Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication

I've attended first free Coursera's 'Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication' course myself and it was quite useful. They promised to create another one and kept their promise.

New session starts in October (12 Oct - 17 Dec).

The main focus of this course is to look at the interrelations between different types of contexts (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal and others) within the intercultural communication process using Russian – Western communication as an example.

The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing past, present and future interactions between Russia and the West focused on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans.

This course looks at the cases when Russian basic cultural values show up through linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is - Russian, or English - the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture.

We will tackle some basic questions:

• What are concepts of culture that have most influence on communication? 

• What are Russian basic cultural values and how they shape modern Russian consciousness? 

• What are specific communication patterns of modern Russian, including that of public and electronic discourse? 

• What is important to know about communication with Russians in organizational contexts?

This course is NOT just a list of instructions of what to do and not to do while dealing with Russians.

Enroll here: https://www.coursera.org/course/russians?action=enroll&sessionId=976074

Is it possible to learn Russian?

Listen to these foreigners who mastered Russian to some point.
It's really possible.



These are audio files from this article (you can read it in bad English via google translate here).

Oh that Russian language

There are many articles with random facts about some topic. You know, those with animated gifs and short funny captions.

I guess the main point of their existence is that they can be fun. So I'll pick some funny facts and if you want more, just jump to that article itself. Deal?

“Pretend you’ve just been kicked in the stomach,” your professor says, introducing the letter Ы. “Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы! Ы!” you chant like a bunch of drunken sea lions.

*

There’s a Ш and a Щ? And a Ч? This seems unnecessary.

*

But when you mix them up, native Russian speakers have no idea what you’re trying to say. What do you mean, you want to open a “ya-shik” at the post office? OHHHH, a yash-chik.

*

You have to remember that a television is male, a newspaper is female and a radio is genderqueer.

*

Then you meet the verbs of motion. I still remember Russ 101 in college asking how to say "to go" and prof was all OH YOU AREN'T READY FOR THAT YET

*

When you get to Russia, you have to ask the bartender for a “Sprayt” or a “Long Aylend” in your most exaggerated accent to be understood. But you’ve been mispronouncing “vodka” and “Kalashnikov” your whole life, so cut them some slack.

On understanding Russians

Hello guys!

I'd like to write more here so I found a way to get the inspiration.

I enrolled in a MOOC held by a Russian university for anyone interested in Russia and Russians. How we think and why do we think this way, Mira Bergelson will tell us through upcoming weeks. And maybe I'll also find some new topics to ramble on.

The course is called Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication, it's online and free so you could join, too. Maybe I'd still recommend to read the CultureShock!Russia book instead if you need practical information, but MOOC is useful.

This is just one screenshot:

I must say that Mira's approach is quite academic, so I instantly remembered years of my higher education when teacher speaks and speaks and speaks... without any interaction with people listening... and everyone who survives not only gets to know the matter but also has the strongest ability to concentrate on one topic for a long time.

What's more interesting than lectures? The crowd which came to listen to the course. I've had a glimpse of its diversity at the forum (you probably need to register in order to make this link work). People of all age and nationality, foreigners from any country, Russians from Russia, Russians from other countries, wives and husbands of Russian people trying to understand their spouses better... I want to hear all of their stories so I'm refreshing forum page several times a day. Hopefully it will grow ten times wider and deeper during the course.

I just love the topic of intercultural communication.

Oh, by the way, I've recently built my portfolio in English so you could take a look if you want me to work with you. Or maybe to know me better, both causes are nice.

Links for learning Russian

I'm a member of Benny's forum as it helps me learning Spanish right now. There are people learning every language I think and those who learn Russian share some links: http://www.fluentin3months.com/forum/resources-2/looking-for-resources-in-russian/#p6007