Learn Russian

That's pretty strange; why would anyone want to study Russian in Estonia?

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well, one plus is not having to pay for the privilege of playing games with visa regulations...

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I suppose that makes sense; but still I have doubts about the quality of language you can learn that way.

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eyeballmassage.livejournal.com

aren't there lots of native russian speakers in estonia, though?

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Yes, there are. But they may have an accent that will be difficult to get rid of afterwards. I am not sure though, just theorizing.

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constpd.livejournal.com

Actually, there is no difference between Russian spoken by native speakers in Russia or in Estonia, no accent either (if a person doesn't play Estonian native speaker all day long). There is just a couple of words that came to Estonian Russian vocabulary from Estonian like saying рабарбар (Est. rabarbar) instead of ревень.

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That's the problem; the language environment is still different from "mainland" Russia and a foreigner can pick up some dialect words or other peculiarities without realising it.

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That's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm sure if I was to interact with Estonian Russians on a daily basis, speaking Estonian Russian would be an advantage over speaking Russian Russian.

If the passing rumours I've heard are true, there is a very strong tradition of learning Russian in Israel, and in fact there is a huge Russian-language presence in Isreal-- some areas are even entirely Russian-speaking (similarly to in Estonia)

The language environment in America is still different from England and a foreigner can pick up dialect words or other peculiarities of English without realising it.

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there is a very strong tradition of learning Russian in Israel
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That's definitely a bad idea (I mean to go and learn a language there). Definitely worse than Estonia because this at least is closer to Russia and hopefully there is still some cultural exchange with Russia that prevents the language pool to become stagnant. If you mean there is a significant percentage of Russian-speaking people in Israel - then yes, there is a presence. But language environment - no. I think you will be in the same language situation if you just go to Brighton beach, New York. Your comparison with British vs. American English does not really work here. In an immigrant community, you will be in the middle of an isolated small group, a subculture whose language is either frozen in time at whatever moment people immigrated, or subject to a strong foreign influence, or both. People in these situations tend to mix two languages every which way. Not all of them but a lot. (I lived in a Russian community in Toronto so I know what I am talking about.) You will be in an even worse situation in Israel because people there mix three languages, not two, in a really horrible way. If in future your main audience will be Russian-speaking Israeli then probably you can do that but the language you learn will not be a mainland Russian.

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Okay, I am seeing more of your stance now, and it does have merit. Keep in mind, however, that the dynamics of an "immigrant community" can be dependent on just how exactly "isolated" it is.

I.e. there are even still some (tiny, moribund) Russian-speaking communities in Alaska, but it's like some sort of sick joke... with people wearing косоворотки like the waiters in Ёлки-Палки. These people have never even met Russian-speakers from other parts of Alaska, let alone other countries.

Multilingual Russian-speaking countries like Estonia (personal experience), Baltic states or even the Ukraine (educated guess) not only interact with the other linguistic communities in their country (i.e. you can hear just about 50/50 Estonian/Russian in any place of Tallinn, let it be on the street or in an office), but you can also buy Russian books, tabloids, films etc.

I would compare the situations in this(these?) countries more like India-- a pluralist state that has one official language but in reality, many hold (nearly-)equal weight (less so these days with power politics between the EU and Russia with the baltic states acting as provocateur). Also, huge amount of Indian emigrants have strong ties to "mainland" India, so Indian languages even spoken outside India remain relatively "modern"

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Yes, Alaskan communities are probably an ultimate case of an isolated language community, so you got my point. But still - would you go to India to learn English? You probably would if you are going to deal with mainly Indian English in future. Otherwise I suppose you would rather go to US or UK.

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yurka-spb.livejournal.com

I believe that Russians in Estonia speak quite good Russian. I have not been there for a long time, but I visited Lithuania in 2006 and had seen no problems with Russian, even though much less Russians live there than in Estonia.

But definitely Russia is the best place, cause every one speaks Russian here and almost no one speaks any other language.

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But definitely Russia is the best place, cause every one speaks Russian here and almost no one speaks any other language.

Except for English when speaking to anyone who doesn't first pronounce Russian properly

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kart.livejournal.com

A friend of mine who learned to speak Russian fairly well was once asked if he was Lithuanian. Nope, just from Boston.

