Thread: how hard is russian pronunciation for english speakers?

Originally Posted by scotcher

Which English speaker, specifically?

The answer could fall anywhere on that scale depending on which part of the English-speaking world he comes from.

As well as depending on how good a mimic he is. I have a really hard time actually learning languages, but Id put myself at a 1 for being able to speak most words correctly straight away upon hearing them.

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by basurero

As you were talking about articles:

Originally Posted by Vadim84

I look it up in the dictionary.

why not "in a dictionary"? To me it looks like he is not talking about a particular specific dictionary here.

It's very common for us to say, "Go look it up in the dictionary." The assumption is that the person has a dictionary and that they have only one, thus "the" works in that context.

"Go look it up in a dictionary" is fine as well.

Originally Posted by Kirill2142

I don't like multiletter sounds, such as in 'daughter'. I wonder why should we waste so many letters. It makes people change words' spelling: you - u and so on

Mark Twain wrote a short humorous piece about English spelling reform that might get a chuckle out of you.

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

It's very common for us to say, "Go look it up in the dictionary." The assumption is that the person has a dictionary and that they have only one, thus "the" works in that context.

"Go look it up in a dictionary" is fine as well.

I think we say the dictionary in the same way we say the bible. As there was only one when they both begun. But these days there are many forms of dictionarys and bibles, so it would probably be more accurate to say a dictionary or a bible.
But old habits die hard and I dont doubt Ill still say "Ill have a look in the dictionary" even though I have several.

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

Originally Posted by Kirill2142

I don't like multiletter sounds, such as in 'daughter'. I wonder why should we waste so many letters. It makes people change words' spelling: you - u and so on

Mark Twain wrote a short humorous piece about English spelling reform that might get a chuckle out of you.

:)))))) That's good. The result resembles some north-European languages. I had troubles struggling with the final passages. And strangely so, the end result was easier to read than the intermediate ones. Probably that's because I am Russian and we have fonetik alfabet in Rushen. :)

Originally Posted by Ezri

I think we say the dictionary in the same way we say the bible. As there was only one when they both begun.

Actually, no. You would be hard pressed to say that there was only one Bible when it "began." The Bible is a big mix of documents, and which documents should be considered authoritative (much less bound together in a single volume) has been controversial from the beginning of the discussion about "authority." And to suggest that there is an original dictionary somewhere is equally untrue. Bilingual lists of words have been around for thousands of years, and where they shade into becoming "dictionaries" is not a clear-cut event.

So why do we say "the" in "look it up in the dictionary"? I think the answer is twofold.

1. At least in the US, most monoglot households don't have more than one dictionary, so when a child is told to look a word up in the dictionary, that's a simple use of the determinate meaning of the article. In my upbringing, at least, most classrooms I was in during childhood also had only one dictionary, so when the teacher said, "Go look it up in the dictionary," she had it in mind that there was only one dictionary in the room.

2. It wouldn't be surprising to hear someone say, "Go to the library and look it up in the dictionary." A public library often has more than one dictionary, so why "the"? My hypothesis is that we say "in the dictionary" in childhood at home with "the" so often that it has become a stock phrase in some speakers minds.

In other words, my thought is that there is not necessarily only one reason that a person might use "the". There are multiple grammatical rules in our minds, and sometimes two rules might lead to the same surface form for different reasons.

If I hear someone say, "Go to the library and look the word up in a dictionary", it sounds less typical, and I infer that the person may have just thinking about the fact that the library has more than one dictionary. It may have been just a background thought, not in the foreground of their thought process, but it's probably floating around there somewhere.

Little did I know that my mistake caused by rash writing would entail such an intense debate more than a year later

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

Originally Posted by Ezri

I think we say the dictionary in the same way we say the bible. As there was only one when they both begun.

Actually, no. You would be hard pressed to say that there was only one Bible when it "began." The Bible is a big mix of documents, and which documents should be considered authoritative (much less bound together in a single volume) has been controversial from the beginning of the discussion about "authority." And to suggest that there is an original dictionary somewhere is equally untrue. Bilingual lists of words have been around for thousands of years, and where they shade into becoming "dictionaries" is not a clear-cut event.

.

Yes but perception is often different from fact and out perception of both the dictionary and bible (particularly the latter if your religious) is of a singular the.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

"in a dictionary" is about a third less common.

Originally Posted by scotcher

See, there you go, if I were to answer that regarding myself, I'd say 1.

Your pronounciation isn't that amazing.

I have never claimed that it is.

The question was "how hard do you find Russian pronunciation?", not "how amazing is your Russian pronunciation?"

Since not everyone has the same level of intelligence, the answer depends on how much you want to know.





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Respect every creature (humans inclusive)

I don't think it's too hard, but it's not without it's difficulties. Personally, I give Russian pronunciation a 3 out of 5.

I said it 2 years ago and I'll say it again.

It's really, really, really, really, really, really hard, and you should just give up right now.

Originally Posted by DDT

On the scale of 1-5, how hard is russian pronunciation for english speakers? (1 being very easy and 5 being very difficult)

I think that you should just give up right now!!