stereotypes about Russian language

[Pendergast, J. Mr DFL]

Rating of language difficulty is a slippery and complex task, but the US
Department of Defense has done it for its own purposes by classifying
languages in four categories I thru IV, I being the easiest (including
many of the Romance languages) and IV being the hardest (including
Arabic and Chinese, for example).   Russian is Cat III language, so
using this logic, it would NOT be one of the hardest.  

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the categories from
http://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/special-pay/military-forei
gn-language-proficiency-pay

Category I - 95: French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish 
Category II - 100: German 
Category III - 105: Greek, Hebrew, Moro, Persian-Farsi, Persian-Afghan,
Afghan, Russian, Serbian/Croatian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Uzbek, and
Vietnamese 
Category IV- 110: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean     

John Pendergast
Assistant Professor of Russian
United States Military Academy
745 Brewerton Road
West Point, NY 10996
845-938-0310


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of alexaaa at bgnet.bgsu.edu
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 3:16 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] stereotypes about Russian language

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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