Someone Mocked A Russian Woman For Her Accent In English And She Delivered A Brutal Comeback
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Learning a foreign language is seriously tough, it takes patience, dedication and courage and anyone who has been able to do it deserves respect. Can you imagine then, conversing with others in their language, and instead of appreciating your efforts they decide to mock your accent instead?
24 year-old Cody, from California, is a linguist, author and musician. As he speaks several languages himself, he can empathize with the effort that it takes to learn. He shared a story about a Russian friend of his, who was mocked for her way of speaking in English. Now, for a foreign speaker, English is not an easy language to master, it is a ‘mongrel’ language, consisting of Germanic, Celtic and Romance influences. The grammar structure is not consistent and there are many exceptions that don’t really make sense, they just need to be remembered. This Russian girl, obviously bright and capable and not to be messed with in English, let alone her native tongue, wasn’t about to be belittled by somebody who doesn’t have a clue what it means to communicate in a foreign language.
Scroll down below to check out her brutal comeback for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments. Do you speak another language? Have you experienced this kind of treatment before? Join the discussion!
Cody, 24 from California, shared a story about a Russian friend who was mocked for her accent when speaking English
It started a conversation about how under-appreciated people who make the effort to speak your language sometimes are
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She made a mistake because in russian the articles are attached at the end of the word. It's really weird for russian (and other people) when they start learning english to separate the articles and place them before the word. Also one thing I've always found strange (and difficult) about english is the complete lack of logic or reason behind spelling and pronunciation- you write "queue", but pronounce it "ku:". Or just think about how you would pronounce these three different sentences: "Today I will READ a book", "Yesterday I READ a book", "The cover of the book is RED". English is completely bonkers, what I like about russian is that 90% of the time what you write is what you pronounce.
This sentence is grammar perfect -- "This exceeding trifling witling, considering ranting criticizing concerning adopting fitting wording being exhibiting transcending learning, was displaying, notwithstanding ridiculing, surpassing boasting swelling reasoning, respecting correcting erring writing, and touching detecting deceiving arguing during debating"
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas".----- [I shot an Elephant] [in my pajamas] ----- or [I shot] [an elephant in my pajamas]
ufffff, guagh, perfect grammar but the sentences is awful......... i tried to translate it to my native language (spanish) and almost die in the attemp :(
"How it (the elephant) got into my pajamas, I'll never know." Groucho
Eats, shoots, and leaves....
I took Russian classes in college and loved it. It's a fun language to learn. The major challenge I met was the o. Depending on whether or not the emphasis is put on the o in a word, it can be pronounced as either o or a. Like Mосква is actually pronounced Mask-va, even if it's spelled like Mosk-vah. That really fucked me because you need to know how the word is usually pronounced.
Yes! Whenever I read a new word, I am not sure how to pronounce it!! How do English native speakers know? I mean, in Spanish, a letter "E" will always sound the same. But in English... it's sooooo different! I dislike it when some people mock others for having an accent, when they don't even speak another language but English!! Definitely, they feel ignorant or belittled by someone who's more prepared, so they want to feed their egos.
Compared to a lot of other languages, English looks/feels a lot more like guesswork when trying to figure out pronounciations and such. For example in Japanese, if two words/sounds use the same character(s) and yet are pronounced differently, there's usually a visual distinction that clarifies which pronounciation (and meaning) is being used. In English, 'run' literally has 40 different meanings, and you have to use contextual clues to figure out which meaning is intended.
beautifully stated in a manner that's both empathetic & truthful. English is perhaps the most nonsensical language to master. especially with all of extremely odd & perplexing idioms e.g. - "as easy as shooting fish in a barrel!" simply can't think of a more complex language to learn. thus anyone who endeavors at all i highly commend, welcome & am grateful for; in the hopes that i may learn some of their language(s).
I've always wandered about the phrase "s**t- eating grin"- like how did anyone come up with that, why is it a positive and not a negative and who on earth would grin while... you know.
