Thread: Advice: Must learn Russian and im totally useless

Nice of you to try and help AndreyK, but I don't speak German!
Simferopol sounds great though! Ukraine, Crimea right?
Seriously though, I think to find a job as a foreigner you need contacts. That's the number one thing.
personally, I was never much of a schmoozer

@waxwing
First of all, what is a schmoozer?

Is it easy to get work permit in Russia? I have business Russian visa and I had a very strange talk at Russian border some time ago. Now, there are special people from "министерство занятости" or something like that.
I am building a house and my neighbour is from Ireland. He's working in Latvia for Dutch company and doesn't have to have any of work permits or visas.

BETEP (cool can type your cryllic name with latin chars... he he),

A schmoozer is someone who is good at intergrating (erm,,, maybe i mean ingratiating... erm, what a bloody awful langauge we speak) themselves with others. Usually with false flattery or other insincere means. But can also just mean someone who is very good at making friends with the right people.

For a work permit my understanding is if you know the right people then you shouldnt have any major problems. If you dont then you probably will be eyeing up a plot of land to buried in before you even get a reply rejecting you the permit. You need contacts, with perhaps the exception being if you are hired by a company that has its act together and then they will sort everything for you.

Do what i did.... marry a Russian girl and then you can get leave to remain. Russian girls are great, best in the world ;-) Steer clear of those Russian Bride sites though because its full of girls wanting OUT of russia which kinda defeats the objective.

PS: Please dont get the idea i married my wife to get into Russia.

I have worked here illegally. I'm almost sure of it. All the time I've been here, my visa has been Dyelovaya 003. This does not allow me to draw a salary in Russia.
When I got my last visa, I had some problems and brought the school director in with me. After a chat, the bureacrat there told here .. 'oh i see, in that case don't declare anything you pay him'.

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

Of course the only really good way to come and work here is to be set up in some international company, and then they send you. That's called being an 'expat' .. those people make serious money.
If you're a top manager or lawyer of course you can get a job here under certain circumstances. But the legal stuff is a pain because frankly I get the impression that there is no consistency whatsoever in the application of Russian law, especially business law. Tell me I'm talking out of my bottom if you like, but I do have some reasons for saying it. I've heard a lot of stories.

Note I'm not saying that I think the laws themselves are particularly unreasonable, more how they are applied or not applied.

On the other hand the laws about registration of foreigners are utterly unreasonable. I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

There are dodges, like if you're a student at University you can work perfectly legally. But that's not a long term solution.

Marriage and residency is a long term solution. Takes time though, even if you do happen to have a girlfriend here and plan to get married.

Loki, your explanation of 'schmooze' wasn't bad at all I think. you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

Hey Loki,

I don't entirely agree with the advice you got thus far. You hated languages at school, were shit at it, never liked studying books by yourself, and now everybody is telling you to make lists and study x words a day, and force yourself to be serious about it. Don't think it'll work.

I'd recommend that you do not try to study, at least not now. Instead, I think you just need to immerse yourself in the language. Go to Russian films, or buy those cheap DVDs which still offer the English subtitles. Listen to some cheesy Russian music. Suggest assigning one of the days of the week to speak ONLY Russian with your wife, no matter how bad it goes.

Wait for the moment that 'Я люблю ты' sounds horrible to your ears, and other awful mistakes do as well. After that you MAY be able to not only understand and memorise, but also to 'feel' the words and the myriad grammatical rules this wonderful language has to offer

Why? I think everybody has a faculty for learning languages, some residual capacity from your childhood. It's a lot more difficult after the age of about 5, but it still works. On the contrary, not everyone has the capacity to STUDY them, i.e. learning a rule first, and then applying it. It just won't stick. Since you have never learned to study languages well (your mom probably just told you what is (in)correct English, but didn't lecture you about grammar at age 3), it's better to use the natural approach. When you have enough ground under your feet, you can try brushing things up by learning the rules behind it.

If you insist on doing something concrete, why not just writing down new words you learn on a notepad, and copy them into your computer. That helps, but trying to memorize them won't, or costs so much energy you'll probably drop it.

