# Forum General General Discussion  Fluent in 11 languages.

## zedeeyen

BBC News - How do you become fluent in 11 languages? 
Impressive.

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## Hanna

Unbelievable!!!!!!!! 
His accent is really good in the languages that I am familiar with. I can't determine whether his grammar and choice of word is good, but I would guess so.  
There is so much hype around people who allegedly speak many languages and often when they are finally put to the test it turns out their accent is awful or they don't know grammar properly.  
This guy is just incredibly good. He's the real deal if you ask me!

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## kib

Да, этот парень - большой молодец. Но все же по-русски он говорит с заметным акцентом и грамматика местами хромает.

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## Doomer

He's Russian is awesome. Rather light accent. I've heard only four mistakes. Grammar is not perfect but easily understandable. He's overcompensating the "Р" sound  ::  Vowels are perfectly pronounced. Double vowels are apparently hard for him like in word Грец*ии*
He said he has been to Ярославль - Yaroslavl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He also said that he lives in Russia now

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## Deborski

Every time I start to feel like I'm doing pretty good, learning some Russian.... I hear about someone like THIS!  Arghhhhhhhhh!   ::  
But I guess, for an American, I am still somewhat unusual.   ::

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## zedeeyen

> He said he has been to Ярославль - Yaroslavl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> He also said that he lives in Russia now

 I've been to Yaroslavl dozens of times and my Russian is still dreadful  ::

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## Hanna

> Every time I start to feel like I'm doing pretty good, learning some Russian.... I hear about someone like THIS!  Arghhhhhhhhh!   
> But I guess, for an American, I am still somewhat unusual.

 Haha, I never had any illusions...!  
Since I started my new job, I had a desk next to two guys, both (!!)of whom have studied Russian as a foreign language.  
The first had forgotten a lot, because he studied Russian back in the 1980s. But he was still following the Russian rock scene because he is a big rock fan and prefers Russian rock over American.   
The second person started studying at roughly the same time as me, (2009) but he is MUCH better! Arrgh! 
He thinks Russian grammar is "fun and challenging" and he has a much better vocabulary than me. He memorized all the spelling rules!  
My excuse is that he is practically a genius with a degree in theoretical physics. I probably 70% of his IQ, at the most...  
One of the first things he did after starting his Russian studies was to watch lots of childrens film, then moving on to  contemporary comedy shows from TV. Then he started watching Russian war films because he enjoys that. 
He never used subtitles and he was able to learn a lot by using increasingly difficult material. *Did anyone try a similar approach?*

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## Marcus

> He memorized all the spelling rules!

 What does it mean? What rules? Or just he spells nearly all the words correctly?

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## Hanna

Well, today he explained to me lots of things around pronounciation based on spelling. 
For example situations in which "и" is pronounced "ы" depending on spelling, and lots of tips around differentiating between "щ" and "ш" which I find a bit confusing. Last week he told me all about "ъ" which I had misunderstood, for example the difference in pronouonciation of a few words in which ъ is the second letter. I did not know anything about that. He said it would be valuable for me if I memorized all spelling rules. 
Really my Russian studies are on hold, but I suppose I could take them up - my colleague inspires me.

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## Marcus

> Well, today he explained to me lots of things around pronounciation based on spelling. 
> For example situations in which "и" is pronounced "ы" depending on spelling, and lots of tips around differentiating between "щ" and "ш" which I find a bit confusing. Last week he told me all about "ъ" which I had misunderstood, for example the difference in pronouonciation of a few words in which ъ is the second letter. I did not know anything about that. He said it would be valuable for me if I memorized all spelling rules.

 That's not actually spelling. That's graphics and pronunciation. It is useless and very hard to remember all the spelling rules.
Could you tell those words with ъ? сел - съел? 
I don't know why is the ш - щ distinction more difficult than л -ль, м - мь?

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## Hanna

> That's not actually spelling. That's graphics and pronunciation. It is useless and very hard to remember all the spelling rules.
> Could you tell those words with ъ? сел - съел? 
> I don't know why is the ш - щ distinction more difficult than л -ль, м - мь?

 Well I am really tired now, but I think he said that the hard sign means there is a sort of break and so it sounds different... ш - щ is difficult simply because this is an "artificial difference" for me, just like adding "the" and "a" is for you. To me, this is more or less the same sound and it seems a bit picky to differentiate between them. For words that I have memorised, I have obviously memorised the correct spelling and I don't mix it up once I learnt it for a particular word. But it just feels unnatural and complicated.