Far as articles go, Russian simply doesn't *have* them. Ever and at all. So yeah, they're very weird for Russians at first. What we do have at the end of the words is something English doesn't have at all, in Russian every word basically has 6(it used to be more historically but it's been simplified:P) different forms depending on context, usually only varying by one-two letters in the end of it(think how in English there's I and me, same thing in different form? Imagine there's 6 of those for every word, even if some of them usually overlap. I have no idea how foreigners ever master that tbh)
Can't respond to your comment so will respond here...you are right, that's exactly what it's called and it's cool to see someone from another country know that ^_^ Technically there're rules for this stuff, like all nouns generally being divided in 3 groups each following its own rules for forming those(minus exceptions) but for native speakers it's just natural while for foreigners must be crazy hard. I guess one of Russian biggest challenges - and biggest fascinations - is how words can change depending on context, time, gender etc. In English, a table is always a table. Well perhaps it's *the* table. In Russian, depending on the suffix, it can be a big table, small table, nice table, etc. Coming from the same word for "table"(стол) but with another suffix/prefix/ending will be words "cafeteria"(столовая), "tabletop"(столешница), "a feast"(застолье)...you can make your own words that way, play with them,give them a feeling. English has its own neat little quirks but it cannot do that
Yeah, I actually know some russian, I think what you are talking about was called "Падеж", I remember the teacher actually giving me a whole table of them. I also remember that movement and asking where something is, was pretty complicated in russian with "где"/"куда" and the many forms of "ехать"/"ездить".
So some spelling that doesn't make sense was artificially planted or adapted into the English language because it was seen as too easy. It was some monarch that wanted the add complexity to the spelling of the English language and that's why there's mad spelling that doesn't necessarily make phonetic sense.
Don't even get started on contronyms, words that have opposite meanings depending on their subject. Example: Cleave. 1. The baby cleaved to its mother for support. or 2. The man swung the ax and cleaved the wood in two. Yeah, our language is a verbal mind trip.
I think there're those in every language, although there certainly are quite a few in English. I've heard an interesting theory about that - according to it, in ancient languages it was *normal* to have one word for 2 opposite meanings. The chosen one would either be defined by some extra symbol/underline etc or be guessed from context(they did much the same for vowels which they had none/very few of in written form).
r3dd3v1lL - queue is of french origin, hence the "ku" only. i always laugh how french write a dozen letters and then pronounce one syllable:D also many languages have homonyms and homophones, which i find very beautiful in a language, though they appear difficult for beginners. btw i didnt know that russian had articles attached to the end of the word. could you please give an example for this?
I actually don't know russian as well as english, but I will give it a try. It's not exactly articles as much as a grammatical case (падеж- padej) and russian has six of those- add plural forms and you end up with more than 8 different versions of the same word. Just click on declension in the russian section and you'll see what I mean. It's easier to give you an example in my first language- bulgarian- For example: "В стаяТА има маса/ V staiTA ima masa" ("There is A table in THE room") and "На масата има чиния/ Na masaTA ima chinia" (There is A plate on THE table). So it's kind of weird when you start learning english and have to separate the article and write it before the word. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB
Except most people are not able to read Russian unless you know azbuka fist :D I can understand like 10% of russian language, but when it comes to reading I'm useless and I would probably offend someone without sence of humour with the way I read those letters :D
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Saw some video of a japanese guy making noodles. He was speaking english, but with his natural accent and words were a little hard to understand. There were lots of comments about his bad english, with some likes. And then there was a comment with allmost 1000 likes : "everyone who keeps complaining about how badly he speaks english, but keep in mind that he speaks english better than you speak japanese. " That was a life lesson for me.
@Jo Johannsen - I'm not speaking about 'flawless' delivery, which tends to be rare even among native speakers but a correct use of language. The original response indicates high level of fluency, so pointing out that a flaw, despite being minor from linguistic standpoint, may be construed as a significant lack of skill. This is valuable advice, not something you need to lambast someone for. @JDeer - I agree wholeheartedly, but as I said before, the quoted response shows a high degree of fluency and mastery of language, so it was not a beginner by any means. At that point it is immature to get upset if someone corrects you. Also, the critique was civil and pointed out a potential problem that can lead to embarrassment.
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If something is worth doing, is worth doing well. Critique is a signal and opportunity to improve, provided it is civilised.
