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Mei-Nu
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Joined: 15 Feb 2005
Posts: 42
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 Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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ok, Czech is a West Slavonic language, whereas Russian is a Eastern one, but I do think they are very close to eachother. I learnt Czech in one year and I know it quite well, whereas Russian took me 4 years. when I was studying Czech the grammar went in like that, since I could refer to the Russian grammar. without any knowledge of Czech I was put into a group where the teacher only spoke Czech. without my knowledge of Russian, I would not have understood a thing.
Anyway, you said that Ukranian and Russian are `similar` languages. Ukranian is a West Slavonic language and is the language in the Slavonic family that stands the closest to Czech. (if we don`t take into account Slovak)... |
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e
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Joined: 23 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I totally agree that Czech and Russian are close, especially in terms of verbage, tonation and etc. But people make the mistake of making too similar when they are in many ways world's apart. I nver thought that one can use it to help learn other slavonic languages.
Secondly, Ukrainian is East Slavonic, not Western. The split happens at Poland. Ukrainian is so similar to Russian, that Ukrainians rather speak (and usually) Russian over Ukrainian and foreign ears (like mine; especially when I was there) can't even tell the difference. I hear that that in Western Ukraine (and the same for Belarus), Ukrainian takes on a more western slavonic tint and I guess is where you got that impression.
From what everyone was saying in this thread here: http://www.waytorussia.net/TalkLounge/viewtopic.php?p=22193#22193, everyone there speaks Russian anyway despite Ukrainian being proliferated. |
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maxca
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:55 am Post subject: |
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I guess it's probably like comparing French and Spanish. I can understand certain things in written Spanish, but not language spoken normally (and normal is fast for most Spanish-speakers). Similarly, I can tell the difference between Czech, Ukrainian, Serbian, etc., but understand it? Not really... some things yeah. The closest language to Russian is definitly Bulgarian.
Anyhow, pardon me for interrupting your deep discussion, but I thought you'd like to hear a real perspective on this. |
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e
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Joined: 23 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:15 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The closest language to Russian is definitly Bulgarian. |
Funny thing about that: I recently saw that Tom Hanks flick "The Terminal" where he spoke "Russian" pretty well, only to find out at the IMDB that he was actually speaking Bulgarian. Taught and tutorted to him by his Bulgarian/Greek wife. |
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mister_wizzz
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Joined: 27 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| Czech is a fully slavonic language, it has nothing in common with a latin one except the alphabet (which is also the case with turkish or vietname languages). |
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e
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Joined: 23 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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No one was saying that it isn't a Slavonic language, but that its a different Slavonic language than Russian.
Secondly the latinization is influential in Czech because in order to pronounce some Czech letters and words, you have to use western vowels (a,e,i,o,u) and the French gn. |
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Mei-Nu
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Joined: 15 Feb 2005
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| Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| e wrote: | | Secondly, Ukrainian is East Slavonic, not Western. . |
I was not sure about it, ok I kind of hoped that Ukrainian was an East Slavonic language. oops...
| e wrote: | | Ukrainian is so similar to Russian, that Ukrainians rather speak (and usually) Russian over Ukrainian and foreign ears (like mine; especially when I was there) can't even tell the difference. I hear that that in Western Ukraine (and the same for Belarus), Ukrainian takes on a more western slavonic tint and I guess is where you got that impression. . |
Actually I`m just back from Ukraine. True that everyone speaks Russian. I stayed there about 3 weeks and only 4 times I heard people on the street speaking Ukranian. (Oh my God, they are speaking Czech). to me it sounds more Czech than Russian and I was able to understand a fair bit of it. but as my friend said (she`s Ukranian, but studies in CR), `it`s easy to understand Ukranian if you know both Russian and Czech`. but I have no idea which of those languages helps the most in the end. |
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