(no subject)

[infinitedomain.livejournal.com]

What is the best that you have heard a non-native speaker get at Russian?

The reason I ask is, I have never heard of a native English speaker becoming fluent in Russian, unless they grew up speaking it already (i.e. in a bilingual household). Even my friends who majored in it in college are nowhere near fluent. I'm just curious if you know anybody who did not begin to study Russian until college, who has attained a level of mastery that would enable them to do something like, say, practice law in Russia or write a novel in Russian.

Comments

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

It was her whom I mentioned in my comment below :)

[spokojnik.livejournal.com]

встретил ее как-то в Осло, через общих знакомых. обалдел. у нее даже голос был РУССКИЙ) бывают же люди. а я-то думал, что у нас самый сложный язык в мире...

[happy-accidents.livejournal.com]

What's with the deleted post?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. That wasn't me. Somebody was saying really fond words about some girl ;-)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

One particular American girl here wrote a 400-word article on music for my publication in Russian, after only two years of study, and I only made just minor corrections - no more than in an article written by a Russian girl of her age and level of experience. Generally speaking, it is easier with written Russian than with spoken.
I knew an American who was a radio host on a wild non-commercial Muscovite radio station (O legendary 1990s when things like non-commercial, non-formatted radio stations were still possible!) -- the guy had some accent, no more than a Lithuanian would have, but his language was really fluent (except that he kept putting possessive pronouns into every available spot, which one normally would never do in Russian.) He started his Russian study at 18 or so, and was 24 or 25 by the time I knew him.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

I once knew an English guy who didn't start Russian until college, but when he started learning, he did an exchange year in Russia, met a Russian girl, they got married and stayed in Russia. He really liked Russia, and always spoke Russian to everyone. When I met him he had been living in Russia for about 3 years, his Russian was absolutely great, and he even did crosswords in Russian. When my mother first met him, she didn't know who he was, they talked for a while, and then she asked me who this nice Latvian or Estonian boy was!:) When I told her he was English, she didn't believe me.

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

The best level a non-native speaker can get in Russian is when you cannot recognise them as non-natives anymore ;) I know quite a number people like that. Usually you can still hear a very distant accent, but not necessary.

I remember once I was told that a guy (an Internet friend of mine) whom I'd never suspect, who could write wonderfully and express his thoughts very well, was actually a non-native speaker. I got back to his texts, sat down and analysed them in the tiniest detail - and yes, I managed to find a mistake every once in a while (at least one in a text of the same size as this comment), and those mistakes, if you think about them, were very unlikely to be made by a native speaker. Yet I did not see them at all until I started to check every word.

It is very common for people to make such sweeping remarks like "you should start really early and work hard for decades", but the life shows us lots of counter-examples.

P.S.: One of the best blues guitarists (in technique, not just in passion), Big Bill Broonzy, picked up a guitar for the first time when he was 28 ;)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Speaking about music, Sibelius didn't start to compose music until he was fiftysomething...

[erschlagener.livejournal.com]

"or write a novel in Russian."

Well, working backward was Vladamir Nabokov, of Lolita (http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0739322060/sr=1-2/qid=1165530303/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-4368628-0402549?ie=UTF8&s=books) fame. Born in Russia, we moved to the US late in his life, where he taught literature (English, Russin, and French too I believe - he spoke all three fluently, well enough to write Lolita in all three tongues).

[twisby.livejournal.com]

i think the reason european/russians can do that is because these languages are taught in grammar school, whereas most americans don't have the opportunity to even begin learning russian until highschool or later. the language parts of the brain have lost a lot of their plasticity by then.

[erschlagener.livejournal.com]

Mmm, it's a matter of neccesity/happenstance too - for day, my bosses speak Cantonese and I've picked up a few words just by proximity.

After a glance at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov), seems Nabokov grew up speaking three languages (English, French and Russian), which doesn't help our original concern of attaining some remote fluency in one's lifetime in Russian alas.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

RIght, you found that out already, I see :)

[erschlagener.livejournal.com]

Indeedy ;)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Nabokov grew up in a trilingual family.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

I'm under the impression that studying a language without some kind of immersion, won't generally allow a speaker to become fluent regardless.