You've missed the point: that "something" which you think is speaking a foreign language flawlessly is actually making the effort to communicate in a language you did not grow up in. When I am speaking with a non-native English speaker, I can't help but realize they are doing much better in my language than I can do in their language.
But before you can “do it well” you have to learn, and learning a language takes a long time. Critique especially negative criticism as Vlad has shown an example of can lead to many people feeling discouraged to keep on learning a new language just because a bunch of monolinguals are throwing insults instead of advising and encouraging. You can’t just choose a new language and speak it fluently in the span of one second. This isn’t the matrix.
I love the comment "They are speaking your language because you don't know theirs" <3
She made a mistake because in russian the articles are attached at the end of the word. It's really weird for russian (and other people) when they start learning english to separate the articles and place them before the word. Also one thing I've always found strange (and difficult) about english is the complete lack of logic or reason behind spelling and pronunciation- you write "queue", but pronounce it "ku:". Or just think about how you would pronounce these three different sentences: "Today I will READ a book", "Yesterday I READ a book", "The cover of the book is RED". English is completely bonkers, what I like about russian is that 90% of the time what you write is what you pronounce.
This sentence is grammar perfect -- "This exceeding trifling witling, considering ranting criticizing concerning adopting fitting wording being exhibiting transcending learning, was displaying, notwithstanding ridiculing, surpassing boasting swelling reasoning, respecting correcting erring writing, and touching detecting deceiving arguing during debating"
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas".----- [I shot an Elephant] [in my pajamas] ----- or [I shot] [an elephant in my pajamas]
ufffff, guagh, perfect grammar but the sentences is awful......... i tried to translate it to my native language (spanish) and almost die in the attemp :(
"How it (the elephant) got into my pajamas, I'll never know." Groucho
Eats, shoots, and leaves....
I took Russian classes in college and loved it. It's a fun language to learn. The major challenge I met was the o. Depending on whether or not the emphasis is put on the o in a word, it can be pronounced as either o or a. Like Mосква is actually pronounced Mask-va, even if it's spelled like Mosk-vah. That really fucked me because you need to know how the word is usually pronounced.
Yes! Whenever I read a new word, I am not sure how to pronounce it!! How do English native speakers know? I mean, in Spanish, a letter "E" will always sound the same. But in English... it's sooooo different! I dislike it when some people mock others for having an accent, when they don't even speak another language but English!! Definitely, they feel ignorant or belittled by someone who's more prepared, so they want to feed their egos.
Compared to a lot of other languages, English looks/feels a lot more like guesswork when trying to figure out pronounciations and such. For example in Japanese, if two words/sounds use the same character(s) and yet are pronounced differently, there's usually a visual distinction that clarifies which pronounciation (and meaning) is being used. In English, 'run' literally has 40 different meanings, and you have to use contextual clues to figure out which meaning is intended.
beautifully stated in a manner that's both empathetic & truthful. English is perhaps the most nonsensical language to master. especially with all of extremely odd & perplexing idioms e.g. - "as easy as shooting fish in a barrel!" simply can't think of a more complex language to learn. thus anyone who endeavors at all i highly commend, welcome & am grateful for; in the hopes that i may learn some of their language(s).
I've always wandered about the phrase "s**t- eating grin"- like how did anyone come up with that, why is it a positive and not a negative and who on earth would grin while... you know.
Far as articles go, Russian simply doesn't *have* them. Ever and at all. So yeah, they're very weird for Russians at first. What we do have at the end of the words is something English doesn't have at all, in Russian every word basically has 6(it used to be more historically but it's been simplified:P) different forms depending on context, usually only varying by one-two letters in the end of it(think how in English there's I and me, same thing in different form? Imagine there's 6 of those for every word, even if some of them usually overlap. I have no idea how foreigners ever master that tbh)
Can't respond to your comment so will respond here...you are right, that's exactly what it's called and it's cool to see someone from another country know that ^_^ Technically there're rules for this stuff, like all nouns generally being divided in 3 groups each following its own rules for forming those(minus exceptions) but for native speakers it's just natural while for foreigners must be crazy hard. I guess one of Russian biggest challenges - and biggest fascinations - is how words can change depending on context, time, gender etc. In English, a table is always a table. Well perhaps it's *the* table. In Russian, depending on the suffix, it can be a big table, small table, nice table, etc. Coming from the same word for "table"(стол) but with another suffix/prefix/ending will be words "cafeteria"(столовая), "tabletop"(столешница), "a feast"(застолье)...you can make your own words that way, play with them,give them a feeling. English has its own neat little quirks but it cannot do that
Yeah, I actually know some russian, I think what you are talking about was called "Падеж", I remember the teacher actually giving me a whole table of them. I also remember that movement and asking where something is, was pretty complicated in russian with "где"/"куда" and the many forms of "ехать"/"ездить".
