Friday, January 07, 2005

On The Mark -- Reporting from Russia; Series II -- Speak English

On The Mark has returned to Russia. This is the first in a series of new reports.

Speak English. A few years ago I retrieved a fax at home for my ex who was a grad student at a major U.S. university. She was in the process of grading papers and this fax was an essay from one of her students. I looked at the first page and said to her, “You have got to be kidding me. This looks like it was written by a fifth-grader.” After reading the first few paragraphs she said, “Actually, this is one of the better ones.” I was stunned.

Now the ripples of the continuing decline of the public education system in America have reached as far as Russia. I had the opportunity to talk to a professor at a local university in a city in the southern region of Russia. There are a number of foreign students at this university, including kids from the U.S. These students have many ambitions, one of which is to learn the Russian language.

This professor told me that the following phrase is as common for him as saying “good morning” – “Go back to America and learn to speak and write the English language properly, then come back to Russia to learn our language. I cannot teach you how to speak Russian when you cannot even speak and write your own language properly.” He asked me, “Does this shock you?” I said, “Actually, no,” and then I went on to explain my experiences.

Which brings me to me. Another evening I had the opportunity to speak to a 30-year-old man who has a private business teaching English to Russian students. He was quite excited to learn I was in town, because in this city it is rare to find an American, especially during the dead of winter. After talking for a little while, he said to me, “I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to be rude, but you really don’t speak English very well. I find your pronunciation unbearable.” I laughed, thinking he was kidding, especially since he had an edgy sense of humor to begin with.

But he was serious. It turns out that most of the English taught in this region of Russia is British English. I understood what he meant. If you’ve ever been to Liverpool or the Midlands, you know as well as I do that it’s almost like a foreign language.

So, when you’re in Russia and a Russian asks you if you speak English, you might want to ask, “American English or British English?”

3 comments:

B2 said...

Though my typing and blogging may seem to suggest otherwise, I am educated in the speaking and writing of the English language - English major in college, newspaper experience, blah blah blah. (Note my colloquialism to see how my blogging differs from "actual" writing.) We Americans tend to take for granted much of what we have, including our language.

We are taught as children that there are so many irregularities and broken rules in the English language that we will never truly master it, and most children learn more of the latter than the former; we are a country of people who recklessly and repeatedly mangle the language until it retains few shreds of similarity to even a structured American English -- no resemblance at all ot British English, except for our disdain for the French (ha, ha, adds the informal blogger in me).

It is quite true that this is a hinderance when learning other languages; how does one apprehend the future perfect or subjunctive in a foreign language when one did not learn such in one's native language?

The solution is simple, though perhaps not easily accomplished: better schooling in our native tongue, and increased stress on the importance of such an education. (And, adds the blogger, less TV and more reading!)

Martyr73 said...

There is most definitely a difference between British English and American English. I had the "opportunity" to speak with about 35 to 40 different English men and women just a few months ago. Once I was able to get past the accents, I then had to decipher what they were saying because they use many words differently than we do in America. It was truly an experience. However, I did find that the majority of them were extremely friendly, especially when they realized I was an American.

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to get down on myself for being an American who doesn't speak British English and probably mangles the language (from a British English standpoint)in his writing without knowing it. Similarly, I will not hold up my nose to Mexican Spanish because it sounds different from Spanish Spanish. Language is a dynamic thing intricately intertwined with other social currents and developments and fits quite well in its region of origin. A Russian unable to understand American English does not mean that I am illiterate and destroying the language, rather it means he has not learned the language in relation to other currents.