If your language was a language with 20.000 years history, and the language which created other languages and other alphabets like Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet and all the languages with these alphabets, you would be proud of it.
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BTW, there are some Russian pseudoscientists who think that most of world history stems from Russian history.
This picture is a parody on their views:
http://static.oper.ru/data/gallery/l1048751517.jpg
Ш does not exist in many languages, so Englishmen do not pronounce it.
The man/ men thing is more of an issue if you're learning US pronunciation, I think, because in standard US pronunciation both words are closer to мэн than to anything else. In my accent though (I'm Scottish) the pronunciation of the two words map pretty well to ман/ мэн, and I'd argue the same could be said, though possibly to a slightly lesser extent, about most British accents.
It doesn't matter: we used the IPA ([mæn] - man, [men] - men), I don't know why Americans don't use it.Quote:
Note that they could both be represented as мэн in Cyrillic -- there's really no way of representing the vowel difference in the standard Russian alphabet. (Just as the English version of the Latin alphabet has no satisfactory way to represent the sound of ы.)
Did they really hear like that?Quote:
And I remember from my first year Russian class that a LOT of English speakers had huge difficulty (at first) hearing and pronouncing the difference between ы and the diphthong ой. (So a lot of people pronounced мы, ты, вы... like мой, той, вой...)
Your requirements for fluency are too strict.Quote:
True, the sparrow probably wasn't a very good example -- I doubt any ESL teacher would include "sparrow" on a vocabulary list for students below the advanced level. (Whereas words like "chicken", "pigeon", and "parrot" might be introduced even in a beginning class, although after the generic term "bird".)
A good example of a greek pseudoscientist (слоноведа):Quote:
BTW, there are some Russian pseudoscientists who think that most of world history stems from Russian history.
This picture is a parody on their views:
Quote:
If your language was a language with 20.000 years history, and the language which created other languages and other alphabets like Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet and all the languages with these alphabets, you would be proud of it.
man/men....
That's true, this is simpler if you aim for an American pronunciation. Some grammar is marginally easier in American English too.
But as I said before, Russian people sound chic and sophisticated when they speak with a more British accent. Less so with an American accent.... IMHO.... ! ;-)
Everyone knows how rubbish I am at Russian, and un-talented (beginning to sink in when I compare myself with my colleague that I mentioned earlier...) I am just an advanced beginner. But I can actually name lots of birds in Russian. Swallow, parrot, stork, swan, chicken and pidgeon. Maybe some more that I am forgetting. Russian people have a thing for singing about birds, I think... ! That's why I know so many birds names...Quote:
True, the sparrow probably wasn't a very good example -- I doubt any ESL teacher would include "sparrow" on a vocabulary list for students below the advanced level. (Whereas words like "chicken", "pigeon", and "parrot" might be introduced even in a beginning class, although after the generic term "bird".)
Oh, I was thinking wrong in my response. What Zedayeen is saying is right.
I meant that pronouncing the word is simpler in American English because it sounds quite similar regardless whether you are saying "man" or "men".
For example, Americans often say "Oh man"!
Depending on their American accent (which region) it is not that easy to hear which of the word is actually said....
Do any of you guys know Richard Simcott and/or Luca Lampariello? It's worth the search on Youtube! They're my "favorite" polyglots. I've already talked to them 2 or 3 times on the internet and they're both lovely guys.
Richard speaks about 15 or 16 languages nowadays, and Luca 9 or 10. Probably not all of them are "native level", but you can see by their videos on Youtube that they're really awesome.
I'm not that good with languages, so when I stumble on some polyglot video, I listen to Russian first, naturally, to see how good it is. :)
Luca is great! Links to his videos were posted here about a year ago. He has a nice accent, and his speech pattern in Russian sounds very natural, even when he stutters (he makes the same sounds as any Russian would have made in this situation). :)
I've seen only one video by Richard. He was pretty hard to understand, but it was still impressive, since other users complimented him on his good knowledge of other languages.
Oh dear, I couldn't hear any difference.
But one thing that I definitely CAN hear which I don't think sounds very nice, is that some Belarussians say "х" or "h" in places where there is a "г".
For example, "загореть" , they say "заhореть". I learnt the word from a Belarussian when I was there, and I actually checked the dictionary for захорить or something like that when I checked it up! LOL.There were several words like this.
I was told that this is a somewhat "uneducated" way of speaking Russian in Belarus.
Nothing strange about that at all, there are a million such nuances to English... But Russian is said to have "no accents", but I would definitely call this way of speaking a local accent.
All the sothern Russia (most people there) pronounce voiced х [γ ] instead of г. (x at the end of words and before a voiceless consonant).
It can be considered uneducated because of the dominance of the Moscow dialect.
Freqent Belorussian (probably rural) features: hard ч, hard p instead of soft.
Lukashenko was laughed at because of it.
