Russian handwriting in US classrooms in the computer age

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Michael Denner wrote:

> My students write Russian just fine. It's just not cursive. They
> write like children, and the Russians probably smirk at them. Who
> cares? No one's suggesting returning to a pre-literate era. It's just
> a bloody waste of time to spend a week, a day, an hour on a totally
> unnecessary skill: Pretty handwriting.

I suppose it matters what their purpose is in taking the class.

If they're hard science majors wanting to get through a year of the 
language to meet a requirement and perhaps stumble through the odd 
journal article in their fields, handwriting won't serve any useful purpose.

If they're majoring in Russian or have some other serious use for the 
language and don't want their counterparts to smirk at them, I'd say 
it's part of the culture and they should learn it, just as an Arabic 
student learns to sit on his left hand at the dinner table and a 
Japanese student learns to bow on meeting a superior.

And Galina Rylkova's point about speed is well taken, though I confess 
I've occasionally been baffled when I saw words like пишите in my notes: 
12 bumps and a "е"??? ;-)

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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