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## Man About Town

It's nothing but a show-off. Anyone can learn a few phrases, put some effort into practicing a proper accent and you are good to go! There are thousands of polyglots like him on the net flaunting their prodigious flare for languages while in fact, I can bet my bottom dollar on it, they didn't even try to study any of those. Well, maybe they did, but didn't get any further than picking up some basics just sufficient to put on a chip show.

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## rockzmom

> It's nothing but a show-off. Anyone can learn a few phrases, put some effort into practicing a proper accent and you are good to go! There are thousands of polyglots like him on the net flaunting their prodigious flare for languages while in fact, I can bet my bottom dollar on it, they didn't even try to study any of those. Well, maybe they did, but didn't get any further than picking up some basics just sufficient to put on a chip show.

 Don't be too certain about that...   

> Collins and Livemocha Launch a Search for the UK’s Most Multilingual Child and Student in Britain - Collins Language 
> Judging will be conducted over Skype (or equivalent) from the child’s school, or at a location agreed by you, with an accredited judge. *
> The Judging Process* 
> Throughout November, a relaxed and fun judging process will take place, with nominees chatting to the judges fluent in their individual languages over webcam. The schoolchild and student shown to be conversant in the most languages will be declared the winner. 
>  Judges will be supplied by Collins and the ALL (Association For Language Learning) – the UK’s major subject association for the teaching of foreign languages.

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## Throbert McGee

> It's nothing but a show-off. Anyone can learn a few phrases, put some effort into practicing a proper accent and you are good to go!

 True... for example, I would bet money that if you showed him a photograph of a bird from the genus _Passer_ ...   
...and asked him *Что это такое?*, he would answer *Это маленькая птица* ("It's a small bird") or something close to that, whereas most Russian children over the age of five or six would answer *Это воробей* ("It's a _sparrow_"). 
Or, if you asked him how to say "Those people are very wealthy" in Russian, he might be able to provide a direct literal translation like *Эти люди очень богатые*, but it would never occur to him to say *У них всё есть, кроме птичьего молока*, ("They've got everything but bird milk") because he was too busy learning Hebrew, Catalan, Afrikaans, etc., to study Russian in more depth and learn some common proverbs and figures of speech. 
Which is to say that "fluency" can be defined in different ways, and the BBC video shows that he has an impressive ability to master different accents and perhaps also an excellent memory for rehearsed phrases, but he's not actually demonstrating an ability to converse fluently in all those different languages. (Maybe he can, but the video doesn't prove this.)

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## Doomer

> It's nothing but a show-off. Anyone can learn a few phrases, put some effort into practicing a proper accent and you are good to go!

 I wanna see you trying practicing the proper accent  ::

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## Doomer

> One of the first things he did after starting his Russian studies was to watch lots of childrens film, then moving on to  contemporary comedy shows from TV.

 This is what I do with English  

> He never used subtitles

 doesn't work for me at all
I really doubt that it can be true
I mean he might have skipped the subtitles during the showtime but if he doesn't know or understand a word how he could pick up/look up the meaning of it?
Only children can do that through a lifetime of learning

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## Doomer

> whereas most Russian children over the age of five or six would answer *Это воробей* ("It's a _sparrow_").

 Russian sparrows look a little different  :: 
More like this one
But you are correct 
Still I think pronunciation is much more important for comfort communication than vocabulary

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## Hanna

> This is what I do with English 
> I really doubt that it can be true
> I mean he might have skipped the subtitles during the showtime but if he  doesn't know or understand a word how he could pick up/look up the  meaning of it?
> Only children can do that through a lifetime of learning

 Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. But that's what he said. 
It's really hard to find subtitles for Russian films online unless you  really make an effort to locate them. He said he didn't find any so I  guess he didn't try as hard as I did.  
Another interesting thing is that he only visited Russia once in his life, on a trip to St Petersburg quite recently.

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## Marcus

сел is [s'el] съел [sjel], so no any break but an entire consonant [j] (like "y" in yes), ' signifies palatalization. Ш is close to voiceless English R, Щ is pronounced with the middle of the toungue raised.
These are all questions of Russian graphics. It is like [ke] is spelt que in Spanish while [ka] is spelt ca.
As far as I can see such things cause unbelievable difficulties among learners of Russian, I don't know why.
Ш and Щ are as distinct as man and men are in English (Russians don't usually hear the difference).

