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Russians are so extreme. Even though my favourite professors at Waterloo in Canada were Russian, it wasn't until I learned some basic Russian that I finally go

Russians are so extreme. Even though my favourite professors at Waterloo in Canada were Russian, it wasn't until I learned some basic Russian that I finally got over the typical view of them drilled into people by Hollywood. Your run of the mill Russian is honest about their feelings. Not honest about the facts, no, they can cheat on an insurance filing just fine. But that coldness that so many of them seem to have is often just an outer shell. Once one of them trusts you and gets to know you they're so warm and intense about their love for you. So excited to show you something dear to them. Even devoted enough to learn a new language just to speak to you, even if they're a senior[0]. It doesn't mean the relationship always survives, because that intensity is still there when they're angry, but the highs are so high. I do not regret learning basic Russian. [0] This happened to me. Twice.

mycologos 5y ago
A few years ago Masha Gessen did an episode of Conversations With Tyler, a podcast hosted by Tyler Cowen, and at one point she said this about Russian friendships [1]: > ... I think that — and this may answer your question — Russian friendships are much more emotional and intense than American friendships [...] When I moved back to [the USA] five and a half years ago, it was like this sense of whiplash because I had a lot of friends here, but I had been absent for 20 years. I would get together with my friends, and then two hours later, our get-together would be over. I’m like, “Well, what was the point of that? Was that just to let each other know that we still exist?” Because you don’t really get into deep conversation until about four hours in and a number of bottles of alcohol [...] I think that maybe that’s what you’re referring to. Maybe you’re just referring to the emotional intensity of Russian friendship, where it’s hard. It’s like lovers, even in this country, don’t really drift apart usually. You have to break up. You can’t just stop calling, and go from talking every day to talking every few weeks, and then forget about each other’s existence. I usually take claims about what people from a country are like with a big grain of salt, but it's interesting to see this in your comment, too. Maybe I should pursue some Russian friendships. [1] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  That is a great quote, though I have a minor quibble about alcohol being necessary as some of the Russians I befriended were former alcoholics and sober for years. Though others drank beer at dawn. I found I made deep friendships more easily after speaking even a bit of Russian. If you can say "My name is X" and "awesome" and a couple other small phrases it helps. That said, it wasn't until I had put in around 1000 hours of practice until things really opened up. It's such a hard language and I'm below average in my ability to learn human languages. But I did make steady progress with Verbling and I even met up with my tutor when I was in Ukraine. One of the things that learning Russian clears up is why they sound so angry to English ears. The language doesn't use tone for emphasis as much as English. It uses word order because the grammar is more flexible so they're able to put the important stuff at the end. Plus the sounds are more constant based. So once your ears get used to the language, you don't really hear Russian (or a Russian accented English) the same anymore. It sounds more human. Plus you learn so many words, you end up finding some of the endearing / superior to the English translation.
  - mycologos 5y ago
    Interesting. Do you have a recommended method for learning Russian?
  - nwb 5y ago
    Could you give some examples of some Russian words that are more enduring than English words? I've always been fascinated by this.
    - davidgh 5y ago
      Молодец, нельзя, фу, тоска, почемучка. When learning Russian these are just a few of the words I found myself saying even when speaking English. Which gives a hint that a good direct translation maybe isn’t quite there.
      - cperciva 5y ago
        There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be -- almost like Huffman coding. In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
I once met a russian person online who had learned portuguese, my native language. I was extremely impressed. To this day I've never seen anyone else learn portuguese as a second language.
- petre 5y ago
  Portugese is a really nice sounding language. I love it. It's on top of my "to learn" list. Spanish on the other hand no, though I like better how it's spoken in the Americas.
- namenotrequired 5y ago
  I'm Dutch and learned it as a second language, when I moved to Brazil (at age 24). I met some Europeans who did the same. Well, it's usually the third or fourth rather than the second (second tends to be English or Spanish).
- brabel 5y ago
  On my travels, I have met several people who, after living in Brazil for only a few months, learned to speak Portuguese fluently. This always impressed me hugely, because English speakers normally have a really hard time learning a language that has "gendered" nouns and inflected articles/adjectives/pronouns, for example... but many of them seem to do just fine! But I met enough of them to now think Portuguese must be quite easy to learn (or maybe, due to the fact that they MUST learn Portuguese when living in Brazil, given most people only speak Portuguese there).
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    Being surrounded by talkative people helps a lot, and then you get to learn the actual constructs, not the theoretical grammar. Not being facetious, I think that's the main thing behind "it's harder to lear a new language as an adult". I think it's less due to ability and more to do with the contexts and opportunities to practice. (Though yes, by how they learn you notice what they get easily and what confuses them)
  - dahfizz 5y ago
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
>> Your run of the mill Russian is honest about their feelings. Not honest about the facts, no, they can cheat on an insurance filing just fine. But that coldness that so many of them seem to have is often just an outer shell. Once one of them trusts you and gets to know you they're so warm and intense about their love for you. So excited to show you something dear to them. Even devoted enough to learn a new language just to speak to you, even if they're a senior[0]. It doesn't mean the relationship always survives, because that intensity is still there when they're angry, but the highs are so high. I'm not a great fan of serious literature, but I've read a bit here and there and I think the above should be blindingly obvious to anyone who's read at least as little as I have (basically, Crime and Punishment, three or four pages from The Idiot and Gorsky's The Flaming heart of Danko). Or, anyone who's listened to the music (hello, Chaikovsky? Black Swan? You wanted feelsies?) or watched the movies (Tarkovsky) etc. I think in the past the literature and the art in general would have been where Western people learned about Russians (and everyone else not in the West, also, but the Russians have a lot of literature). It's a bit of a shame if this has really been replaced by tinny stereotypes promulgated by Hollywood.

