Russian Speech Pattern Assistance requested (John Semlak or other)?

[Henry]

Hi, all! I remember John saying at one point that he taught English in Russia, but if anyone else with some experience and a willingness to help is available, I would certainly appreciate it.

I am running a Halloween adventure this weekend (the 25th), and some of the NPC's I have created will be of Russian background (some Ukrainian, some Byelorussian, etc.) I apologize in advance for my linguistic terminology, but what I am looking for is some advice on the typical dialectic distinctions a native speaker of Russian would give to the English language; for instance, consonants that don't have equivalents in one language to the other, sentence structure that someone might carry over from Russian to English, etc.

For example, there are dipthongs in English that do not translate well to French, such as the "th", causing many French speakers to substitute an "s" sound in its place; Another example is the alteration of the "j" and "w" sounds from German to English, etc.

What I am looking for are some of the same traits in a Russian speaker speaking English. Again, any advice here is much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[johnsemlak]

• Articles (a, the) left out, or included. e.g. I studied the English at the School and at institute.
• sound th prounounced like 't' (no 'th' in Russian)
• words like say or explain used incorrectly (say me... ; exlain me...
• Not addidng the 's' in 3rd person (He tell me that...)
• use of "of" instead of possesives or compound nouns-e.g. the election of Clinton versus Clinton's Election)
• Past Continuous Tense (I was doing) overused ( I was studying in the United states for 3 years, versus I studied in the US for three years
• Mixing Present simple (I do) with Present Continuous (I am doing) e.g. I eat lunch right now
• Using wrong prepositions in many cases ('depend from' is a common example, also 'I went on Ukraine')

I'll add a few more

 

[johnsemlak]

• gerunds and infinitives mixed (I enjoy to do something, versus I enjoy doing something')
• overuse of preposition 'during' (I hate this one!) -e.g. He'll finish during four hours.
• Saying times wrong - In Russian if you want to say 11:05 you say '5 minutes of the 12th hour'
• Saying "My son is 8 years', instead of 'my son is 8 years old'
• Incorrect stress on words: HOtel, marKETing,
• Incorrect verbs, incorrect grammar, pronunciation. etc.....

 

[Henry]

John, you are a godsend. Thanks! (Or should I say, "John, you are godsend. Thanks to you?" )

Seriously, thank you.

 

[Desdichado]

Depending on what part of Russia they are from, they might tend to rationalize a lot of vowel sounds as the "schwa" neutral sound also.

If you get a chance, watch something like Sum of All Fears to get a good feel for some Russian characters speaking English with thick accents. There's nothing like hearing the accent to get it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I pity anyone learning English as a second language -- it's such an irrationally constructed, irregular language that it's tough to get right (though I understand there are a few languages out there that are worse) -- which embarrases me to no end when I meet Germans whose English is far better than my German (or for that matter, my English!).

Shame we don't all just switch to Esperanto.

 

[johnsemlak]

If you get a chance, watch something like Sum of All Fears to get a good feel for some Russian characters speaking English with thick accents. There's nothing like hearing the accent to get it.

A better movie would be the Inner Circle, which has a decent cast of Russian actors in it (unlike most Hollywood films with Russian characters).

Oh, and the actor for 'Sasha' in Casablanca is good, as well.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I pity anyone learning English as a second language -- it's such an irrationally constructed, irregular language that it's tough to get right (though I understand there are a few languages out there that are worse) -- which embarrases me to no end when I meet Germans whose English is far better than my German (or for that matter, my English!).

Shame we don't all just switch to Esperanto.

Ya know, I've heard various things about Esperanto, but never anything decently concrete. Was it some language that was made up in the recent past? What was it supposed to be like?

 

[johnsemlak]

Ya know, I've heard various things about Esperanto, but never anything decently concrete. Was it some language that was made up in the recent past? What was it supposed to be like?

We're getting waaaaaaayyyyy OT here, but...



Esperanto is a language introduced in 1887 by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof after years of development. He proposed Esperanto as a second language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate, yet at the same time retain their own languages and cultural identities. Esperanto is four times easier to learn than other languages.

More here: http://www.esperanto-usa.org/

 

[d4]

yes, Esperanto is an "artificial" language. it was specifically constructed so that speakers of Indo-European languages would find it easy to learn and easy to pronounce.

for example, there are no "irregular" verbs -- all verbs follow the same pattern for forming past tense, future tense, etc.