Re: Russian soft/hard 'l' minimal pairs (was: glottals)

The idea is that, if I happen to travel through Russia
for instance, and want to buy a newspaper from a
native mastering only his native language, which is
Russian, I don't have to study Russian for 12 years,
which seems to me to be the minimum to master it more
or less. This is even more true if after Russia, I go
over to Ukraine, and from Ukraine to Georgia and so
on. According to you, I should spend about 500 years
to spend all the languages a need for a single 3-weeks
trip, or just talk French all the time, be it in
Moscow, Kiev or Tbilissi, because it would be more
polite !?

My wife is Ukrainian ans speaks a very poor and broken
French. I noticed that every time she tried to utter a
sentence in French somewhere:
1/ French people immediately understand that she is
not French
2/ They nearly always (90% of cases) feel very
grateful that she tries to say something in their own
language, and make all necessary efforts to understand
and correct her if necessary. They are even more
admirative when they learn that her native languages
are Russian and Ukrainian, from which they don't know
a single word (except vodka and balalaika).

This was usually the same for me in every country I've
been travelling. Even saying "hello" and "thank you"
in the local language is perceived as very friendly
and brings usually a bright smile on the
interlocutor"s face, be it in Helsinki or in Ankara.
Everybody understands that very few people really can
master more 1 or 2 foreign languages.

I would be very curious to know how you pronounce
English, for instance, and what the English think of
your pronunciation. I nearly never met a French that
can pronounce English "correctly", it this concept
exists. If I myself immediately recognize that
somebody talking english is French (or German),
imagine what the natives think.

--- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>
> This rule shows complete disrespect towards the
> people you're talking to,
> and that rudeness has no excuse. If you cannot make
> the effort of trying to
> speak somebody's language correctly, don't even try.
>
> Everything boils down to politeness. People expect
> foreigners who learn
> their language to at least *try* to speak it
> correctly. They may not except
> them to succeed, but they expect them to at least
> try. If you don't even
> try, you're showing a lack of respect towards those
> people that is
> unacceptable. And the understanding issue has
> nothing to do with it. If you
> only wish to be understood, "petit nègre" (for
> non-French speakers, it
> means speaking like this "me want this. You sell
> me?") is largely enough.
> Should we all just learn foreign languages like
> that, and don't bother with
> grammatical correctness? After all, grammatical
> features also differ in a
> single language both in time and place. if you don't
> bother with phonology,
> why should you bother with grammar? Indeed, why
> bother with learning a
> foreign language at all. Just speak to foreigners in
> your own language
> loudly and distinctly. They *ought* to understand
> ;))) .
>
> Christophe Grandsire.

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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