Thread: Are native Russian speakers 'language snobs' or tolerant?

Originally Posted by ycomp

About Americans.. you can see why it is so difficult for them simply by listening to Russians speak English. I can safely say that in the US & Canada, the European nationality that has the most difficulty with English - that I've come across - is easily the Russians. Some Russians adults (of course kids are another story) will lose their accent in time, but it quite rare and usually those came over in their 20s. They also have a hell of a time with English grammar. Especially "a" and "the". The reason Russians have such problems compared to other Europeans is that much of English is just that much more foreign to them, and same goes for English speakers in relation to the Russian language. Even simple things often in Russian do not have a 1:1 mapping to English... like many of the prepositions.

It is surprising to me!
I always tought Russians to be ..good learners) I mean Russian speech apparatus let us easily imitate different sounds...

Originally Posted by silicium

It is surprising to me!
I always tought Russians to be ..good learners) I mean Russian speech apparatus let us easily imitate different sounds...

Russians have extremely an difficult time getting rid of their accents... over time it will soften quite a bit, but still be very noticeable. There are a few that will lose it completely, but "few" is the operative word. I also have no problem identifying a Russian simply from the way they speak English. Ok, to tell you the truth I am not sure if I would be able to distinguish the Russian accent from a Ukrainian speaking English (since most of the Ukrainians I came across back home usually happened to be Russian Speakers - i.e. from Kiev, Crimea or the East... so I don't exactly know what Ukrainian Ukrainians speaking English sound like )

Almost every Russian song I've heard where the singer sings in English, has a thick thick Russian accent... which is understandable because they live in the ex-USSR... but by comparison, Swedish pop - often I can't hear much of an accent at all in that.

I imagine it must be easier for Russians to sing well in Russian than English speakers to sing well in English, even I find it easier to sing in Russian than English lol... probably it is like the Chinese, many of them are great singers because the language is already semi-musical... which makes it really jarring when you hear a Chinese person who really can't sing - nevertheless they all love karaoke!

The one thing I never understood was why so many men find Russian accents on girls "very sexy". It really depends on the girl, but many of them have a very harsh accent that after a few years living in the west, will become softer (and then sound very sexy)... but the Dracula accent thing* doesn't really sound that attractive to me, perhaps the people that like that also enjoy Irish accents (which I find rather distracting). Perhaps I shouldn't call it the Dracula accent, but it is the best approximation. Not everyone has it, but many people do. That's the interesting thing really, how different in strength a person's accent may be - but they are all distinctly immediately identifiable as Russian

* note: these girls sound great speaking Russian (it is just in English their accent is super-thick).

p.s while I'm doing my observations, I might as well point out something else I always found rather interesting. Back home, in the west, I would often ask people where they are from (when I heard an accent - usually I had a guess in mind already... and in Russian people's cases I knew they were Russian speakers) but I would get all sorts of answers...

like:
Czech Republic (if the person is Czech)
Hungary (if the person is Hungarian)
Latvia (if the person is Latvian)
Poland (if the person is Polish)
Romania (if the person is Romanian)

... I think you can see a pattern here?

So what would a Russian or Ukrainian answer?

"Europe" of course! this happened in more than half the cases... not really sure how much more than half, but it was the majority. These were older people (over 40 usually), I was not making a habit of chatting up young people. So perhaps the young might respond differently

My theory is that perhaps some think that western people may not automatically like them? who knows?

I did talk to a Russian girl back home and she said "do you like Russian girls?"... I said "well, sure"... and she seemed kind of surprised and happy. So maybe some Russians do believe that Westerners may have prejudices against them... just my theory

also, another note:

Russians (and Ukrainians) have arguably (well not arguably, they actually do have)... the best programmers in the world. Russian programmers are very intelligent. In one of my previous software businesses, I had customers in over 50 countries... and the countries that had by far the worst written English among their programmers were in this order:

1) Korea & China (they tie for first - often simply completely incomprehensible emails)
2) Russians
(note: I did not have many Japanese customers... so I am unsure where they would be in the list)

other Slavic countries seemed to have better English among the programmers. And all Europeans had pretty good English for the most part. I even suspected it is hard in Germany to become a manager if you can't speak English... but probably that is not true. I suspect part of the reason the Russian programmers' English was so bad (difficult to understand) is probably the educational system. I noticed that smaller European countries, even in the East, generally had better English skills. So I think perhaps it is because Russia and Ukraine are large countries whereas when your country's population is less than 10 or 20 million, you had probably better learn English in the hopes of making your businesses more international. Another guess, but I think it's a good one...

Originally Posted by ycomp

I also have no problem identifying a Russian simply from the way they speak English.

