A Question for Russians/Former Russians (OT)

J

Jack 99

New member
I know there a couple of you here.

How does/did the former USSR or modern day Russia teach English?

I'm curious because the half dozen or so Russians I've met in recent years speak nearly perfect English with little or no accent. As far as that goes, the most telling aspect of their language is that its TOO good. I've also noticed this on The History Channel and TLC when they've interviewed former KGB types. One guy I saw had a perfect Brooklyn accent!

English is a tough language to learn and I'm curious how so many Russians seem to have developed a command of it so easily. In contrast, Poles, Czechs, Germans and other Eastern Europeans seem to retain the accent, grammar and syntax of thier former language.
Is there some special teaching method?
 
When I was there '74-'89, each school offered one foreign language (mine happened to be English because my father planned ahead). Start in 5th grade. I suspect the quality of teaching was passable. I also had private tutors starting in 6th grade. I talked to my favorite tutor very recently...back then she seemed to have had a perfect British accent...but now it sounded like a heavy Russian one to me :)

Older Russians have more trouble. Some hold onto grammatic structures from Russian, others onto the accent. English is simpler grammatically but has a more extensive volcabulary, incl. items like shades of meaning, irregular verbs, etc. In Russian, more variations and shades of meaning can be formed using different endings of the same word.

I don't think there was a special teaching method. I had to leearn a lot about grammar after I came to the US. Moreover, I had killed any chances I had with a girl back in high school by saying "That's a weird name" when I meant to say "unusual" or "rare" :(
Shades of meaning, da?

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Oleg "peacemonger" Volk

http://dd-b.net/RKBA
 
What is the best way around articles (I think that's what they called:

You know, putting "A" and "the", or neither, before a noun.
?

(wife's Eastern European and still slips up occasionally). Seems the hardest part for coming from slavic languages.

Battler.
 
"A" and "an" are indefinite articles, meaning they're used to denote several or general objects as opposed to specific objects. "The" is a definite article and refers to one specific object.

(Gun-related) Example: She would say "I carry a Glock," rather than "I carry the Glock," because there's more than one Glock in existence. If there was only one and she had it, then the latter would be correct.
 
Probably a common problem with Slavic languages, isn't it, Battler. Russian and Czech, for instance, don't use articles at all. I imagine trying to learn the proper use of English articles can be confusing.

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Hoka-hey
 
In my opinion the level of English teaching was rather low in regular schools and even colleges in USSR. Besides, it was more oriented towards reading then conversation (I guess us being able to read some technnical literature in English was more or less good for the state, but nobody wanted us to be able to freely talk to the foreigners, and few were allowed to go abroad anyway...).
Of course, KGB, diplomats and professional linguists were taught in specialized schools - and I guess they could use some special teaching methods there.
BTW, Jack 99 - I'm rather surprized that you met several Russians speaking English without any accent. Did they belong to one of the categories I mentioned above? How old were they when they moved to US? I know lots of fellow "Russians" (read people of various ethnic backgrounds from the former USSR) here in Brooklyn, NY, but none of them were able to get rid of their accent completely. The exception being those who came here as children or at most teanagers.

Alex.
 
Coinneach, you get an A+.

FWIW, teaching English in Japan is like bashing your head against a wall. It feels GREAT when you stop.

All kinds of conceptual problems between English and Japanese, in addition to an absurd Ministry of Education.... most Japanese English teachers cannot speak English... GROAN... I'm going to move on to another thread now, my blood pressure's rising.



[This message has been edited by Munro Williams (edited June 15, 2000).]
 
Alex,

I met a girl about 19 or so from Moscow a few years back. I had no idea she was Russian until she told me. Even produced her passport. Ditto a young skater I met about the same time and a guy in his 40s who had gone from Russia to South Africa to the U.S. His most notable accent was S. African, even though he had been in Russia until age 20. Latest was a media rep I deal with. I always figured she was Canadian or something (lots of very clear annunciation, excellent grammar) then I found out she's a former Russian too.

The KGB types you sometimes catch on the History Channel always have impecable English too. They probably did get special training.
 
Jack,
Certain Soviet government specialists assuredly received extensive training in English and many of its regional and cultural variations. The results of such training were truly remarkable.

(By the way, at least "some" of the Soviet "graduate work" in English was done in America!)

For example, such training included extensive study of American sports, current events, and history - even our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and revolutionary history.

Interestingly, such training included extensive defense of our systems while concurrently maintaining loyalty to the Soviet regime. They were very, very thorough.
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By contrast, much Russian training by our government was inadequate in practical terms. This is the single greatest reason American intelligence used native Russians, strategically placed, (rather than American-trained linguists) for intelligence penetrations.

Native "moles" are always the best (all other things being equal). No foreigner can withstand extensive (in-house)interrogation without revealing he is a non-native speaker; but the Soviets were much better in this (rather narrow) area of intelligence than were Americans.

The Soviets also had another advantage. Foreigners in America were more easily accepted into positions of "interest" than were foreigners in the USSR. In general, Americans considered slight accents less important than did the Soviets. They even distrusted each other if they were from other areas of the USSR - their "Russian-ness" was frequently considered inadequate.

However, extensive resources (the American taxpayer) and our way of life more than compensated for the superior Soviet language training of their agents. While the Soviets enjoyed occasionally startling successes (eg highly placed moles in the CIA), America had a much more extensive and broad-based intelligence collective effort and success.
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BTW, the toughest English problem for many non-native speakers are the two "th" sounds (voiced: as in "the" or "that", and unvoiced as in "think"). Many of our native Russian instructors excelled in grammer and vocabulary but remained mystified by the dreaded "th"!

Also, many Ukranians can not discern a difference between "v" and "w" - the difference apparently being irrelevant in most of the Ukraine. At times we (students) took terrible advantage of our native Ukrainian teachers in this area. (Revenge...) :)
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Side note: Hindustani has FOUR sounds for each of the letters R, N, D, and T.
Talk about a mess!!! Phew!! :confused:
I never DID learn how to pronounce each letter four different ways.
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Suddenly, for the first time in years, I somewhat miss some of my former lives. ;)

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited June 16, 2000).]
 
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