way up the ladder.  Better to jump start it with some solid English language skills.

I know that when our daughter arrives next month, she will be immediately enrolled in the local CC and be told to expect a year of English courses before she considers anything else.

[ECOCKS]

Thanks for sharing those stories. 

[chivo]

Chivo, what do you mean by that? Up to now, I only heard it applied to programming languages .

 

Slip of the tongue  .

[SANDRO43]

Slip of the tongue  .

Because you meant what? You know I'm interested in matters linguistical .

[tfcrew]

If this has been mentioned before?...
Employment, at any entrance level, is the very best way there is to learn American English.
This is from personal experience...we have been here together in Garland for 8 1/2 years.
Language is learned not from one teacher but from many speakers.
Best of luck
Karl

[GoodOlBoy]

A funny story that speaks to the directness of RW.  During her interview for this position, she was asked how she would respond to a co worker who was not keeping up with his share of the work.  Her response was, " There is not much I can do, I'm not his boss.  What should I do, cut his balls off?"  I think this response got her the job as much as anything and is still talked about within the company.

Ah Yes, there it is....... the directness of a RW in a nutshell.  

ScottinCrimea, I can picture my wife saying the same thing to the interviewer.

She would also add: "it is a stupid question".


GOB

[chivo]

Because you meant what? You know I'm interested in matters linguistical .

English has structure as you know. Subject+verb, adjective+preposition, word order, etc., blah, blah, blah.

Russian doesn't. All that matters is that the case matches.

If it does, you can put the words however/wherever the mood strikes, pretty much.

chivo

[SANDRO43]

English has structure as you know. Subject+verb, adjective+preposition, word order, etc., blah, blah, blah. Russian doesn't. All that matters is that the case matches. If it does, you can put the words however/wherever the mood strikes, pretty much.

I see what you mean, you're referring to the 'syntactic flexibility' of declensed languages. However, I wonder if Russian really has it to the same degree that Latin had.

In my time, Latin was taught in our scuola media (6th to 8th grade), which included compiti a casa (home assignments) and compiti in classe (class tests) consisting in translating Latin texts into Italian, or viceversa. I still remember the headache when translating some of Julius Caesar's prose, considered the unsurpassed model of good Latin style (Cicero being too convoluted, as befits a lawyer ). First I had to hunt through the whole long passage for the main verb, which would clue me in to the possible subject, and so on and on. Like a jig-saw puzzle .

[mendeleyev]

Maybe some of you need to live in another country to REALLY see how difficult even the simplest of things can be when you can't fully understand the language. No, not just the normal things a tourist deals with when they have a native speaker to fall back on.

After two years of college Russian, I moved to Moscow for a 3 year posting.  The first afternoon upon arrival was spent with a guide and driver assigned by the Russian Press Ministry.  Both spoke English.

The next day I was on my own until around 3pm in the afternoon when they would come to pick me up.  That morning I tried to use the telephone to call back to my daughters and brother but the telephone operators spoke no English and their Russian was so fast I couldn't handle it.  So I ventured outside knowing not much more than the apartment street name, apt number and outside door code.  None of my neighbors spoke English.

I took a pad of paper and broke the block into quarters, tracing large trees and benches and street names onto a homemade map.  Then practiced it and made some adjustments.  Then widened it out double in each direction.

Next I decided to buy some groceries, being hungry since all I had was tea, sugar, milk and some crackers which I'd requested the landlord have ready.  I stepped inside a little shop and was embarrassed to realize that I didn't even recognize what kind of a store it was.  Nothing on the shelves looked familiar. Rather than ask I panicked and fled.  Gathering my wits I was determined to try again so next I visited 3 small street vendors selling fruit and vegetables.  I was able to make my purchases but my attempts at using Russian was met with blank stares.  Only a nice old lady who helped me saved the moment.  I pointed, she said the name of item slowly as I realized again that I'd learned phrases which looked good in a textbook but weren't used on the street.  She politely selected money and made change from my hand to help me purchase.

And given Russian word order, sometimes phrases were somewhat familiar, but different enough that I'd have to stop and think my way thru them before understanding how to respond.  That points out the advantage Karl mentioned that it takes more than one teacher (or speaker) to assimilate a foreign language.

Thanking the lady, as she had helped me at each vendor kiosk, I used my map to find home and put away my things and cooked my first meal in Russia.  With more than an hour before my guide and driver would appear, I went shopping again this time stepping inside a little market near my street. 

There I learned that correct change, or darn close to it was expected.  I learned that you don't hand money to a cashier, you place it on the little money pad and she then picked it up and put any change on the pad for me to pick up.  It was in that little store that I learned to buy and pay for things at each counter instead of gathering things and paying once when finished.  And the practice of bringing your own plastic bag or paying for a new one was introduced to me there.

Over the next months my abilities grew quickly thanks to the foundation of the prior classes, and I learned to survive.  But as Chivo pointed out, you certainly are handicapped in a new country until you can communicate.

[chivo]

I see what you mean, you're referring to the 'syntactic flexibility' of declensed languages. However, I wonder if Russian really has it to the same degree that Latin had.