I would often ask people where they are from (when I heard an accent - usually I had a guess in mind already... and in Russian people's cases I knew they were Russian speakers

Ycomp... your post is very interesting. Can I ask you please?.. Here's a thread where I posted a clip with my voice speaking English. Could you please, if you can listen to it, tell me how "evident" my Russian accent is, in this clip? I'm asking because I've been told several times (not only about this particular recording) that my accent is anything but not Russian. So I'm just curious about your opinion.
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=19076

Originally Posted by Оля

Originally Posted by ycomp

Ycomp... your post is very interesting. Can I ask you please?.. Here's a thread where I posted a clip with my voice speaking English. Could you please, if you can listen to it, tell me how "evident" my Russian accent is, in this clip? I'm asking because I've been told several times (not only about this particular recording) that my accent is anything but not Russian. So I'm just curious about your opinion.
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=19076

well it is definitely not a "Dracula Accent", lol... when I'm listening to that I'm reminded of Audrey Hepburn in War and Peace lol... ok well, the thing it is not natural spoken conversational English... is is a slow dramatic reading. It reminds me of a lot of movies from perhaps the 50s or 60s... like Sophia Loren was also talking somewhat similar back then.

But I will identify the parts that do sound like a Russian speaking English, to me:

the woman

whole

that one

was

as a lover * this is perhaps your strongest / most identifiable in the video

whatever was after "he never spoke" and before "save"... sorry I could not quite understand it but it did sound like the way a Russian would say it.

I think in conversational English you would have for the most part a relatively soft accent for a Russian. The reason you can tell if an accent is Russian or Germanic (Dutch, German, etc.) or [insert your favorite language here] is the quirks on certain words or sounds that really give away where they are from. Without those you might just think "oh he/she has an accent" but have no idea from where exactly.

would I have ever guessed from the video it was a Russian speaker? I am not sure... because of what I wrote about it being a "slow reading". It is kind of like when Russian Instructors on the youtube videos I watched would speak the word slowly to pronounce it for you, thinking this made it easier for you. Actually it doesn't. Since the word doesn't sound like that at full speed. A more effective way would be for them simply to repeat the word at full speed 3 or 4 times. Instead of 1 time fast, 1 time very slow. I'm not criticizing your reading, just pointing out that it would sound different than regular conversation.

There is a very prolific fitness video girl (bodyrock) I think it is called on youtube. Everyone keeps commenting on her vids that she is Russian or that they love Russian girls. They probably have this idea from the way she looks (she is blonde and fit) and because she has an accent. Some people write that she is Czech, and the scenery does look like the Czech Republic and she has a Czech name and looks like she could be Czech... but the point is, her accent has some distinct differences from a Russian accent. And it would be hard to confuse the two, for people who have heard many Russians speak in English before. (I come from Toronto, and lived in a neighbourhood with a number of Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians - also I believe we have at least 3 to 400,000 Russians and Ukrainians in the city - so they are everywhere)

Thanks for your opinion, ycomp.
Okay, I think in some days, when I find my mp3 player, I'll probably post another, more 'conversational' recording... Don't leave the forum.

I think accents from Slavic langauges sound 10 times better paired with British accents, compared with American accents.

After watching so many Hollywood films where the "bad guys" are Russians (communists or gangsters....), American accent + Russian accent just give a bad feeling...

On the other hand, British + Slavic accent sounds good and is a positive thing because the people from Eastern Europe that turn up in England tend to be smart, ambitious, hardworking, intellectual... They impress people. This accent combination also reminds everyone of various Nobel prize winners, scientists and successful artists and authors. It sounds sophisticated and the speaker can gradually work on reducing his accent.

That's my view.... I would recommend people to focus on the British accent unless you are going to live in North America.

Originally Posted by Johanna

--Can Baltic people usually speak good Russian or not? I have noticed that they always mention "native fluency in Russian" on their CV/Resume.

No, not always. But the kind that might consider working abroad usually does. Many of them are Baltic Russians and Poles, for starters... And ethnic Latvians usually know at least some Russian (maybe less nowadays) and although they might have distinct sing-song accent, they would be understood by any Russian. Writtten Russian is a different matter entirely though, - one of my friends is Latvian, she speaks perfect accentless Russian, but "semiliterate scrawls" is the most charitable description of her writing. I mean stuff like "Я ишла к тепе вгости" (Я шла к тебе в гости. ) not pet pevees about missed commas. Although she got much better at it lately. (And of course, she writes Latvian fairly well.)

Estonians, well, never had been there, but here's an anecdote, - In one of the companies I worked, we've lost a major contract with an Estonian wholesale operator precisely because very few of their employees knew any language but Estonian or Finnish, so we just couldn't organize tech support...

