Re: Spanish and Portuguese

Hi Alexander:
The reason I made my comment was because I hired a translator for a
Russian article by Polosmo'v. The translator was very eager, but had
difficulty doing a "word for word" translation. Especially in French
(and Latin too) I have done word for word translations but my Russian
transcriber didn't like the idea. Somehow we made it through the
article, but not without some ill feelings. Thus the reason for the
comment. And in my own study of the Russian language, I still find
difficulty with the quasi rules.
Gerry

Alexander Stolbov wrote:

>
> > >Gerry here: Perhaps Spanish isn't any easier to learn than English, but it
> > certainly is easier to learn than Russian. Even for Russian natives!
> >
> > Dou you think so? I once read somewhere that declension (eg, German,
> > Russian) is only fully mastered at the age of 7, but perhaps the same can be
> > said about conjugation in languages without much declension?
> >
> > Marc
> >
>
> May I interfere in the discussion? Russian is my native language.
> To my mind Russian-speaking children usually have no problems with declension (6
> cases, 3 kinds of declension which don't coincide completely with genders, 2
> times). Moreover, it seems that they "feel" the language even better than
> adults. A typical thing is inventing new funny words or expressions by small
> children following the formal rules of word- and phrase-formation.
>
> Much more difficult is to learn the Russian grammar at school even if you speak
> perfect. As to me, having graduated from an university and obtained a Ph.D.
> degree, I'm not sure that I would pass now an examination work for 7th form (for
> 13 years old children) without a single mistake. The main problems are spelling
> and punctuation in written Russian and sometimes correct stress in the
> colloquial language (too much non-standard but widely spread variants).
>
> Actually Russian declension is a problem only for our politics of the Prime
> Minister or President rank, not for ordinary people.
>
> Alexander
>
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Gerald Reinhart
Independent Scholar
(650) 321-7378
waluk@...
http://www.alekseevmanuscript.com