Studying Russian in other countries. In which countries do they study Russian as a foreign language? Significance on the world stage

IN Lately All more people in different parts of the world people are eager to learn Russian. Knowledge of a foreign language has become more popular and prestigious than ever. And recently, according to research, the greatest interest is growing precisely in Russian language. Why does it attract residents from other countries so much? And what advantages does it promise to those who can overcome the “great and mighty”? Teachers of Russian as a foreign language courses have found five reasons why it is so important to know Russian.

1. Confusion and complexity

Having chosen Russian as a foreign language, you will certainly be known among your peers as an ambitious, persistent person with remarkable skills. mental abilities. After all, it’s no secret that this particular language is considered one of the most difficult to learn. Try to understand what meaning the interlocutor put into the answer: “No, probably.” Go figure out why people don’t get around to it when someone wants to watch or do something. Learning Russian is indeed difficult, but very exciting. Especially in Russian as a foreign language courses.

2. The richness of Russian culture

We have already mentioned that many foreigners are now trying to learn the “mighty” language. And one of the reasons is the desire to join the richest culture, which is of great importance for the whole world. Knowledge of the Russian language opens up a lot of opportunities - you can read the great Russian classics in the original, feel the mood of the musical works of famous composers and enjoy the brilliant productions of Russian theaters. Today, the language of Pushkin and Tchaikovsky, known throughout the world, is gaining popularity, including thanks to Russian culture.

3. Wide distribution in the world

There are about 260 million Russian-speaking people in the world. The Russian language proudly bears the title of the most widespread Slavic language in the world and the most widespread language in Europe in terms of the number of native speakers. Rest assured, you will hear Russian speech on every continent. And this means not only ease and barrier-free travel, but also making new acquaintances.

According to the calculations of the American magazine Forbes, knowledge of the Russian language on average increases income by 4%.

4. Significance on the world stage.

Russian is one of the working languages ​​of the UN. Russia occupies one of the first places in the development of science and technology. Along with English, it is used for communication on the International Space Station. In addition, Russia plays an important role in world politics. And, consequently, more and more foreign managers are looking for Russian-speaking people to join their teams.

5. Demand in the labor market

Large companies in developed countries are interested in applicants who are native Russian speakers or people who speak it well. Such specialists open up new opportunities for the organization: cooperation with prestigious partners from Russia, market promotion to the countries of the former USSR. Workers with knowledge of the Russian language are welcome in government agencies in Europe, America and Asia, as well as in ministries and many companies.

As for which countries understand the Russian language, these include, first of all and with good reason, all the countries of the former USSR, even those where Russian is officially recognized as a foreign language (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia). About 45% of Ukrainians speak Russian, and almost everyone speaks it.

About one million people today speak Russian in the State of Israel, although the total population of the country is only seven million people. The language is widely spoken mainly among Israelis - immigrants from the republics of the former USSR.

About six million residents of Germany speak Russian to varying degrees. Such high level partly explained by the large number of Germans who moved to Germany from the territory of Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the knowledge of the Russian language by residents of the former GDR, where it was taught in schools and universities.

In the USA, one and a half million people speak Russian, most of them live in New York and New York State; these are also mostly our former compatriots.

As for other countries, the degree of distribution of the Russian language in them depends mainly on economic factors. Active economic cooperation between Russia and China forces many young residents of the Middle Kingdom to learn Russian.

Many of our compatriots choose Thailand, Egypt, Turkey for their holidays - in these countries there are also many workers in the tourism business who speak Russian.

The formation of a language is a long but interesting process. The combination of many words and word forms, grammar structures, borrowings and pronunciation features includes the speech of our people. What is the importance of the Russian language in modern world.

In contact with

Features of the lexical composition

As the national wealth of the people and the form of our culture, the language has extensive terminology, brightness and clarity of grammar. According to the Russian Constitution, our “dialect” became official and documented in June 2005.

This will help provide citizens rights to use it on the territory of the Russian Federation, and will also become a way to preserve and develop linguistic culture.

The most important criterion is the purity of word usage: to preserve linguistic and stylistic richness, the use of vernacular and swear words should be avoided.

Words with a hint of obvious disdain and propaganda of the dominance of borrowed word forms are also not recommended. This is the problem with modern society goes global: Anglicisms and Americanisms are constantly replacing the original vocabulary.

