Brat ’ ili ne brat’?

[Iaroslav Pankovskyi]

"Brat'" is an English calque. It is very common though in lexicon of
Russian speaking students in English speaking countries.
Therefore it may sound familiar and right to you.

Another variant (probably most frequently used) to say "This semester I 
take physics" is
"В этом семестре у меня физика" (V etom semestre u menia fizika.)
Best,
Iaroslav.

* Evelina Mendelevich <emendelevich at GMAIL.COM> [Fri, 13 Aug 2010 
14:54:57 -0400]:
> Dear SEELANGers,
>
> I hope you will help me answer the question raised in one of my 
Russian
> for
> Heritage Speakers classes. We had a long discussion, but we didn't
> arrive to
> a definite conclusion. A tutor corrected one of the students when he
> used
> the expression "В этом семестре я беру физику и статистику." He
> instructed
> the student to use "изучаю" instead. Although "изучаю" appears to be 
the
> official version, it seems to me that "брать предмет" is not Anglicism
> but
> an appropriate way of reflecting American university system in which 
the
> student indeed "takes," or chooses, his or her "предметы." Since 
Russian
> has
> the expression "брать уроки," as in "брать уроки по гитаре," the 
choice
> of
> the verb appears to be dictated by the context (discretionary vs.
> mandatory). My question is, do you (or would you) allow students the 
use
> of
> "брать" when they talk about their college courses? Somehow, "что вы
> изучаете в этом семестре" doesn't sound right for me in this context ,

> while
> " какие предметы вы берете" does. Thank you in advance!
>
>

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