stereotypes about Russian language

[Jane Costlow]

The question here of course is student perception, not linguists' or 
pedagogues' understanding.  I have to relate a conversation with a 
student yesterday.   The young woman traveled with me to Russia during 
May of 2006.  She didn't go on to take Russian - she studied in Japan 
this past semester.  When I saw her yesterday (for the first time this 
year) she exclaimed "I miss Russia so much!"  Ever the cheerleader and 
recruiter, I suggested "Why don't you take Russian next fall!"
Her answer - "Those cases are SO hard." 

i.e.  - harder for her than the difficulties of Japanese.  She's 
actually an excellent student.

So I'm stumped what to say next....

Jane Costlow
Professor of Russian
Bates College
Lewiston, Maine


Pendergast, J. Mr DFL wrote:
> 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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