mycologos 5y ago

A few years ago Masha Gessen did an episode of Conversations With Tyler, a podcast hosted by Tyler Cowen, and at one point she said this about Russian friendships [1]: > ... I think that — and this may answer your question — Russian friendships are much more emotional and intense than American friendships [...] When I moved back to [the USA] five and a half years ago, it was like this sense of whiplash because I had a lot of friends here, but I had been absent for 20 years. I would get together with my friends, and then two hours later, our get-together would be over. I’m like, “Well, what was the point of that? Was that just to let each other know that we still exist?” Because you don’t really get into deep conversation until about four hours in and a number of bottles of alcohol [...] I think that maybe that’s what you’re referring to. Maybe you’re just referring to the emotional intensity of Russian friendship, where it’s hard. It’s like lovers, even in this country, don’t really drift apart usually. You have to break up. You can’t just stop calling, and go from talking every day to talking every few weeks, and then forget about each other’s existence. I usually take claims about what people from a country are like with a big grain of salt, but it's interesting to see this in your comment, too. Maybe I should pursue some Russian friendships. [1] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/

3pt14159 5y ago
That is a great quote, though I have a minor quibble about alcohol being necessary as some of the Russians I befriended were former alcoholics and sober for years. Though others drank beer at dawn. I found I made deep friendships more easily after speaking even a bit of Russian. If you can say "My name is X" and "awesome" and a couple other small phrases it helps. That said, it wasn't until I had put in around 1000 hours of practice until things really opened up. It's such a hard language and I'm below average in my ability to learn human languages. But I did make steady progress with Verbling and I even met up with my tutor when I was in Ukraine. One of the things that learning Russian clears up is why they sound so angry to English ears. The language doesn't use tone for emphasis as much as English. It uses word order because the grammar is more flexible so they're able to put the important stuff at the end. Plus the sounds are more constant based. So once your ears get used to the language, you don't really hear Russian (or a Russian accented English) the same anymore. It sounds more human. Plus you learn so many words, you end up finding some of the endearing / superior to the English translation.
- mycologos 5y ago
  Interesting. Do you have a recommended method for learning Russian?
- nwb 5y ago
  Could you give some examples of some Russian words that are more enduring than English words? I've always been fascinated by this.
  - davidgh 5y ago
    Молодец, нельзя, фу, тоска, почемучка. When learning Russian these are just a few of the words I found myself saying even when speaking English. Which gives a hint that a good direct translation maybe isn’t quite there.
    - cperciva 5y ago
      There's a rule in linguistics, that the more often a word is used, the shorter it will be -- almost like Huffman coding. In that light, comparing the one-syllable English "Why?" to the three-syllable Russian "почему?" says something about the safety of asking questions in different countries.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

I once met a russian person online who had learned portuguese, my native language. I was extremely impressed. To this day I've never seen anyone else learn portuguese as a second language.

petre 5y ago
Portugese is a really nice sounding language. I love it. It's on top of my "to learn" list. Spanish on the other hand no, though I like better how it's spoken in the Americas.
namenotrequired 5y ago
I'm Dutch and learned it as a second language, when I moved to Brazil (at age 24). I met some Europeans who did the same. Well, it's usually the third or fourth rather than the second (second tends to be English or Spanish).
brabel 5y ago
On my travels, I have met several people who, after living in Brazil for only a few months, learned to speak Portuguese fluently. This always impressed me hugely, because English speakers normally have a really hard time learning a language that has "gendered" nouns and inflected articles/adjectives/pronouns, for example... but many of them seem to do just fine! But I met enough of them to now think Portuguese must be quite easy to learn (or maybe, due to the fact that they MUST learn Portuguese when living in Brazil, given most people only speak Portuguese there).
- raverbashing 5y ago
  Being surrounded by talkative people helps a lot, and then you get to learn the actual constructs, not the theoretical grammar. Not being facetious, I think that's the main thing behind "it's harder to lear a new language as an adult". I think it's less due to ability and more to do with the contexts and opportunities to practice. (Though yes, by how they learn you notice what they get easily and what confuses them)
- dahfizz 5y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

>> Your run of the mill Russian is honest about their feelings. Not honest about the facts, no, they can cheat on an insurance filing just fine. But that coldness that so many of them seem to have is often just an outer shell. Once one of them trusts you and gets to know you they're so warm and intense about their love for you. So excited to show you something dear to them. Even devoted enough to learn a new language just to speak to you, even if they're a senior[0]. It doesn't mean the relationship always survives, because that intensity is still there when they're angry, but the highs are so high. I'm not a great fan of serious literature, but I've read a bit here and there and I think the above should be blindingly obvious to anyone who's read at least as little as I have (basically, Crime and Punishment, three or four pages from The Idiot and Gorsky's The Flaming heart of Danko). Or, anyone who's listened to the music (hello, Chaikovsky? Black Swan? You wanted feelsies?) or watched the movies (Tarkovsky) etc. I think in the past the literature and the art in general would have been where Western people learned about Russians (and everyone else not in the West, also, but the Russians have a lot of literature). It's a bit of a shame if this has really been replaced by tinny stereotypes promulgated by Hollywood.