stereotypes about Russian language

[Alina Israeli]

Deborah has touched upon something that I've been wondering about my  
entire language-learning life, not a short one, particularly given  
that I started French age 4. There should be some psychological test  
for language compatibility: some languages are more compatible with  
different individuals (I've heard many times "Spanish never made  
sense but German clicked" and vice versa), not to mention group  
psychology: I recall in grad school taking French, German, Italian  
and a couple of Slavic languages, of course, and telling Prof.  
Shevoroshkin at that time that the class dynamics are totally  
different and very representative of what we consider to be  
stereotypes of each individual culture. I should be researched, but I  
am afraid it's a taboo subject, at least not very politically correct.

PS. To add to perils of other languages: Italian subjunctives.

On May 2, 2008, at 9:44 AM, Deborah Hoffman wrote:

> I'm wondering also if there isn't some other factor that determines  
> relative ease or lack of besides the similarities to one's native  
> language. Not that I have a clue as to what that might be of  
> course, but since my first day in Russian class there has seemed an  
> internal logic in it that seems more easily processed by my brain  
> (for lack of a better explanation) than other languages I've taken  
> that are technically "closer" to my native language of English. I  
> often tell people who opine that Russian is "hard" that I found  
> French and German to be in some ways much harder. The tenses drove  
> me absolutely mad in French, which makes no sense, as did strong  
> and weak endings (of all things) in my college German. I wonder as  
> well if preconceptions might play a role; when I started learning  
> Russian and nobody had told me it was a "hard" language. I had  
> heard that, say Latin was a "hard" language in comparison to  
> Spanish or French, but I hadn't heard anything one way or the other  
> about
>  Russian and therefore for me it just was.
>
>>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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