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Sorry, I don't know how to get Cyrillic from my keyboard, so this is transliterated:

"Ochen plokho govoryu po-Russkiye. Po-Angliskiye, poja'ulsta."

Вы говорите на русском языке?

Very little. (I got the bit about "Do you speak...?") I had three years of Russian in high school, so what I learned was mostly conjugations and other grammatical rules, and how to say "I don't speak Russian very well," and "I'm hungry, where are the cookies?"

Mikey wrote:Very little. (I got the bit about "Do you speak...?") I had three years of Russian in high school, so what I learned was mostly conjugations and other grammatical rules, and how to say "I don't speak Russian very well," and "I'm hungry, where are the cookies?"

They taught you Russian in High School? I thought back then you would be labeled a commie if you spook russian.

BASTARD??? I would love to learn russian I'm stuck with French ¬¬

- oh my god it censor it >.<

It wasn't quite as long ago as the McCarthy hearings, smart-alec.

In my (public) high school, we had an excellent language program. Four years were offered in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Swahili, and (modern) Greek.

I'm actualy fairly lucky when it comes to languages.
I was born in the west of Ireland, so I can speak fluent Irish.
After realising that the rest of the country actualy spoke English, I had to learn that too if I had any hope of getting out of the ass-end of nowhere I was stuck in, so I had a hell of a lot of motivation to learn it.
When I went to college, they had this freaking crazy system going where you had to take on three different subjects for some unfathomable reason. I took on history and zoology, and also picked Russian, simply for the fact that it sounds and looks awesome. I make no claims to being fluent in it, and undoubtedly my grammar is all over the place, but I imagine I can get by.
I can also have a passable conversation in Spanish, which I was thought in school (it was either that or French, which sucks).

I prefer French to spanish. Less gutteral and harsh. But if i had a choice i would take dutch or italian.

Can't stand French, personaly.

I'm not sure I'd call Spanish "gutteral and harsh". Then again, I grew up speaking Irish, which is pretty much the gutteral language.

I was taught spanish in high school and could get by back then with it. However I really haven't used it since so now I'd be pretty weak.

I learned a little Chinese for my study abroad. But you can get by there pretty well with just English.

Yay hegemony!

Rochey wrote:I'm actualy fairly lucky when it comes to languages.
I was born in the west of Ireland, so I can speak fluent Irish.
After realising that the rest of the country actualy spoke English, I had to learn that too if I had any hope of getting out of the ass-end of nowhere I was stuck in, so I had a hell of a lot of motivation to learn it...

Dammit. Now every time I read one of your posts, you're going to sound like Brad Pitt in Snatch in my head.

I thought Pitt's character in Snatch (which was AWESOME, BTW) was supposed to be East Anglian, although one of our British friends could correct me.

I remember doing research for a project on dialogues in high school, and watching a BBC documentary on the subject. The East Anglian accent was so damned heavy that a British-produced documentary had to subtitle these people - who were speaking English.

And Rochey - I (for obvious reasons) have picked up a bit of Hebrew... you don't know guttural until you know Hebrew. Try catching a terrible head cold, eating a gallon of barley soup and a quart of milk, and then cough. That's what Hebrew sounds like.

I think the film actually calls him irish at one point, actually.. or at least, one of the characters does, which i guess isnt a real garentee =p

Still, you try welsh. Not the most gutteral of languages, but it has words like Lyfwaddyrnarcmru! Youll be washing phlegm out of your hair for weeks xD

Mikey wrote:I thought Pitt's character in Snatch (which was AWESOME, BTW) was supposed to be East Anglian, although one of our British friends could correct me.

I remember doing research for a project on dialogues in high school, and watching a BBC documentary on the subject. The East Anglian accent was so damned heavy that a British-produced documentary had to subtitle these people - who were speaking English.

And Rochey - I (for obvious reasons) have picked up a bit of Hebrew... you don't know guttural until you know Hebrew. Try catching a terrible head cold, eating a gallon of barley soup and a quart of milk, and then cough. That's what Hebrew sounds like.

I come from east anglia. Well South east anglia anyway. Southend-on-sea precisely. It can be a bloody hard accent to understand.

Tsu wrote:Dammit. Now every time I read one of your posts, you're going to sound like Brad Pitt in Snatch in my head.

Mikey wrote:And Rochey - I (for obvious reasons) have picked up a bit of Hebrew... you don't know guttural until you know Hebrew. Try catching a terrible head cold, eating a gallon of barley soup and a quart of milk, and then cough. That's what Hebrew sounds like.

Okay, I think you win this one.