5 ms·

Funny enough, a similar thing (using obscure, ten-dollar words instead of simple ones) happens with many Russians learning English. It happens for a totally dif

Funny enough, a similar thing (using obscure, ten-dollar words instead of simple ones) happens with many Russians learning English. It happens for a totally different reason - obviously Russian is a Slavic, not Romance language. Turns out that most high quality translated material for Russian is old literature and scientific papers. So that’s what the translators are trained on, and that’s what many Russians speaking English sound like. As an example, a friend of mine was just learning English and didn’t yet know words as simple as “stairs”, but would use ten-dollar words like “prurient”, “strumpet” and “veritable”.

e17 5y ago
I have witnessed this phenomenon living in London as a native of the city. A new-to-London Russian colleague of mine used ornate phraseology and what I would consider as 'posh' words quite regularly. A major phrase for her was "It seems to me" as a precursor to saying virtually any opinion. I never knew the reason for it though, so TIL.
- cogman10 5y ago
  I had an Austrian friend that learned all his English from star trek TNG and DS9... it was amazing :D He'd watched the series in German and then in English and knew it well enough to pick things up. To my ear, his English was pretty good. That said, the 2 groups of non-native speakers that have impressed me the most are people from Sweden and Norway. I've mistaken more than one of them for native speakers (to their delight) :D
  - dnautics 5y ago
    I desperately want to do this in the other direction, but I can't figure out how to stream foreign dubbed trek in the states and I don't have a DVD player anymore... It may take a bit more effort.
- n4bz0r 5y ago
  In case you are curious what the exact reason might be: "It seems to me" is most likely coming from the much less fancy sounding, and more casual "мне кажется" (mnye kazhetsya). "Mnye" would be "to me", and "kazhetsya" could be represented as "it seems". I say "could be" because there is no direct translation for "kazhetsya" as far as I'm aware. The closest (and most direct) translation of "kazhetsya" that I can think of, and retains the meaning would be "it seems likely that <...>". What she was trying to communicate was "I think", I think. (pun intended)
  - cpursley 5y ago
    Coming from English, I struggle with when to use я vs Мне.
    - n4bz0r 5y ago
      Not sure if you'd like an advice or merely sharing your experience, but after reading your comment I spent an hour or so trying to provide a simple rule of thumb. To my surprise, I failed miserably. But I scraped some info together in the process, so I'll post it in a hope that it might give you a better perspective. Mind you, I'm not a linguist or a teacher. First of all, I made a list of Russian я/мне lines with English translations next to them just to see if there is consistent presence of a hint in English lines that can point to the right Russian translation. There is none. So if you are trying to figure out the proper pronoun this way, you are doing it wrong. To make an educated choice between я/мне you'll have to familiarise yourself with nominative and dative cases. Here is some basic info on the cases in "question" and even more basic examples: Nominative case of "I" is "я". Nominative case answers questions such as "who?" or "what?". Кто пришёл? (Who came?) Я пришёл. (I came.) Dative case of "I" is "мне". Dative case answers questions such as "to whom?" or "to what?". Дать кому? (Give to whom?) Мне. (To me.) As you might've noticed, native English speakers won't normally construct questions in a way they are constructed in most Russian cases, so I'd suggest to get familiar with cases and their respective questions first, and try to construct sentences later. Or, depending on your goal, you can simply memorize common sentences/lines altogether and figure out why they work later.
saagarjha 5y ago
I certainly wonder what kinds of conversations your friend was involved in given their choice of words…
orthoxerox 5y ago
My teacher of English once helped a group of Russian Baptists who were emigrating to the US with their English. They learned it themselves using the KJV Bible and verily I say unto thee, that who listeneth to them and keepeth a straight face truly hath no sense of humor.

e17 5y ago

I have witnessed this phenomenon living in London as a native of the city. A new-to-London Russian colleague of mine used ornate phraseology and what I would consider as 'posh' words quite regularly. A major phrase for her was "It seems to me" as a precursor to saying virtually any opinion. I never knew the reason for it though, so TIL.

cogman10 5y ago
I had an Austrian friend that learned all his English from star trek TNG and DS9... it was amazing :D He'd watched the series in German and then in English and knew it well enough to pick things up. To my ear, his English was pretty good. That said, the 2 groups of non-native speakers that have impressed me the most are people from Sweden and Norway. I've mistaken more than one of them for native speakers (to their delight) :D
- dnautics 5y ago
  I desperately want to do this in the other direction, but I can't figure out how to stream foreign dubbed trek in the states and I don't have a DVD player anymore... It may take a bit more effort.
n4bz0r 5y ago
In case you are curious what the exact reason might be: "It seems to me" is most likely coming from the much less fancy sounding, and more casual "мне кажется" (mnye kazhetsya). "Mnye" would be "to me", and "kazhetsya" could be represented as "it seems". I say "could be" because there is no direct translation for "kazhetsya" as far as I'm aware. The closest (and most direct) translation of "kazhetsya" that I can think of, and retains the meaning would be "it seems likely that <...>". What she was trying to communicate was "I think", I think. (pun intended)
- cpursley 5y ago
  Coming from English, I struggle with when to use я vs Мне.
  - n4bz0r 5y ago
    Not sure if you'd like an advice or merely sharing your experience, but after reading your comment I spent an hour or so trying to provide a simple rule of thumb. To my surprise, I failed miserably. But I scraped some info together in the process, so I'll post it in a hope that it might give you a better perspective. Mind you, I'm not a linguist or a teacher. First of all, I made a list of Russian я/мне lines with English translations next to them just to see if there is consistent presence of a hint in English lines that can point to the right Russian translation. There is none. So if you are trying to figure out the proper pronoun this way, you are doing it wrong. To make an educated choice between я/мне you'll have to familiarise yourself with nominative and dative cases. Here is some basic info on the cases in "question" and even more basic examples: Nominative case of "I" is "я". Nominative case answers questions such as "who?" or "what?". Кто пришёл? (Who came?) Я пришёл. (I came.) Dative case of "I" is "мне". Dative case answers questions such as "to whom?" or "to what?". Дать кому? (Give to whom?) Мне. (To me.) As you might've noticed, native English speakers won't normally construct questions in a way they are constructed in most Russian cases, so I'd suggest to get familiar with cases and their respective questions first, and try to construct sentences later. Or, depending on your goal, you can simply memorize common sentences/lines altogether and figure out why they work later.

saagarjha 5y ago

I certainly wonder what kinds of conversations your friend was involved in given their choice of words…

orthoxerox 5y ago

My teacher of English once helped a group of Russian Baptists who were emigrating to the US with their English. They learned it themselves using the KJV Bible and verily I say unto thee, that who listeneth to them and keepeth a straight face truly hath no sense of humor.