stereotypes about Russian language

[John Langran]

Yes, and it is important that the text books and courses start with the 
easier things and leave the more difficult points until later.
Different learning sequences are needed for Russian, with simple past tenses 
earlier in the course, for example.
John Langran
www.ruslan.co.uk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Emily Saunders" <emilka at MAC.COM>
To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] stereotypes about Russian language


>I always like to point out the following bits that make Russian 
>potentially easier than some other more commonly studied languages:
>
> 1)  Gender is, for the most part, simple to determine.  Just look at  the 
> ending of the noun.  Not so for German or the Romance languages  where 
> gender must, to a great extent, be memorized.
> 2)  Russian has just one past tense and lacks all of those lovely past 
> perfects, perfects, past perfect progressives, etc.  And there are, 
> essentially, only 4 endings you have to learn FOR ALL VERBS in the  past 
> tense - l, -la, -lo, li.  How simple is that?
> 3)  Spanish has the whole ser and estar problem to work out.  Russian  has 
> no "to be" verb in the present tense.  Very simple!
> 4)  German has complex word order that needs to be precise.  Russian  --  
> quite flexible!
>
> And I could go on, but you all know these points well enough or  better. 
> For all of the difficulties that case endings and verbs of  motion cause 
> to native English speakers studying Russian, there are  many other aspects 
> of the language that go down nice and easy.  I  figure that it sort of 
> balances out.  I have heard that Chinese has  some of the "easiest 
> grammar" to learn (no gender, no tenses), but  it's got a complex writing 
> system as well as tonality to keep one  busy.  Net xuda bez dobra?
>
> Not a scholarly opinion, but...
>
> Emily Saunders
>
> P.S.  I just held my first beginning Russian class here in Olympia, WA 
> through the local parks and recreation department.  It's a once a week 
> class for interested individuals.  Post-class conversation touched  upon 
> this very topic and the general impression I got from my students  is that 
> they did think of Russian as difficult, but they had  compelling personal 
> reasons for giving it a go:  plans to go to DLI,  lover of Akhmatova's 
> poetry, plans to go to Concordia Language camp  this summer, enjoys 
> visiting Russia (possible girlfriend?), etc.  I  think the key to language 
> learning is the motivation a student has for  studying a particular 
> language.  If the motivation is strong enough,  it won't ultimately matter 
> how "difficult" a language is or is  perceived to be.
>
> On Apr 30, 2008, at 12:15 PM, alexaaa at bgnet.bgsu.edu wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> Is there really a strong stereotype among our students that
>> Russian is one of the heardest languages to learn? Is it anyhow
>> discussed in scholarly works? If you know any works, could you
>> please redirect me to them?
>>
>> Thank you very much!
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Anastasia Alexandrova
>
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