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## Hanna

You can't hear the difference between "man" and "men" in English? 
I keep thinking that if uneducated labourers from Uzbekistan can learn to speak Russian in a few years, then I should b-y well be able to manage to! 
I do GET the difference between Ш and Щ - it's just that I don't really think of them as different sounds.  
My stepmother who is Japanese has the same problem with R and L when she speaks English - she doesn't think there is any real difference and has to really focus to pronounce them clearly. Even though to all of us there is a massive difference.

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## gRomoZeka

> You can't hear the difference between "man" and "men" in English?

 I often can't. If they are said one after another, or with an exaggerated articulation, then I can hear the difference. If it's an isolated word in a real phrase, it usually flies over my head. Same with "ship-sheep", etc. It does not cause any problems with comprehension, because the context always helps, but it probably adds to my accent. Not that I'm able to notice that.  ::

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## zedeeyen

> True... for example, I would bet money that if you showed him a photograph of a bird from the genus _Passer_ ...   
> ...and asked him *Что это такое?*, he would answer *Это маленькая птица* ("It's a small bird") or something close to that, whereas most Russian children over the age of five or six would answer *Это воробей* ("It's a _sparrow_"). 
> Or, if you asked him how to say "Those people are very wealthy" in Russian, he might be able to provide a direct literal translation like *Эти люди очень богатые*, but it would never occur to him to say *У них всё есть, кроме птичьего молока*, ("They've got everything but bird milk") because he was too busy learning Hebrew, Catalan, Afrikaans, etc., to study Russian in more depth and learn some common proverbs and figures of speech. 
> Which is to say that "fluency" can be defined in different ways, and the BBC video shows that he has an impressive ability to master different accents and perhaps also an excellent memory for rehearsed phrases, but he's not actually demonstrating an ability to converse fluently in all those different languages. (Maybe he can, but the video doesn't prove this.)

 I think you're defining "fluent" so narrowly you're in danger of rendering it meaningless. If you can talk confidently and readily on a range of subjects without getting stuck then you're fluent, in my view. I'd actually argue that peppering his speech with idiom and proverbs would be a far _greater_ demonstration of "an excellent memory for rehearsed phrases" than talking freely, albeit in more simple language. I tend to avoid using proverbs in Russian even when I know them and can use them correctly because what commonly happens when I do drop one into conversation is that the listener interrupts me to smile and congratulate me on my correct usage of Russian idiom, and the conversation is immediately derailed. I'm also conscious that as an English speaker I always find something amusing and even absurd when I hear foreigners using English idiom, even when they're using it absolutely correctly and their English is otherwise perfect. 
As for the воробей, I would answer "it's a small bird" in English, because I don't know one wild bird from another. Does that mean I'm not fluent in English?

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## zedeeyen

> I often can't. If they are said one after another, or with an exaggerated articulation, then I can hear the difference. If it's an isolated word in a real phrase, it usually flies over my head. Same with "ship-sheep", etc. It does not cause any problems with comprehension, because the context always helps, but it probably adds to my accent. Not that I'm able to notice that.

 Ship-sheep is always clear from context, but you should probably avoid talking about "sheets" until you've got the hang of it  ::

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## Marcus

> You can't hear the difference between "man" and "men" in English?

 Now I can but not always, sometimes man sounds like ман then the difference is obvious, but not always.
I'm not sure I pronounce them differently.
At the beginning it was very difficult. A lot of time had passed before I understood that Russian x and English h are two different sounds.

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## Marcus

Workers from Uzbekistan often learnt Russian at school.

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## Hanna

yeah I guess they do, plus my comment sounded rather stupid now that I read it again. There is nothing that says a person from Uzbekistan who works in a blue collar job should be any less capable of learning Russian than me, really. Apologies if anyone read that and took offense.  ::

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## gRomoZeka

> It's nothing but a show-off. Anyone can learn a few phrases, put some effort into practicing a proper accent and you are good to go! There are thousands of polyglots like him on the net flaunting their prodigious flare for languages while in fact, I can bet my bottom dollar on it, they didn't even try to study any of those. Well, maybe they did, but didn't get any further than picking up some basics just sufficient to put on a chip show.