I personally am pretty fluent in English, French, German and Italian, none of which is my mother tongue (I'm Dutch). I love languages and always had nice grades. Still, after the first couple of months of trying to study Russian grammar methodically (a familiar approach), I decided to drop it for a while and try talking about the weather, vodka, sex, and the meaning of life first, no matter how плохо my Russian is. Just because I'm sure that even for me, a bit of immersion comes with a learning curve a lot less steep than does an approach with lots of study and memorising.

Good luck, and I'm curious what you (and the others) think of my advice.

Rindert

Originally Posted by Loki

BETEP (cool can type your cryllic name with latin chars... he he)

And it's written so! Also I can type 3BOHOK, MOPE, 3ABXO3 and so on.

Originally Posted by Loki

A schmoozer is someone who is good at intergrating (erm,,, maybe i mean ingratiating... erm, what a bloody awful langauge we speak) themselves with others. Usually with false flattery or other insincere means. But can also just mean someone who is very good at making friends with the right people.

Following your description that is 'проныра' or 'лизоблюд'.

Originally Posted by Loki

For a work permit my understanding is if you know the right people then you shouldnt have any major problems. ...

Actually, that's I meant when I asked about work permit.

Originally Posted by Loki

Do what i did.... marry a Russian girl and then you can get leave to remain.

1. I don't want to live in Russia.
2. All Russian girls I know (and I know a lot of them) have no relations with Russia.

Originally Posted by Loki

Please dont get the idea i married my wife to get into Russia.

That's good for your wife!

Originally Posted by waxwing

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

Forget about Americans because USA is not a part of EU. If you are British citizen then you can work in Latvia without special permit like I can work in UK, Ireland and Sweden. The rest of EU countries restricted market of work for new EU members for seven years.

Originally Posted by waxwing

I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

I think it breaks an article about free motion of Russian citizens inside Russia.

Originally Posted by waxwing

you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

Sometimes I think it's pure Latvian word. The word has an unpleasant meaning here because 'Integraacijas ministrija' (Ministry of Integration) do the exactly opposite things.

SO THAT'S WHAT AN EXPAT IS !!!! hahaha ... how do i be one of those guys ???

Originally Posted by BETEP

Originally Posted by waxwing

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

Forget about Americans because USA is not a part of EU.
If you are British citizen then you can work in Latvia without special permit like I can work in UK, Ireland and Sweden. The rest of EU countries restricted market of work for new EU members for seven years.

Yeah I forgot about EU membership.

Originally Posted by BETEP

Originally Posted by waxwing

I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

I think it breaks an article about free motion of Russian citizens inside Russia.

Yes.

Originally Posted by BETEP

Originally Posted by waxwing

you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

Sometimes I think it's pure Latvian word. The word has an unpleasant meaning here because 'Integraacijas ministrija' (Ministry of Integration) do the exactly opposite things.

I think you misunderstood .. I was talking about the origin of the word 'schmooze' not 'integrate'! Integrate is from a Latin root, no doubt.
Sorry, the way I wrote there was very confusing

Dogboy, koroche I don't really know.
But there's different kinds of positions. The classic 'expat' is someone who is a manager in a firm back home, and then the firm decides to open an office or a factory or whatever in Russia, and asks you to go and supervise operations. People in this position will keep the same salary or even increase it when they come here, and so of course they're living the high life (although most of the time they don't actually want such a posting, especially if they have a family).
But this is not something you can plan to do. I think there are consultancy firms (you know like PWC) who have quite big offices here in Moscow, but you have to have some very high level specialty.
Oil, gas, legal.. I don't know what the main areas are. If you are ever thinking seriously about coming to work in Russia, I suppose the golden rule is to remember that if a Russian can do it even 80% as well as you, you're not going to get the job. Just common sense.

Originally Posted by waxwing

I think you misunderstood .. I was talking about the origin of the word 'schmooze' not 'integrate'! Integrate is from a Latin root, no doubt.
Sorry, the way I wrote there was very confusing

It was like a keyword for me. Now you can see how the 'integration' is annoying here.