language query

[Emily Tall]

As the author of the original query that started this discussion, let me
be more precise as to what exactly I wanted to know. The point was that
a language instructor was having students practice the construction "ia
govoriu na russkom iazyke" (they were doing chapter 3 in "Golosa), and I
thought they should be saying "ia govoriu po-russki." Thus my question
was not meant to be some abstract inquiry as to whether "na russkom iazyke"
could ever be used with "ia govoriu" but whether, in the concrete situation
of two people asking what foreign languages the other knows, so that
they can decide which one to use for communication, they would say
"na russkom iazyke" or "po-russki" with the phrase" ia govoriu". From a
pedagogical point of view, one does not teach every possible variant of
something to students in their first month of Russian. One teaches the
usual possibilities. That seems obvious to me! As for the word "substandard"
or "nonstandard," how, then, does one name what Russians call "prostorechie"
? I know the word "popular" is sometimes used. What about people who say
"oni khodiut"? Isn't that substandard - or nonstandard? And shouldn't our
students know that it is? Emily Tall