That said, four years of university is DEFINITELY not enough, especially in the case of russian. Then again, that also depends on the student. I myself began studying russian my freshman year of university and am now just finishing my last semester. While I am nowhere near being able to have any kind of customer service job in russian (much less work as a lawyer), I have put enough work into it that I can hold what native speakers have told me is competant thoughtful conversation in the language, as well as read modern russian lit without much of a vocabulary barrier. On the contrary, I'm finishing school with students, who had studied as long as I have, yet can barely say anything beyond a few simple sentences, although they can read at a somewhat higher level.

To become near fluent, one must be immersed at some point. I think if someone who began to learn russian at a university level, subsequently moved to russia, by the end of 5 - 10 years I'd expect they'd be near real fluency as long as they were working and enjoying themselves among russian speakers all the time.

[anc-q.livejournal.com]

as for me i've met French guy XD
no English speaking persons - i just haven't met someone of them in real life XD only that Frech boy, i suppose it's so rare for them to learn my language

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

My first professor could pass as a native speaker, although for some reason he got asked if he was from St. Petersburg a lot. He started to study Russian in high school or college; by the time I took one of his classes he had become a linguist and had been speaking Russian for decades.

He could probably write a novel in Russian or read complicated legal code, but he still wasn't native-speaker fluent. He told me that he still sometimes had to stop and think about how say whatever, and in class he often asked the native speakers about subtle things like word connotations and euphony.

I'd call him fluent, myself. If I ever attain that level of fluency it'd be good enough for me. =)

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

My Russian professor was an American who started Russian in college. He did spend some time abroad in Russia, so he did get the immersion that other have commented to be necessary. I wouldn't be able to tell if he's native-level fluent, but he can certainly read literature fluidly.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be honest here and risk offending some people when I say that majoring in a language in college doesn't automatically make you fluent. I learned more in one year in my graduate Russian language class than I had in ~three years of college-level Russian. Living abroad is the best way to gain conversational fluency, I feel.

I work with many people who speak Russian very, very well but like everything else (including your own native language!) the more you study, the better you get.

[fiachasorcha.livejournal.com]

I agree about the majoring in russian thing. I'm a russian major and it's quite easy to get along without actually speaking (I for one read and write significantly better than I speak), even in my program which is one of the best in the US.

All the professors I've had were either native speakers or people who lived for a significant time in Russia, so I guess I would have to agree with the immersion suggestion.

[oryx_and_crake]

I know a native English speaker who is fluent in Russian - I would rather take him for a native Russian speaker who has been living abroad for a long time. But he is a Slavist, specializing in Russian, he studied the language in Moscow and he has a Russian wife.

[sveta-ko.livejournal.com]

I knew a guy who spoke Russian fluently. I met him after he had finished his 1-year long course of Russian in Monterey, CA. He had an accent, of course, but I was really impressed especially knowing that it took him only a year to become that good.

[msk01.livejournal.com]

I know American guy who lives in Moscow for ten years, he's fluent in Russian and works as translator - laws, contracts and so on.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, another great example would be the director of the Library of the U.S. Congress, Dr. Billington. He speaks unbelieveably good, clean Russian, with a slight accent though.

[laertid.livejournal.com]

I spoke to some UN officials and since Russian is one of the UN working languages thay had to know it -- and their Russian was very, very fine.

[linnapaw.livejournal.com]

My first Russian professor
A friend of mine from church - she's lived in Russia and such, and she does things like take theology courses in Russian, both when she is there and by correspondence.

[annaaustria.livejournal.com]

Non-Russian who speaks Russian as good as native speakers? Spy, for sure. ;)))

Ten years ago I went to Paris as a tourist. Our guide there spoke Russian exactly as native speaker, and he understood all the jokes with word playing. No accent at all. And he told us that he started to study Russian only three years ago.
This was not his first foreign language. I think he just had talent for languages.

[onodera.livejournal.com]

I've once met a tourist guide in Turkey who spoke perfect Russian. You just couldn't sense anything in his speech that'd identify him as a foreigner. Everyone mistook him for an Azeri, but he swore he was born into a Turkish family, grew up in Turkey and just majored in Guiding Russian Tourists.

[vedmouse.livejournal.com]

primarily - oriental guys, working wwith Russians.
if not their color of eyes, you coul take them as Russians and even from Moscow =-)

on the second hand - Chinese and some Africen students of Russian Peoples's Friendship University, I dont know why... at the 5th course thay speak fluent

i know lot of europeans trying to learn Russian, but they cen do it very badly