That's interesting to learn about. I always think about Baltic people as practically language geniuses! Your English is very good! You write like a well-educated native speaker.

When I was a kid I had a piano teacher who came from Lithuania who spoke Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Swedish. She somehow learnt all the first four while growing up! The she learnt Swedish after she moved there, and she spoke it quite well.

Originally Posted by Johanna

That's interesting to learn about. I always think about Baltic people as practically language geniuses!

I wish we really were. I'm definitely not a language genius of any sort, I just got lucky with English, - despite growing up mostly in those hick villages* where no one speaks any recognizable language, all the schools I attended somehow had excellent English teachers who really cared about the language, and whom everybody adored...

As a further proof, my attempt to learn German failed miserably, and French... Well, I really-really want to learn it, but quite often I just drop the textbook/stop the audio in sheer disgust ad exasperation and think that French is really an elaborate practical joke made up by some Paris-based linguistic cabal... But I would have the last laugh on them someday. Besides, a language that some of the world's finest novelists and philosophers spoke can't be simple almost by definition.


My mom somehow managed to live for 5 years in the middle of England and still Google Translate speaks better than she does

On the other hand, there are people like that piano teacher of yours, or my grandpa (who knew Latvian, Russian and German well enough to translate professionally and read Goethe for fun, plus a few other languages.) Or a lot of my multilingual friends or acquaintances for that matter.

And on the still other hand, if Wikipedia has to be trusted, 60% of the world population is multilingual. So, the way I see it, fluency in more than one language is the norm, not the opposite...

* That said, they're quite nice and tolerant places to live. Or they were, rather, until all those economical crises. Better than the other kind, where everyone was a staunch chauvinist of some stripe, including children playing in sandboxes. Although THAT thankfully was pretty much cured by those same crises. And of course "no one speaks any recognizable language" is an exaggeration, - we understood ourselves just fine and if one had to, they could speak largerly intellegible Russian or Latgalian... (Which is to Latvian a bit like very thick Scottish accent is to English... "Dzīve" (life) becomes "dzeive", "pieci" (five) ->"pīci", "ūdens" (water)->"iudens" and "māja" (home) -> "sāta" (a completely diferent word with a cognate in standard Latvian meaning "farmyard" ) And yes, to a Latvian it sounds so amusing that some don't believe it exists until they meet actual speakers. Note on reading: Macron (ā,ē,ī, ū) is read as it is in Latin, and cedilla (ņ,ķ,ļ,ķ,ģ,ŗ) works basically like Russian "ь" does, š, č =ш, ч. and two vowels together like "ie" or "iu" are read... ok, I can't do it without IPA and textbook. But most likely not the way you think they should

My Latvian friend told me a joke after I commented that Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish (and Korean and Japanese and I think Mongolian too) are all related.

He said, did I know how Hungary and Estonia were populated?

me: no

He said when they came out of Asia, they came to a crossroads.... and there was a sign. Go left for warm weather and Sunshine... so those that could read went left and became Hungarians. Those that couldn't went right and became Estonians

Well I only knew one Estonian ever, and he was damn smart. I also met a girl from Estonia but she was native Russian.

Originally Posted by ycomp

p.s while I'm doing my observations, I might as well point out something else I always found rather interesting. Back home, in the west, I would often ask people where they are from (when I heard an accent - usually I had a guess in mind already... and in Russian people's cases I knew they were Russian speakers) but I would get all sorts of answers...

like:
Czech Republic (if the person is Czech)
Hungary (if the person is Hungarian)
Latvia (if the person is Latvian)
Poland (if the person is Polish)
Romania (if the person is Romanian)

... I think you can see a pattern here?

So what would a Russian or Ukrainian answer?

"Europe" of course! this happened in more than half the cases... not really sure how much more than half, but it was the majority. These were older people (over 40 usually), I was not making a habit of chatting up young people. So perhaps the young might respond differently

My theory is that perhaps some think that western people may not automatically like them? who knows?

Many home appliances manufactured in Ukraine have a sticker on them that says Made in Europe. The thing is those appliances often break up the second you turn them on. So the manufactures must be ashamed of themselves to admit they make such a crap and hide behind the Made in EU sticker.
No offence, Ukrainians. Russian crap sometimes is more crappyer than any other crap in the world.

why not put a label 'Made on Earth' instead?

Following from the above, can I ask something? Why do people say that everything made in the USSR was bad quality?

I have had 4 things that I can remember that came from there: 1) A pair of skates 2) A sewing machine 3) A swimming costume 4) A watch.

Although they did not have the latest cool and stylish design at the time, all three items looked ok and did not break down at all. The watch was a gift and the rest I bought myself - very cheap.

