(no subject)

[suku-vse.livejournal.com]

Off-top. I just want to ask a question: why did you chose to learn Russian language? It's very interesting for me, why people make this choice: do they hope to find a job, or they're just interested in the culture for some reason.

I'll be grateful to all who'll answer my question.

Comments

[solito.livejournal.com]

I had no choice :) In my elementary school there were no other languages... :))) But somewhere deep inside I had a hope to find a job, that's true.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Well, I was just starting university and wanted to take a language class, but I wasn't sure whether to take Chinese or Russian. I thought they would be the most difficult of the offered (living) languages, and I wanted a challenge. I ended up choosing Russian because my university didn't offer Chinese past the first year.

I knew very little about Russian before I started the class; I just knew it was Indo-European, Slavic, and written with Cyrillic. =)

[suku-vse.livejournal.com]

Come on. The question was not for native speakers.:) And believe me, you started learning Russian long before your first grade. (Unless we have a miracle here, and you're a very well adjusted former Mawgli:)

[mooose.livejournal.com]

haha, very funny :-p

[arestoktra.livejournal.com]

actually both. i started to learn Russian in my 2nd year in university. both for a chance to find a job and because Russian culture and language is something i love a lot. (also a bit about heritage from 2 generations ago) :)

[darth-phoenix.livejournal.com]

A reason I have been giving people, as they don't see interest as a good enough reason, is that a large portion of the Internet Underground is in Russian. They accept that. :)

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

I am only beginning to learn. I'm attracted by the large body of great literature. I am a theater professional, and the great theatre tradition is also very attractive. I'm in Moscow now, and only wish that my language skills were sufficient to fully experience the culture.

[sisyphus.livejournal.com]

Haha!! OMG, I can't believe they forced you into that. Why do they hate freedom?

[sisyphus.livejournal.com]

Because of Alexander Motherfucking Pushkin. Oh, and my girlfriend. But like I told her: anything can happen with a girlfriend, but Pushkin is forever. She took it surprisingly well.

[sisyphus.livejournal.com]

joo h4x0r d00d!

[solito.livejournal.com]

It was long ago, in the Iron Curtain times... May be that's why...

[sisyphus.livejournal.com]

Yes, now that it's gone, I'm sure poor Russian schoolchildren can be free of the burden of learning Russian in elementary school. LET THEM LEARN SWAHILI! ;)

[evaluna68.livejournal.com]

If you go back 3 - 4 generations, my family is from that neck of the woods. Then when I was a kid, Mom sent us to summer camp at the local Jewish Community Center, during a time of heavy emigration of Jews from the FSU. The camp gave lots of scholarships to recently arrived immigrants, so roughly half the kids spoke Russian. It alternately drove me bonkers and made me curious, but as my high school didn't offer Russian, I had to settle for Spanish, and then French until college.

When I decided to study Russian, Mom thought I was crazy - what was I going to do with it? But by the time I finished college, it was 1989, and I've had plenty of opportunities to use it (first of all, during a semester in Leningrad in the fall of 1989 - boy, was that a crazy time!) and in fact it got me my first job after college. I've never been sorry. :-)

[moria923.livejournal.com]

During my senior year in high school, my honors English teacher assigned us a unit on Russian literature. We all had to read CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and then each person was to do an individual presentation on another Russian novel. By the end of the unit I was hooked, and I decided to be a comp lit major with Russian emphasis. So of course my adviser in college informed me in no uncertain terms I'd have to learn Russian! I was reluctant, but I then got hooked on the language and culture, too.

[sventhelost.livejournal.com]

I'd always been fascinated with Russia growing up, partly because it was a big UNKNOWN place that seemed so important in world politics, but that it felt like we really knew nothing about. Mostly I was curious. So when I finally had the chance when I got to college, I took 101, despite my firm intention to become a theoretical astrophysicist. My curious investigation turned into fascination and respect and love.

People always asked what I wanted to do with my degree, and I wasn't sure. I joked that I wanted to be a spy or a dictator or a Russian physicist, but really I had no idea. Didn't want to teach, wasn't comfortable enough to translate, but didn't want to lose it. I have now had two jobs where I use it at least semi-regularly, working with people from many countries of the FSU.

I studied Chinese, too, for partly the same reasons. I like a challenge, I guess. :)

Might as well

[storm-jack.livejournal.com]

I started learning Russian in the military - this is back before the Iron Curtain fell. It was either that or Arabic. I feel that I made the right choice. And I found a rich culture and history to go with that language that no one in my provencial little home town in rural Texas even knew existed.

[surok75.livejournal.com]

came here for three months ten years ago.

had no idea what was going on, spoke no russian, and was completely confused by the whole thing.

but got hooked, studied russian at college, and now work in Russia. oh, and studying chinese in Russian....sven, I guess we both like challenges.

and I adore Russian. Russia itself - well, there are lots of things that bug me, as well as lots of things which are endlessly pleasing, entertaining, fascinating. but Russian itself - yes, there are some frustrating things which I'm certain I will never ever understand - is an endless source of delight.

[alinaf.livejournal.com]

!!!!! amen.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

BTW they ARE almost free from learning Russian now - I was stunned how bad the Russian course was when my son was in the elementary school. I had to re-teach him myself to write letters - because their teacher would let them to write letters not the way they should be written, but the way it was easier. As a result, half the class was writing "как курица лапой" (like a chicken by its foot,) i.e. almost unrecognizably.

[suku-vse.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm a little bit comforted that sometimes people start learning it because of family heritage, even after several generation have lived happily in America.

I'm fascinated by your hard work, I wouldn't learn Hebrew just because my family once spoke it. (Maybe a few words, but not the whole language.)
I hate challenge, I got really exausted by my Arabic classes in school.

So, great respect for your hard work.

No, PUshkin wasn't right when he wrote "Мы ленивы и нелюбопытны." Maybe if he knew you, he would never write it.

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'd be flattered even by being mentioned in the same sentence... :)

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

1989... We must be about the same age. I adored crazy 80s. The only thing I don't miss is the make-up style. :)

[logodaedaly.livejournal.com]

I actually got forced to. ;-) I was going to a residential high school for gifted students and all the other languages (French, German, Spanish, Japanese) were full. I took Russian reluctantly but over the course of three years in high school I fell in love with it. So I majored in it in college and the rest is history.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

My Russian teacher once told me, "You know, I don't mean to brag or anything, but Russian is one of the most richest languages in the world." She forgot to mention culture. :)

For me it started out with "No one will know what I write in Cyrillic!" its amazing literature. I started reading Anna Karenina (but was thwarted by other school reading) and honestly, one of the only novels that actually got me into it. I need to finish her this summer...

Then it came to me speaking horrendously to a Russian that they were like "What!?" and they became exasperated. So I started to learn the grammar. And by golly grammar is AMAZING!/FRUSTRATING! I guess it's the frustrating part that makes it so amazing. Perhaps I'm sadomasochistic?

I would really love to major in Russian Language and Culture/History, but what for a job? So I'm taking that for a minor, and International Relations for a major. Diplomat comes to mind, but to get there... oy vey. I'm really worried about how my future is going to look like.

My love started in 9th grade. Formal learning started this summer. I caught on somewhat quick. And although this is my most favorite of languages, I am planning on polishing my French, and picking up German. Just so that I have a nice palette of languages to choose from should I go to Europe and want to "mingle" with the natives.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I've still a loooooooong way to go with Russian. Each o in long should represent a year. I should make it longer.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.