stereotypes about Russian language

[Helen Halva]

When we look at this list, Russian is not in the hardest category.  But, 
at least for Americans, the category IV languages are virtually 
untaught, especially at the high school level.  So students usually make 
the comparison with category I and II languages, making Russian/Slavic 
languages  significantly more difficult than the other languages they 
experience ------ with the exception of Hebrew, perhaps, which has a 
wider audience outside the academic setting.

HH



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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