If this stuff is anything to go by, what was the problem?

Originally Posted by Johanna

Following from the above, can I ask something? Why do people say that everything made in the USSR was bad quality?

I know that such opinions exist but don't really share them. The main reason for them is the fact that Soviet goods lacked the style as you pointed out, and we didn't know that good advertisement can help to sell a total cr@p to innocents Soviet goods looked crude and tasteless compared to their western counterparts. There are some things that Russia can't do well even now - light automobiles, for example, or electronics. While Russian Kamazes have just won the Paris-Dakkar rally for yet another time, our Ladas and Volgas are terrible. 60% of the Soviet GDP was spent on defense, therefore to meet the civilian demands many factories were 'dual-purpose enterprises'.
The goods they produced were of 'army style' and of course weren't the masterpieces of design. Still they were intended for heavy duty service for prolonged periods. Apart from Ladas, Volgas and electronics, everything else was of a very good quality.
There's another reason. Soviet people seldom saw imported goods and all imports was of highest quality (China wasn't a world's factory back then and we didn't know that poor quality goods existed in the West too). Of course, compared to the imports we saw, Soviet goods failed the competition.

That’s because all those things where made for export. There was that old Soviet habit of the country falling over itself by giving away what best it had and keeping what little and inferior was left to its people to show the world the benefits of living under socialism. My first car was a Russian Lada that had been used for five years already by the time I bought it in Hungary when the gates to the outer world started to crack a little and our folks got the opportunity of buying things in Eastern Europe not being able to do it at home. So, it was an excellent car that served me well and true for quite a time till it was stolen and ruined in the process. But the secret of its longevity was that initially it was manufactured for export. I bought the same make of the car later on but the one made purely for domestic consumption. There was no end of my frustration with that car for all the three years I had been in possession of it. As for nowadays, I don’t see, if ever, anything good made in Russia either, just the Chinese junk as far as the eye can reach.
About the Made in China, how are things in the West BTW?

Большинство товаров из Китая. А если не из Китая, то втридорога.

Does that mean three times better?

@alexB, yes, maybe the car did serve for a long time, but what about these niceties that make a car comfortable for a driver and passengers? What about such options as automatic transmission or air conditioning? What about warming of the seats in winter? I don't even mention ABS, steering hydraulics, etc. All of this was available back in 1980s in the West.

I can agree that UAZ-469 is probably the best SUV in the world regarding off-road capabilities, but it's pure hell to have a car like that in the city.
If you get used for Spartan conditions you'd probably be content with it, but what really pisses me off is that our @!#$ government supports VAZ and GAZ by maintaining those damn high import duties for cars what makes them more expensive by 30-40%. If only them at VAZ started making good cars, but no, they continue to produce that cr@p they call automobiles and put all government subsidies into their pockets. It drives me mad. Russian automobile industry is a good illustration to what they call 'Epic Fail'.

There’s no denying western cars were superior in many or rather every way and if there ever was something good made in USSR it was more of the exception than the rule. It’s a shame though that now when western merchandise came into our lives they have a tendency of deteriorating year after year. It was not uncommon not long ago that you could by a ten year old car and make another 150000km to the 100000km that were already there, without so much as doing nothing to the car apart from the usual maintenance, like changing motor oil, filters, brake pads and occasionall fuel adding to a gas tank. Can you or any of your friends say that about today’s super-duper gadget packed automobiles? Could they run problem free at least a hundred thousand kilometers? I doubt that very much. The junk is winning over. Or maybe it’s winning in Russia only? Why bother making good stuff for undemanding consumer when it’s a fat chance he’s gonna sue you should your product turns out to be defective.

Originally Posted by alexB

There’s no denying western cars were superior in many or rather every way and if there ever was something good made in USSR it was more of the exception than the rule. It’s a shame though that now when western merchandise came into our lives they have a tendency of deteriorating year after year. It was not uncommon not long ago that you could by a ten year old car and make another 150000km to the 100000km that were already there, without so much as doing nothing to the car apart from the usual maintenance, like changing motor oil, filters, brake pads and occasionall fuel adding to a gas tank. Can you or any of your friends say that about today’s super-duper gadget packed automobiles? Could they run problem free at least a hundred thousand kilometers? I doubt that very much. The junk is winning over. Or maybe it’s winning in Russia only? Why bother making good stuff for undemanding consumer when it’s a fat chance he’s gonna sue you should your product turns out to be defective.

I bought my Audi A3 in 2002 when it had 75000 km on its odometer and I've added another 120000 km myself. I only changed motor oil, brake pads and filters. It's the best car I've ever had (with the possible exception of VW Passat B3 of 1989 - when I have finally sold it it had 420000 km on the odometer).