Thread: Requirements in Russian for english speaking people

Hi,

I'd like to get some information about requirements in Russian for english speaking people.

We are thinking of development a web-site for help English people in vocabulary acquisition. We believe that we a have a fresh idea (mostly from programming point of view).

Anyway this suppose to be time consuming job and that's why we need such information.

Regards,
Michael

Originally Posted by mmichael

I'd like to get some information about requirements in Russian for english speaking people.

TORFL?

do something on verbs of motion, both imper and perf.

Cover all the cases.
Aspects.
Vocabulary building.
Dialog such as a story or article that can be read with clickable words showing translation of word with case and usage etc. Make them downloadable onto MP3.

I see that there is some sort of misunderstanding.

The question is not what exactly is necessary to do, but about the possible amount of people that need the combination as "Russian for English speaking people".

For a time being we can see that this amount of people is too low.

Regards,
Michael

I think if you include the couple dozen posters on this board, the total number of English speakers learning Russian will run to a couple dozen.

Same old story! No one gives a crap about people learning Russian as usual. To hell with French, what good is that!

look at wordreference forums, you get 5-10 questions/day for Russian; 400-600 for Spanish. Ironically, if you dig, there are better resources available for learning Russian.

Thanks sperk, indeed.

"Spanish to English" Vocabulary forum is 125 times larger than Russian. Maybe it is worth to reconsider language-pair? Since we were thinking mainly about programming some sort of toolkit.

But nevertheless it would be interesting to find any more proved data.

I thought about those data and there is another question. I payed attention that there is also forum for Chinese people and there are only 2,188 of them. I can't believe that for such community as Chinese that could be so few of them.

Probably there is another place where Chineses can discuss their questions. If so then probably the same with English speaking people regarding Russian language?

Well Michael, half an hour on Google should give you an idea. But it's not the sort of statistic that most people know off hand.

As for comments by others -- Yes, Russian is the biggest mother tongue on the European continent... But be realistic, what is the practical use of Russian for an American who lives in the USA and doesn't plan to move? Or a British person who lives in Britain?

Some specialists in science or arts want to learn it.

But there is not a great deal of business between Russia and the USA (comparatively) or even cultural exchange.

English-speaking media and literature have been dominant in Western Europe for decades. In the 1990s Eastern Europeans associated Russian with ideology that they no longer supported, so it declined in popularity.

Plus, Russians are getting better at English, I think.
(I don't like the dominance of English and American culture, but the one benefit is that it has given us a common language.)

However if you take countries that are bordering to Russia or close to Russia, or countries that traditionally have dealings, then there is a different story. For example: Finland, Poland, Germany and probably LOTS of places in Asia.

But even in those countries, Russian usually comes second, since it is mandatory to learn English across Europe these days, and that's as much serious language learning as some people can handle.

So Russian may not be a popular foreign language in the English speaking world, but it has always been relatively common in nearby areas.

A lot of the people in these areas already speak fluent English and may turn to an English speaking site, assuming it's very good.

Classic DDT comment.

Originally Posted by DDT

To hell with French, what good is that!

Reading wine labels, pronouncing names of dishes at fancy restaurants...

Plus if you live close; shopping in Paris and ordering in cafes.

That's what I use French for, because that's all my level of French can handle... But all of this has been pretty useful at times.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Yes, Russian is the biggest mother tongue on the European continent

mother tongue???

Originally Posted by Eugene-p

Originally Posted by Johanna

Yes, Russian is the biggest mother tongue on the European continent

mother tongue???

Yes... I forget what a crazy language English is... (it's a foreign language to me too)
But it's true:

Originally Posted by Lingvo

mother tongue

1) родной язык
2) праязык

I am thinking of studying French. In the summer before grad school I learned enough to pass the French reading exam, and I took 4 years of Spanish in H.S. so I found it fairly easy in general. I'd like to go to France. That's where some of my ancestors are from.

Ok. It seems to me that I understood.

Thanks a lot for your help. Especially for Johanna.

Michael

Hey! ...........He's bloody-well gone, and he didn't even leave a tip!