Parlez-vous Russian/Hable usted Russian?

[raccoon]

If so, how and why did you learn it?

(I have been reading Dostoevsky and have Russians on the brain.)

[KamaAina]

1. Nyet.

Da zvidanya! :beer:

[HopeHoops]

2. 2 years of it in college from a professor (native Russian) who couldn't pronounce double-u sounds.

The first semester, I was baffled (like everyone else) when she kept telling us to come to her office to buy a "verb veal". I finally ended up in her office and she mentioned it again and handed me one ($3 or so) and I said, "OH, a VERB WHEEL!" I got a funny look. And this coming from a woman who bitched at us for not correctly pronouncing the myakees zshnack character (which is really just a modifier, not its own sound).

Schto zshe yob, perrom?

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Translation: "What the fuck, over?"

[Bunny]

3. I took one semster in college.

In exchange for not giving me an F, the instructor made me promise to never again darken the door of the Russian Department at IUP. I was more than happy to agree and take the C he offered instead.

[Denninmi]

4. Ne menojka.

Ya gavoryu tolko sto ne menojka pa Russki.

I took a three years of it in college. I enjoyed languages, they were really easy for me, so I took advanced French, then a year of German, and then the three years of Russian. It was basically the one same professor for all three years, plus a few different TA's teaching the classes, and he was one of those really nice, easy to get along with professors who was genuinely interested in teaching, and that helped a lot. Languages were a way for me to get some guaranteed 4.0's to help up the GPA and make up for classes like physics and genetics that I just didn't "get".

Alas, I've forgotten almost all of it in the past almost 25 years.

[kedrys]

5. I started studying it during the 1972 Canada-USSR hockey series

I should have stuck with it. It's a gorgeous language.

[emilyg]

6. Took a year in college. Hard language.

[HEyHEY]

7. There's a ton of them here in Beijing

They've got all manner of terrifying nightclubs and an entire Russian district.

[Kali]

8. no hablo Ruso

but my father married a Russian after my mother passed away. So I suppose I have a Russian Step-mother??? That seems weird at my age.

[Kali]

9. hablo doble!