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lima-pcp.livejournal.com

Strange. I was always told by Russians that my pronunciation was very good, and by Caucasians and Central Asians that it was terrible.

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shariperkins.livejournal.com

I understand that the Russian stereotype of Estonians is that they speak very slooowly. If they do in fact speak slower, it may be easier to understand for a new learner.

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I find it the opposite: I've only had 6 months of formal spanish training in my life, and never could understand a word any mexicans say, but (castillian) spaniards actually say a few words i can understand...

(even though i'd lived right next to the mexican border for a looong time)

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being able to understand someone better definitely does not mean their language is higher quality. coming back to america after a long time in the russian federation, i have a hard time understanding different american regional accents and can understand russians speaking english with a thick accent and typical grammar mistakes much more easily.

i have been to estonia as well, and as for studying russian there... study estonian there, not russian! it probably is just that they speak more slowly and more measuredly as it's probably not what they speak at home. if you learn to speak russian like an estonian, you will not learn to speak/understand russian like a russian, and what's the point of that?

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if you learn to speak english like an american, you will not learn to speak/understand english like an englishman, and what's the point of that?

if you learn to speak spanish like a mexican, you will not learn to speak/understand spanish like a spaniard, and what's the point of that?

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kart.livejournal.com

One point is that language learners ought to be able identify different dialects, and ideally be able to comprehend multiple dialects too. It's very difficult to speak multiple dialects fluently, but I see no reason why we shouldn't try to understand them all.

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Glad someone else sees it like I do

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zhp.livejournal.com

erm... actually, it's more like "if you learn to speak english like a russian, you will not learn to speak english like an englishman/an american, and wgat's the point of that?", and that is quite a reasonable question, don't you think?

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Why would you assume that all Estonians who speak Russian speak it as a second language?

Do you come from a country that is both officially and realistically monolingual?

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zhp.livejournal.com

I come from Russia, which is not monolingual and which has some regions with marked regional dialects (like South of Russia - Krasnodarsky krai, Stavropolsky krai) and some regions where dialectal differences are not that pronounced (most of Siberia, I believe, unless you go to a remote village). I wouldn't advise anyone to learn to speak any dialect of Russian because, first of all, the literary variety is more useful in most situations and, secondly, you will sound really funny with a regional accent on top of your own accent.
As to Russian in Estonia, it is becoming more and more isolated from the "mainland Russian" because there are fewer contacts with Russian media.

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wolk-off.livejournal.com

Speaking about accents, the funniest thing in my life was meeting a Texan guy who grew up in Tbilisi (he was a son of American diplomate working in Georgia.) He spoke really fluent and literate Russian, yes. But... Could you imagine Georgian accent on top of Texan? 8-)

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well, estonia in general is quite bitter about soviet times. if you have been in russia for the past nine months surely you have noticed this tension. and the official language of estonia is not russian, it is estonian. the us does not have an official language per se, but it is decidedly an english-dominated culture, although spanish is gaining a large footing. mexico is decidedly a spanish-speaking country. estonian and russian relations are definitely not good. if you want to learn russian, isn't more useful to be in the place where nearly all russian-language stuff comes from (music, literature, film) than to be in a place where russia is not really liked? i mean, i guess if you really wanted to you could study russian in estonia, but it would be more like studying spanish in the us than studying spanish in mexico or english in the us, so your analogy isn't so good. :)

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by the way i took a bus across estonia and i did not hear one person speak russian, although it was quite crowded. the only time i heard russian spoken was when i asked if they spoke russian so that i could communicate with them.

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I'm quite surprised, because as I implied in the OP, as I was in Tallin I nearly heard as much Russian as Estonian. and it wasn't discreet in some secluded alley. it was people walking around stockmann or sitting in a pub... or babushki asking me things i didn't know anything about...

(Same with Narva (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&time=&date=&ttype=&q=Narva,+Ida-Virumaa,+Estonia&sll=54.162434,-3.647461&sspn=11.23428,29.794922&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=0,59.374252,28.182295&ll=59.40386,28.182678&spn=0.304757,0.931091&z=10&iwloc=addr&om=1), but that's understandable)

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