 I agree.
 The guy obviously has some linguistic talent and loves languages, but I highly doubt he's actually fluent in more than 2-4 of them (in 10-15 years - maybe, but not now). He probably can be considered an intermediate or even an advanced student in some of them, but it's a far cry from being fluent.  For example he's made a few serious grammar mistakes in his Russian phrases, and I wonder how many mistakes he would have made in an unscripted or more complex text. On the other hand his pronunciation is very good, the accent is very slight and I'm sure he'll get even better with practice. 
It's still inspiring to see a young man who puts his mind to work, and it's something to be proud about. But using false and boastful labels cheapen his achievements a little.

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## Doomer

> but you should probably avoid talking about "sheets" until you've got the hang of it

 I'm trying to avoid using this word as hard as I can when I speak  :: 
I can probably pronounce it correctly when I focus on it but if talk fast enough - it could become really embarrassing  ::  
I've noticed that Russians tend to use sh*i*p sound much more often than sh*ee*p. I guess that sound is much closer to Russian *и*

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## Doomer

deleted

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## Deborski

> One of the first things he did after starting his Russian studies was to watch lots of childrens film, then moving on to  contemporary comedy shows from TV. Then he started watching Russian war films because he enjoys that. 
> He never used subtitles and he was able to learn a lot by using increasingly difficult material. *Did anyone try a similar approach?*

 I have discovered that Russian movies with subtitles help me more than anything, even speaking Russian.  Because the translation is right there as I am listening.  The only problem is that sometimes the subtitles are not very accurate.  But I find that watching movies helps me a great deal with pronunciation and phrasing.  I have also watched American movies with Russian voice-overs but I do not learn much from them, because the Russian is spoken so fast - as if they have to force so many words into such a short space, that it is hard to understand what they are saying. 
My Russian is not fluent enough yet to watch movies without subs...

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## Marcus

> I've noticed that Russians tend to use sh*i*p sound much more often than sh*ee*p. I guess that sound is much closer to Russian *и*

 Really?

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## Marcus

We can't judje one's abilities by a video, only pronunciation can be checked like that. Throbert was wrong when he tried to define fluency.

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## Doomer

Hey
what happened with my post #29?
the quote went backwards!!!

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## gRomoZeka

> Hey
> what happened with my post #29?
> the quote went backwards!!!

 *Doomer*, I'm sorry, that's probably my fault.  ::  
My post replaced yours, and I have not even noticed. Feel free to edit it back!

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## Throbert McGee

> You can't hear the difference between "man" and "men" in English?

 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.) 
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...)

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## Konstantinos

I appreciate him, not because he speaks 11 languages, but because he said that his favorite language is Greek and it has sentimental value for him. It is very important to hear it from a person who speaks 11 languages...

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## Throbert McGee

> I'd actually argue that peppering his speech with idiom and proverbs would be a far _greater_ demonstration of "an excellent memory for rehearsed phrases" than talking freely, albeit in more simple language.

 Well, yes, if you're talking about a recorded <i>monologue</i>, as we saw in the video. On the other hand, being able to recall and use appropriate native proverbs/idioms in an unscripted, spontaneous, multi-topic conversation with a native speaker would demonstrate a higher level of fluency in the target language.   

> As for the воробей, I would answer "it's a small bird" in English, because I don't know one wild bird from another. Does that mean I'm not fluent in English?

 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".)

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## Doomer

> and the diphthong *ой*.

 Not a lot of Irish people I guess  ::

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## Hanna

> I appreciate him, not because he speaks 11 languages, but because he said that his favorite language is Greek and it has sentimental value for him. It is very important to hear it from a person who speaks 11 languages...

 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.

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## xdns

> Well I am really tired now, but I think he said that the hard sign means there is a sort of break and so it sounds different... ш - щ is difficult simply because this is an "artificial difference" for me, just like adding "the" and "a" is for you. To me, this is more or less the same sound and it seems a bit picky to differentiate between them.

 I think that pronouncing ш instead of щ sounds like speaking Russian with Belarussian accent  :: 
Like these two guys, for example:

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## Konstantinos

> 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.

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## xdns

> 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.

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## xdns

> 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:

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## Marcus

Ш does not exist in many languages, so Englishmen do not pronounce it.

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## 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.

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## Marcus

> 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.

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## Marcus

> 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.

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## Hanna

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...

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## Marcus

> 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.

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## Hanna

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....

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## 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. 
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.

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## gRomoZeka

> 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.

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## Hanna

> 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.

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## 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.

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## xdns

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!  ::

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## Hanna

> 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.

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## xdns

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.