I wasn't sure if you were playing me or not  , as you seem to know quite a bit about these matters.

Not really sure myself how it stacks up against Latin, but I do know that I stopped trying to do more complex parallel text because of it. :noidea:

In my time, Latin was taught in our scuola media (6th to 8th grade), which included compiti a casa (home assignments) and compiti in classe (class tests) consisting in translating Latin texts into Italian, or viceversa. I still remember the headache when translating some of Julius Caesar's prose, considered the unsurpassed model of good Latin style (Cicero being too convoluted, as befits a lawyer ). First I had to hunt through the whole long passage for the main verb, which would clue me in to the possible subject, and so on and on. Like a jig-saw puzzle .

Funny you should mention "jigsaw puzzle" because that's exactly how I view Russian.

Part of my thinking involves learning 2-6 word phrases and callocations, hoping that the "puzzle" will become clearer over time. I find that I am having some success with it  .

my attempts at using Russian was met with blank stares.

I can certainly relate to this. I'm also amazed at the number of Russians who approach me on the street asking for information, even when there are many other Russians around.

It took me about 2 years to stop being somewhat intimidated when I would venture off somewhere around Moscow. Now I can handle most situations, but still come across situations that are more difficult than they should be. 

Over the next months my abilities grew quickly thanks to the foundation of the prior classes, and I learned to survive.  But as Chivo pointed out, you certainly are handicapped in a new country until you can communicate.

Just yesterday I was at the gym and thought I lost my check ticket for my coat (actually, unknown at the time, it was mistakenly picked up by someone standing at the reception as I was leaving and they were entering).

It took me about 10 minutes to successfully explain this to the coat check guy. I think my sentence structure and phrasing, at times, both confused and humored him  .

While my Russian has improved greatly, I still struggle with it. This after 2 years of trying to be more serious about learning the language.

In America, I could of handled this in less than 1 minute. So it goes. Good luck. 

chivo 

[Misha]

English has structure as you know. Subject+verb, adjective+preposition, word order, etc., blah, blah, blah.

Russian doesn't. All that matters is that the case matches.

This is not quite correct. The Russian language does have its syntax and words do follow a certain word order even if cases exist. When Russian-speakers do deviate from the normal word order, they usually do so following a given syntax in order to emphasize a certain meaning. Simply put, you can't simply put words in any order even if the cases are correct.

[chivo]

This is not quite correct. The Russian language does have its syntax and words do follow a certain word order even if cases exist. When Russian-speakers do deviate from the normal word order, they usually do so following a given syntax in order to emphasize a certain meaning. Simply put, you can't simply put words in any order even if the cases are correct.

Simply put, I meant much less, but judging by your black and white view on most things, let me rephrase things a bit.

I seriously doubt anyone, or lets say the vast majority of people here or anywhere, will get "even" this deep with the language. You know that you can use the words much more freely than in English was/is more to the point because of the case (endings).

For anyone who cares and is not familiar with this, cases deal with noun, pronoun, and adjective endings to indicate their function and relationship to other words in a sentence. Native English speakers do not have to deal with this.

In Russian, you can freely move the order of words in a sentence because the case tells you EXACTLY what the role of each word plays in the sentence.

Я тебя люблю
Я люблю тебя

This is a very simple explanation of what I meant. Both phrases above are said correctly in Russian because the ending тебя indicates who I love (direct object) despite its order. You can only say this one way correctly in English without adding another/other word/words. 

здесь нет книги (there is no book here)
нет здесь книги
нет книги здесь
здесь книги нет

This is another example of being able to use the words in ANY order correctly because the case (книги) refers to the issue of the book's absence and in any order it will be understood by the listener. I can't say " no book there is here" in English, well, without sounding a little strange.

There are far to many more examples to list, so I hope you get my drift.

And yes, prepositions must have there place as in с тобою. I can't change this to тобою с, for instance. Russian does get a bit more complicated no doubt, but yes you're right, there is word order, albeit back to the point, much less strict compared to English.

As a general rule also, you should give new information or information you want to stress at the end of a Russian sentence.

If you have listened to enough Russians (in Russia) speak English, you know how much this comes into play with the way they phrase their sentences. They often use the same rules (Russian) when speaking English, which is why you hear sentences with words all over the place. Hope this clears things up a bit. Good luck.

chivo

[Misha]

In Russian, you can freely move the order of words in a sentence because the case tells you EXACTLY what the role of each word plays in the sentence.

Я тебя люблю
Я люблю тебя

Moving the words around can influence very subtly the meaning. In the first example, Я тебя люблю, you could use it to emphasize that she is the one that you love while the second would be simply to say "I love you." 

There are far to many more examples to list, so I hope you get my drift.

My point is that the preferred word order is generally SVO in Russian as well as in English. Most speech  will follow a standard syntax including word order and Russian speakers won't deviate from standard word order unless they specifically want to emphasize a given point. Yes, in theory, they could mix up the word order all the time in each and every sentence, but normal speakers won't. There is a preferred pattern as to how words should be organized in a sentence, and this preferred order is followed most of the time by most speakers in normal conversation.