So some spelling that doesn't make sense was artificially planted or adapted into the English language because it was seen as too easy. It was some monarch that wanted the add complexity to the spelling of the English language and that's why there's mad spelling that doesn't necessarily make phonetic sense.
Don't even get started on contronyms, words that have opposite meanings depending on their subject. Example: Cleave. 1. The baby cleaved to its mother for support. or 2. The man swung the ax and cleaved the wood in two. Yeah, our language is a verbal mind trip.
I think there're those in every language, although there certainly are quite a few in English. I've heard an interesting theory about that - according to it, in ancient languages it was *normal* to have one word for 2 opposite meanings. The chosen one would either be defined by some extra symbol/underline etc or be guessed from context(they did much the same for vowels which they had none/very few of in written form).
r3dd3v1lL - queue is of french origin, hence the "ku" only. i always laugh how french write a dozen letters and then pronounce one syllable:D also many languages have homonyms and homophones, which i find very beautiful in a language, though they appear difficult for beginners. btw i didnt know that russian had articles attached to the end of the word. could you please give an example for this?
I actually don't know russian as well as english, but I will give it a try. It's not exactly articles as much as a grammatical case (падеж- padej) and russian has six of those- add plural forms and you end up with more than 8 different versions of the same word. Just click on declension in the russian section and you'll see what I mean. It's easier to give you an example in my first language- bulgarian- For example: "В стаяТА има маса/ V staiTA ima masa" ("There is A table in THE room") and "На масата има чиния/ Na masaTA ima chinia" (There is A plate on THE table). So it's kind of weird when you start learning english and have to separate the article and write it before the word. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB
Except most people are not able to read Russian unless you know azbuka fist :D I can understand like 10% of russian language, but when it comes to reading I'm useless and I would probably offend someone without sence of humour with the way I read those letters :D
This comment has been deleted.
This comment has been deleted.
Saw some video of a japanese guy making noodles. He was speaking english, but with his natural accent and words were a little hard to understand. There were lots of comments about his bad english, with some likes. And then there was a comment with allmost 1000 likes : "everyone who keeps complaining about how badly he speaks english, but keep in mind that he speaks english better than you speak japanese. " That was a life lesson for me.
@Jo Johannsen - I'm not speaking about 'flawless' delivery, which tends to be rare even among native speakers but a correct use of language. The original response indicates high level of fluency, so pointing out that a flaw, despite being minor from linguistic standpoint, may be construed as a significant lack of skill. This is valuable advice, not something you need to lambast someone for. @JDeer - I agree wholeheartedly, but as I said before, the quoted response shows a high degree of fluency and mastery of language, so it was not a beginner by any means. At that point it is immature to get upset if someone corrects you. Also, the critique was civil and pointed out a potential problem that can lead to embarrassment.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
If something is worth doing, is worth doing well. Critique is a signal and opportunity to improve, provided it is civilised.
You've missed the point: that "something" which you think is speaking a foreign language flawlessly is actually making the effort to communicate in a language you did not grow up in. When I am speaking with a non-native English speaker, I can't help but realize they are doing much better in my language than I can do in their language.
But before you can “do it well” you have to learn, and learning a language takes a long time. Critique especially negative criticism as Vlad has shown an example of can lead to many people feeling discouraged to keep on learning a new language just because a bunch of monolinguals are throwing insults instead of advising and encouraging. You can’t just choose a new language and speak it fluently in the span of one second. This isn’t the matrix.
I love the comment "They are speaking your language because you don't know theirs" <3