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## fabriciocarraro

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.

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## Marcus

> 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.

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## xdns

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...

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## Marcus

Now I've listened to a part of the Belorussian video. They really pronounce hard R instead of soft: тры, итерэсно...
One has to find natural speech, not videos made for fun or where accent is imitated.

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## Hanna

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

 English does not have the x sound or rolling Rs, so obviously that is the challenge for them. Rolling Rs in particular are apparently very difficult to learn for an adult.  
For me there is no Russian sound in itself that is hard to pronounce, the trick is keeping track of sounds where Russian has distinctions between different sounds which are never emphasised or discussed in other languages. Perhaps as a Russian you are able to tell that English in fact does have "soft" and "hard" Ls, but it would never occur to anyone else to think of it that way.  
Russian is just really particular with how certain consonants should be prounounced, to the point that it's indicated by the spelling (soft / hard) and words could even change meaning.  Whereas in other languages you just have no learn from native speakers work out the logic yourself.  
Debates about linguistics is not my cup of tea though.... I am sure I sound rather ignorant to someone with a special interest in this area which I do not have.

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## xdns

Every youtube video with Lukashenko features some elements of Belarussian accent, but not in every word.

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## Marcus

> For me there is no Russian sound in itself that is hard to pronounce, the trick is keeping track of sounds where Russian has distinctions between different sounds which are never emphasised or discussed in other languages. Perhaps as a Russian you are able to tell that English in fact does have "soft" and "hard" Ls, but it would never occur to anyone else to think of it that way.  
> Russian is just really particular with how certain consonants should be prounounced, to the point that it's indicated by the spelling (soft / hard) and words could even change meaning. Whereas in other languages you just have no learn from native speakers work out the logic yourself.

 Yes, it sounds rather funny. Any language has its own distinctions which are hard to hear or imitate for a non-native speaker. I think Swedish vowels will be a nightmare for a Russian.
Those distinctions are often represented by spelling.
Phonemic Palatalization is not very widespread, and it might be not very much developed, but it is present in some languages. In all the Slavic (Russian is the champion in this position), in Lithuanian, in Romanian (at the end of words), in Irish (it is even more developed there than in Russian), in some Finno-Ugric languages of Russia.
For example French represents an extensive non-phonemic palatalization. All the consonants are palatalized before i, u. [k] and [g] are also palatalized before a, and at the end of words after i.

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## Hanna

> 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...

 Cool, I'll see if I can watch that film some other time!  
Obviously if Swedes and Russians had met at that time, they would either have had communication difficulties, or perhaps they would have communicated in German or French. Definitely not English.  
Russian is not a language that Swedes traditionally study in large numbers. For the last 3 years in school, students can choose a third foreign language to study (after English and German/French). That's when Russian becomes available to choose. So nobody has studied more than 3 years of Russian in school, and most people choose another language that is easier. But those who start studying Russian really fall in love with the language, I have noticed, and learning about Russian culture is interesting because most people here have a quite shallow understanding of Russia - when they learn more about the culture they find it really appealing. Very similar to ours in some ways, yet exotic and very different in many aspects.  
I did not know Denmark sided with Russia against Sweden, but I am not surprised to hear that!  :: 
The fact that Russia brought about the end of Sweden's empire on the Baltic is not exactly my favourite thing about your country.
It was a long time ago though, and Sweden was acting quite aggressively against a larger enemy. Not so smart, perhaps....

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## xdns

> I did not know Denmark sided with Russia against Sweden, but I am not surprised to hear that!

 Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania, Saxony and Russia joined in the Northern Union against Sweden in 1699-1700.
But only Russia remained an active member of this union all the time during the Great Northern War. 
Oh, I've remembered one curious thing about Denmark-Russia relations: there was even a privateer Karsten Rode, Danish subject at the service of Ivan the Terrible, who boarded many Swedish ships (Russia had no fleet at the time and the tsar payed Danish pirate for annoying Swedish and Polish sailors in the Baltic sea!). I'm sorry Hanna, it just came to my mind because I read from time to time about Danish history and culture  ::

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## xdns

Here is some generally accepted terminology about the A/O thing: оканье and аканье (in both words the first syllable is stressed). We say они окают about northern speakers and мы акаем about "standard" Russian speakers. Other information about Russian language varieties can be found here: Диалекты русского языка.

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## Marcus

At the end Lukashenko is speaking, you can comapare him to the dictors.

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