Thread: Fluent in 11 languages.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Gosh I don't think there is any people on earth who is as enamoured with their language as the Greek It's charming and I suppose there is a lot to be proud of.

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.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

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.)

I'd write man as мэн and men as мен.

Originally Posted by Konstantinos

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.

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:

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.

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.)

It doesn't matter: we used the IPA ([mæn] - man, [men] - men), I don't know why Americans don't use it.

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...)

Did they really hear like that?

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".)

Your requirements for fluency are too strict.

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:

A good example of a greek pseudoscientist (слоноведа):

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.... !

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".)

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...

Originally Posted by zedeeyen

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.

man/men....
That's true, this is simpler if you aim for an American pronunciation.

Hanna's words contradict the zedeeyen's.

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.

Originally Posted by fabriciocarraro

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.

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.

Originally Posted by xdns

I think that pronouncing ш instead of щ sounds like speaking Russian with Belarussian accent

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!

Originally Posted by Marcus

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.

(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:


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):



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.

So why is it said that there is no accent in Russian then?

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.

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".

That's not easy.

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.

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.
I haven't listened to the video yet, I just mentioned some features I heard in Lukashenko's speech and know from books.

But x and G are two different letters. It's impossible to miss....

Still many Anglophones pronounce [k] instead of [x]. I don't know if they hear like that or can't pronounce the sound.

Another excellent А/О example - "Россия молодая":


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...