A salute to the native speakers of Russian in the community

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Looking back on a poll that gera posted in this community awhile ago, I noticed that most of this community is actually comprised mostly of native speakers of Russian. I'm just wondering, as a native speaker of Russian, what is your motivation for joining/participating in this community?

Comments

[cema.livejournal.com]

To help people... and to laugh at them!

I am kidding. Just to help.

[letnja-kisha.livejournal.com]

I am going to teach Russian this year, thought it might be helpful for me to look at questions that arise.

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

Good thinking.

[nale.livejournal.com]

I thought this community to be very touching and joined it at once. Everybody studies English, but few study Russian.

It's interesting and fun to read, too - because it gives a new perspective on my native language; and sometimes I'm even lucky enough to offer some help.

[beltspinner.livejournal.com]

I don't think the native speakers have any idea how appreciated they are. Thanks you guys for all your help!

[oryx_and_crake]

Same here.

[ignite.livejournal.com]

Thanks from me too. The responses here are much more interesting than the average livejournal banter.

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

I am extremely grateful for our Russian friends' infinite patience with us. If there's ever a "Learn English" community for Russians, I'll join it in a heartbeat!

[oryx_and_crake]

there is one, indeed
ru_learnenglish

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Plus I'm simply a maniac ;-)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

You know, it is only after visiting the ru_learnenglish community that I realize how much it takes for someone to answer questions about their own language in a different language. I'm really impressed by you knowledgeable native speakers now.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Many thanks to hopeinagpa for searching through the recent community post for some valuable information which I add to the community archives (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=learn_russian). More suggestions concerning earlier posts worthy of our archives are more than welcome. A nice form of a suggestion is the number of the post in Learn Russian community plus its brief description, like hopeinagpa does:
273739.html ("тоже" vs. "также"; "ого")
Just add it as a comment to any of my posts/comments, or send it to moshkow AT moshkow.net, and consider it added to the community memories quite soon :)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

*bows* it was my pleasure.

[sverb.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to help sometimes. But I found that, sometimes, I can't aswer questions in this community becouse I've never tried to do it; Russian people don't have such questions... It's interesting to know, what questions have people studying Russian and know answers on them... Sorry, think, there are many mistakes: I don't know English very well yet

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

<.< >,> I'm almost ashamed to admit that I think your English is better than my Russian...

Thanks for having the heart to help!

[sverb.livejournal.com]

Maybe. At least I'm studying English at school

You are welcome!

[xnrrn.livejournal.com]

It's fun. What other motivation there is?

[solito.livejournal.com]

we all knew that :)))

[mithgol.livejournal.com]

I generally tend to be a chaotic good.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

For me too.
Moreover, sometimes I learn something new about russian myself, for example, the conjugation of the verb "быть". :)

[nbuwe.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of things that we take for granted about our native language. It's just "the way things are" and we never give them a second thought. Questions asked in this community provide a different perspective. They also indirectly reveal ways of thinking ("language intuition") inherent to English, so in a way they help to achive better understanding of English as well.

[ducking.livejournal.com]

Language practice & entertainment & bits of new knowledge & interesting people & (as someone said earlier) a whole new perspective of my native language.

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

Whoa! Is there a wolk_off's evil twin who shouts "пожалуйста, the working language of this community is GLORIOUS RUSSIAN" at everybody? =P

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

They must have a robot shouting that. Though, in fact, their community (unlike this one) is bilingual. It wasn't me who made learn_russian Ameristrictly English-speaking, but since we have a policy like that, we better stick with it. Anarchy is fun to think about, but torture to live in.

[ex-kurunir601.livejournal.com]

Docendo dicimus!

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

I was only being playful; I think the rules of this community are very fair. As for the Ameristrict rule . . . Don't most Russians speak British English here? It seems to me most Europeans learn the British version of English because it's closer.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Acutally, I have no idea, since I've never studied English formally. Anyway, I was referring to an old joke: since I mentioned "bilingual," it seemed more than natural to mention "American" as well... remember that one? ;-)

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

You've never formally studied English??!!!

Tell me, is English really that easy to learn, or is there something in the American foreign language programs that effectively raises the difficulty of the language being studied?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm... surprisingly enough, I'm no expert in that. I have studied German in high school, and then French at the Moscow State University, but I have forgotten much of my German (it's been 21 years now, after all,) and never succeeded much in French (though it was enough to speak with waiters an cab drivers in Frnace :)). I always needed English for work purposes, but it either wasn't offered by the schools I've been at, or (later) I couldn't spend much time for formal training. So I'm basically self-taught. After German, English definitely wasn't that difficult, given the fact that they're both Germanic and there's so much in common, grammar-wise. But it's only matter of time - a Russian proverb says that even a rabbit can be taught to burn matches (даже зайца можно научить спички зажигать). To get to my current level in English, it only took me a mere twenty years :)

[yms.livejournal.com]

It's the easiest way to be useful, with almost no efforts.

[doseofreality.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in the community because, although I was born in Russia and can speak it, I don't know any of the grammar rules or why things are the way they are. I just that something sounds right or wrong. I was eight when I came here. So I'm learning Russian too.

[hopeinagpa.livejournal.com]

I tried doing the same with the learn mandarin (chinese) community on LJ, as I also emigrated when I was eight, but alas, activity there is, to put it nicely, slow.