This is a genuine question. I’ve always had an interest in learning languages and I have a list I want to learn. I am already somewhat decent in Spanish, so I’m picking up that, practicing my Portuguese, going to learn French and Italian, maybe German, learning Polish, and possibly Russian.
I already canceled the idea of living in Russia due to obvious reasons, but will I have any need to learn the language? Will it be useful? Will that be offensive? Many people HATE Russia and the language.
It’s never a bad idea to learn another language.
It’s never a bad idea to learn. period…full stop.
The act of learning anything wires our brains in a thousand different ways; increases our critical thinking skills. Increases our verbosity and our ability to communicate our own ideas more effectively. It increases problem solving skills, etc…
The very act of learning is something that should be practiced every day with something, whether that’s a new language, or a hobby, or being a history buff…it doesn’t matter. What matters is the learning itself.
So if Russian is what is giving you that interest right now, do it. At the very least, chicks dig polyglots.
Lots of Ukrainian refugees are native Russian speaker. I wouldn’t overthink things if I were you
While it’s true a language is tightly linked to the culture of its speakers by definition, a language’s speakers aren’t just their leaders. Russian represents centuries of cultural wealth, not just the misadventures of the last hundred or so years. It’s not the language’s fault that Putin invaded Ukraine. If you love learning languages for their own sake, do it. I made the same choice when attempting to learn Mandarin during the Hong Kong protests.
Learning Mandarin is very useful to say:
Guāngfú Xiānggâng, Shídaì Gémìng (Free Hongkong, Revolution of our times!)
xD
Attempted is the key word. The characters eventually got too detailed for me to distinguish. As I mentioned in another thread I tried finding braille resources for L2 learners but there don’t seem to be any. Ironically if everything was in Pinyin I could probably do it, but moving to a new writing system when you already have one that you’ve used for millennia is a nearly impossible ask. Plenty of people have tried with English.
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Russian culture spans way beyond whatever Putin’s currently doing, and has given the world an immense cultural, scientific, historic heritage.
Trying to cancel and destroy Russian culture is akin to destroying German culture and heritage just because one German dude with a weird moustache decided to start Holocaust.
Would be a tragedy to lose either.
German culture and heritage was destroyed by the world wars. What remains is not what was there pre-WWII.
And I’m not cancelling or destroying anything. I’m just prioritizing cultures worth preserving over those that have been poisoned by a century of dictatorship, misinformation, and hate.
Name me one major culture that was not poisoned by dictatorship, misinformation, and hate.
They all are. Our duty is to take the best of each.
I don’t have to, I just have to name one better than Russian. Learn Ukrainian, Polish, German, French Finnish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Romanian, etc then consider Russian.
About half of these countries were militaristic authoritarianist shitholes, some even not that long ago by historical measures. All of them had some shameful moments in history.
Yet, all these cultures have proliferated, and you consider them worthy of studying. Same idea here. Give it time.
It’s not the same idea, as I didn’t advocated s studying them when they were authoritarian shitholes who were actively slaughtering their neighbours.
You were telling about cultures worth preserving - and by your definition, most of the cultures you list were not worth preserving and should have become extinct. Good thing that they were preserved even through the worst of times.
As a German, “German culture” is really not worth preserving.
I’m of the general opinion that learning new things is never a bad idea, but let’s break down your sub question regarding usefulness.
At the very least a basic understanding is certainly useful. I make a point to at least learn alphabets and their sounds so I have a fighting chance putting what I hear into a translation engine. Similarly, Russian isn’t the only language that uses Cyrillic.
Paet that though? In my lifetime it was first unthinkable that I could ever visit Russia, then became possible and even a tourist destination (see: Trans-Siberian rail), and back to basically unthinkable to me.
It’ll most likely swing again.
I’ll chime in to add that Russian grammar is fairly complex! As long as you’re willing to spend the time on it, I don’t personally see any downsides. As others have pointed out, Russian can help with other Slavic languages, and can also be useful for other countries in that area.
Yup!
Learning Russian could be useful in certain geographical areas near Russia, in the military, or translator position. It’s also possible that when hostilities end (or escalate) more position openings could occur. But to learn for personal life the use will be limited.
I don’t personally see how learning a language could be offensive, it’s knowledge not a lifestyle or way of supporting current hostilities. The hate people have is mainly towards the Russian government and policies, anyone who extends that to a language likely also have a lot of other issues they lump together and are being small minded.
The only person who can determine the need to learn the language is yourself. I doubt the world will be overrun by Russian speaking soldiers any time soon, Mandarin is more likely in that kind of a situation.
There’s never really any downsides to learning another language, provided you have the commitment and resources.
If you’re OK with being a slav sympathizer go for it. Hopefully it will eventually be a dead language.
OK Adolph…?
Is Polish ok then?
ok for what? talking to poles who don’t speak english? definitely. talking to anyone else? no.
A casual reminder that Slavs are a diverse group of people not united by the same ideas and political agenda.
If your worry is association with Russia specifically, several Slavic countries are actively anti-Russia and are parts of NATO.
Ukraine is Slavic, too.
What the fuck is “slav sympathizer” supposed to mean?
I believe learning languages is generally a net good. But to answer your question, it would help to know: why do you want to learn Russian?
If you just find the idea of the language interesting, then yes! Start leaning it. If you have motivation, that will help.
Is there specific media you’re looking to consume in its original language, Russian? Then yes, absolutely :).
Are you just trying to learn “any Slavic language”, to extend the language families you have knowledge of? You already have some Polish, so what is it about Russian that attracts you? Is there another language that might have more resonance or utility for you?
As far as I am aware, mostly sue to Soviet influence, Russian is probably the most-widely-understood Slavic language, so this does offer some advantages. I have spoken with Ukranians and Georgians who now don’t like speaking Russian, for obvious reasons, though I don’t know how widespread this feeling really is. And at least here in Germany, I feel like Croatian, Czech, or Slovakian would be a more useful day-to-day or holiday language, but itball depends on your goals.
And, as a dentist once told me in regards to dental floss, but it applies here too: The best language to learn is the one that you will actually learn. If there’s a language you’ll actually stick with, that’s good.
Of course not. If we blamed the language for the bad actions of the people who spoke it during, there would be virtually no language left in a pristine enough condition to learn.
That being said, tempers can boil over. So maybe don’t shout your Duolingo answers at a full Starbucks. I mean, that’s good advice regardless of the language but you know what I mean.
Learn Mandarin, Spanish, and maybe Hindi, if you’re planning for the future.
The only use I could see for learning the language is if you use a lot of Russian torrent sites, and are too lazy to switch the language back to English when installing games from them.
Learning the language is not a political statement, and you’ll outlive Putin. Besides we’re not solving anything by refusing to communicate with each other. If you want to learn Russian, learn Russian. Just be careful not to fall for the propaganda.