Pronunciation of Russian has its regional varieties too. The Г/Х issue is probably the most noticable one - southerners (close to Ukraine) say Х instead of Г. Other well-known difference is А/О pronunciation - some Russians, mostly from the North of European Russia, pronounce молоко like it is written - молоко, while the majority pronounce it like малако. Every firstgrader in Russia has struggled with this problem. But wait... apparently those notherners have not? Never thought about that! :-)
(No need for "the" when you say Southern Russia.
It's either "Southern Russia" or "in the South of Russia" )
So why is it said that there is no accent in Russian then?
All of this stuff including the A/O thing that xdns mentions is accent!
It means you can listen to the person speaking and say where he comes from.
You can say for example, "you come from the South of Russia, near Ukraine".
Just like I can listen to someone and say "you come from the North of England, near the Scottish border".
hard ч, hard p instead of soft.
This, I don't notice either - I have to really focus to say it right. To me it is the same sound with only a very minor difference.
But x and G are two different letters. It's impossible to miss....
The A/O thing I would notice I think, but I have never met anyone that speaks this way, at least not that I know of.
On the Youtuble polyglot. I know of the guy called Luca because he was discussed at a forum I used to participate in before I joined MR. He was speaking Swedish but his accent was pretty bad and he was just saying some nonsense pickup phrases. It was not impressive at all.
I agree with what Gromozeka was saying that it is better to know 2-3 languages really well, and this is most peoples realistic upper level - than mess around in lots of languages but not have any depth.
Of course, if you live in Europe and get around a bit (all of the EU is smaller geographically than both Russia and the USA as far as I know) then it is good to be able to say simple things in some other langauges. Order food, ask for your clothes size or ask directions. But that is not the same as speaking a language.
А/О thing is much rarer than Г/Х thing if we speak of all Russia. Zuganov, for example, speaks with the southern variety of Г/Х, but I don't know any TV personality who has А/О issue in his/her speech. Speaking southern version of Г/Х is not considered uneducated - just regional difference - if your speech has no other stereotypical markers of southern villager. It is often about stereotypes, really. Put simply, Г/Х thing evokes southern village and А/О thing evokes nothern village in the mind of a "standard" Russian person, not too "southern", not too "northern" (both villages in European Russia, where the differences originated and evolved). I've written "southern" and "northern" because actual geographical details are more complicated and many people don't bother with them :-)
А/О showcase:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyQB5auKGgY
Trio of soldiers (at 1:50 and many other times during the film) sings expressly in the northern version of А/О. They sound so authentic and funny to my ear!
Their "northern" А/О is explicitly strong. The hero of the film also has this pronunciation feature, but in a subtler form.
PS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_dialects has a map showing places of origin of primary Russian dialects as well as other information. It highlights the point that these primary pronunciation features formed before the 16-17th centuries and major Russian expansions. Since then Russia has conquered many lands to the south, the east and the north, while the dialects remained mostly in their original habitats, just slightly expanded. For example, in my hometown of Astrakhan (to the south-east of "southern" pronunciation belt, in the delta of the river Volga) there is no trace of Г/Х thing - our accent is rather standard, I think.
This is a multilingual interview between Luca and Richard, this video is quite new, so we can see their (almost) current level in 9 languages (the ones they have in common):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mviU9Do764
I tend to disagree with you, Hanna. Being able to communicate in so many language, i.e. with so many people from different regions of the planet in THEIR own language is a dream to me. I'd rather be a B2~C1 in 10 languages and be able to get to know people all around the world than being a C2 in 5 languages.
It is said there are no dialects in Russian. It's not true but the difference between cities is minute, and the difference between the countryside is also decreasing. There are differences in pronunciation, mainly in vowel reduction and something else. They are weaker than between villages and become weaker and weaker.Quote:
So why is it said that there is no accent in Russian then?
That's not easy.Quote:
It means you can listen to the person speaking and say where he comes from.
You can say for example, "you come from the South of Russia, near Ukraine".
Just like I can listen to someone and say "you come from the North of England, near the Scottish border".
Americans say there is no difference between soft and hard L. Yet they immediately notice when a foreigner does not velarize his Ls. I think if you hear Swedish with soft Rs or hard Ls, you won't say the difference is very minor.Quote:
hard ч, hard p instead of soft.
This, I don't notice either - I have to really focus to say it right. To me it is the same sound with only a very minor difference.
I haven't listened to the video yet, I just mentioned some features I heard in Lukashenko's speech and know from books.
Still many Anglophones pronounce [k] instead of [x]. I don't know if they hear like that or can't pronounce the sound.Quote:
But x and G are two different letters. It's impossible to miss....
Another excellent А/О example - "Россия молодая":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKjZjSt9WW8
In this TV series the protagonist Ivan Ryabov (he is a real historical figure, a Pomor, i.e. a Russian from the shores of the White Sea) speaks with beautiful northern А/О accent.
You may hear him, for example, at 44:50 where he is captured by the Swedes and pretends to agree to steer their ships and circumvent shoals on the track to Arkhangelsk, which the Swedes are going to destroy. He accepted the offer for a reward of 500 riksdalers, but in the end ran Swedish ships aground right in front of cannons of a Russian fortress. It is a very good TV series, based on a book of the same name. I remember Estionian guy helping Russians, Swedish spy in disguise of a Danish person (Denmark supported Russia because Russia opposed Sweden). This book/film definitely arouses Russian patriotic feelings :-)
PS: In the scene which I described Swedes and Russians communicate with the help of English-Russian interpreter. I wonder how truthful this detail is...
Now I've listened to a part of the Belorussian video. They really pronounce hard R instead of soft: тры, итерэсно...
One has to find natural speech, not videos made for fun or where accent is imitated.
English does not have the x sound or rolling Rs, so obviously that is the challenge for them. Rolling Rs in particular are apparently very difficult to learn for an adult.
For me there is no Russian sound in itself that is hard to pronounce, the trick is keeping track of sounds where Russian has distinctions between different sounds which are never emphasised or discussed in other languages. Perhaps as a Russian you are able to tell that English in fact does have "soft" and "hard" Ls, but it would never occur to anyone else to think of it that way.
Russian is just really particular with how certain consonants should be prounounced, to the point that it's indicated by the spelling (soft / hard) and words could even change meaning. Whereas in other languages you just have no learn from native speakers work out the logic yourself.
Debates about linguistics is not my cup of tea though.... I am sure I sound rather ignorant to someone with a special interest in this area which I do not have.
Every youtube video with Lukashenko features some elements of Belarussian accent, but not in every word.
Yes, it sounds rather funny. Any language has its own distinctions which are hard to hear or imitate for a non-native speaker. I think Swedish vowels will be a nightmare for a Russian.Quote:
For me there is no Russian sound in itself that is hard to pronounce, the trick is keeping track of sounds where Russian has distinctions between different sounds which are never emphasised or discussed in other languages. Perhaps as a Russian you are able to tell that English in fact does have "soft" and "hard" Ls, but it would never occur to anyone else to think of it that way.
Russian is just really particular with how certain consonants should be prounounced, to the point that it's indicated by the spelling (soft / hard) and words could even change meaning. Whereas in other languages you just have no learn from native speakers work out the logic yourself.
Those distinctions are often represented by spelling.
Phonemic Palatalization is not very widespread, and it might be not very much developed, but it is present in some languages. In all the Slavic (Russian is the champion in this position), in Lithuanian, in Romanian (at the end of words), in Irish (it is even more developed there than in Russian), in some Finno-Ugric languages of Russia.
For example French represents an extensive non-phonemic palatalization. All the consonants are palatalized before i, u. [k] and [g] are also palatalized before a, and at the end of words after i.
Cool, I'll see if I can watch that film some other time!
Obviously if Swedes and Russians had met at that time, they would either have had communication difficulties, or perhaps they would have communicated in German or French. Definitely not English.
Russian is not a language that Swedes traditionally study in large numbers. For the last 3 years in school, students can choose a third foreign language to study (after English and German/French). That's when Russian becomes available to choose. So nobody has studied more than 3 years of Russian in school, and most people choose another language that is easier. But those who start studying Russian really fall in love with the language, I have noticed, and learning about Russian culture is interesting because most people here have a quite shallow understanding of Russia - when they learn more about the culture they find it really appealing. Very similar to ours in some ways, yet exotic and very different in many aspects.
I did not know Denmark sided with Russia against Sweden, but I am not surprised to hear that! :-(
The fact that Russia brought about the end of Sweden's empire on the Baltic is not exactly my favourite thing about your country.
It was a long time ago though, and Sweden was acting quite aggressively against a larger enemy. Not so smart, perhaps....
Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania, Saxony and Russia joined in the Northern Union against Sweden in 1699-1700.
But only Russia remained an active member of this union all the time during the Great Northern War.
Oh, I've remembered one curious thing about Denmark-Russia relations: there was even a privateer Karsten Rode, Danish subject at the service of Ivan the Terrible, who boarded many Swedish ships (Russia had no fleet at the time and the tsar payed Danish pirate for annoying Swedish and Polish sailors in the Baltic sea!). I'm sorry Hanna, it just came to my mind because I read from time to time about Danish history and culture :oops:
Here is some generally accepted terminology about the A/O thing: оканье and аканье (in both words the first syllable is stressed). We say они окают about northern speakers and мы акаем about "standard" Russian speakers. Other information about Russian language varieties can be found here: Диалекты русского языка.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSzbTQp5feo&feature=endscreen&NR=1
At the end Lukashenko is speaking, you can comapare him to the dictors.