Important! The Russian speech field should become the basis of our vocabulary in order to preserve and increase the diversity of the surrounding world, using the Russian “dialect”.

Our native “dialect” entered the list of dialects of the world only in the 20th century, its the status was fixed at the United Nations. Carriers are only residents of Russia, numbering about 150 million people. In 2005, the number of those who could speak their native dialect increased sharply to 278 million. According to experts, approximately 140 of them are in Russia, about 26 are in the CIS countries and the Baltic Republic, and almost 7.5 million are in European countries and the USA.

A March analysis of the linguistic situation in 2013 showed that our “” is becoming the most popular on the Internet and is second only to English in terms of the number of requests, that is, it ranks honorable second place.

Important! In which countries is Russian spoken? state language. Along with Russia, it is spoken by residents of Belarus, South Ossetia and the Moldavian Republic. Our “dialect” has earned the right to be the official language of documents and government institutions in the territories of Kazakhstan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Abkhazia and Ukraine.

The Russian language in the modern world can be heard in countries such as Tajikistan. Representatives of a given state use it as official language Constitution, and even in the counties of New York State, documents relating to elections are printed using Russian linguistic constructions.

Speech System Update

The development of the Russian language is intensive. From the literary monuments that have reached us, one can see how difficult the path of this lingua was to its current external and internal content.

Our people have received a new language system that is completely reflects Russian heritage and thinking.

For example, previously there were three numbers in the grammatical structure: singular, plural and dual. There were also 9 and three simple shapes time.

Changing with the era, ours simplified its laws and came to a more understandable, modern binary opposition: the numbers became seven and the number of genders decreased by two. All this was the result of general speech science practice, during which the linguistic layer did not stagnate, but was constantly updated.

Main functions

Local “dialect” has always been a multifunctional system, as it is associated with different areas of human activity: the creation, storage and transfer of necessary information between carriers.

Main functions Russian languages ​​are:

1. The first and most important is to be a means of communication, it is also communicative. Living in the same space means communicating, using different aspects of information, and being able to correctly express your thoughts using different grammatical forms and constructions. The task is to convey knowledge and skills to the interlocutor.
2. A cognitive function that is aimed at understanding culture, the personalities of speakers, as well as developing imaginative thinking and comprehending the basics of self-analysis. This function involves reflection on own speech activity.
3. Cumulative, revealing our “adverb” as a means of accumulation and storage important information. A Russian, as it were, “accumulates” the communication experience of the entire team. This function, along with the lexical component, reflects fragments of the history, life and cultural experience of the entire people.

Separately, it is worth mentioning speech competence: the ability to understand and accept programs other than one’s own. speech behavior. Everything should happen in accordance with the goals of communication, the sphere, and the situation of speech practice. Highlight here will be the choice of the correct linguistic form that will suit the particular case.

For example, a request and an order. Both speech situations will have a whole set of differences:

• scene. It is better to ask in a private setting, face to face, but you can give orders in the presence of many people, which will give the boss even more authority;
• speaker's personality. We usually ask close people, friends, relatives, but we order our subordinates;
• purpose of speaking: in the first case, we want to receive something using soft intonation, emotions of gratitude or resentment for something. And the second case, naturally, will differ both in intonation and meaning. When we order, we make strict demands.

Is Russian language means of international communication. Until the beginning of 1991, our “dialect” was international, because the then state of the USSR introduced it in the countries that were part of the Soviet republic.

After the Union collapsed, Russian did not cease to be a means of communication between nations, but became the main one for migrants from the former Union states.

In countries of Eastern Europe They study Russian in gymnasiums and universities along with French and Spanish. In Russia you can meet many foreigners, attending special courses.

The Russian language in international communication is a common phenomenon. It is one of the six official working languages ​​of the UN. However, according to the research center, our “dialect” is still not losing ground: in particular, in 2006, according to the latest census, 152 million people were native speakers, and in 2012 – already 215, which becomes a rather optimistic statement.

Study and preservation of national characteristics

The social nature of linguistic usage always remains in motion: it is broad and multifaceted. Therefore, he is the way society has created him over thousands of years. Helps organize work, supports the process of education and cultural development of society, participates in the development of all areas of science and culture. In fact, all its functions are social and depend on the participants in speech contact themselves.

The importance of the Russian language in the modern world is great, its importance difficult to overestimate. Today you can see a tendency towards the formation of a new picture of the world.

Through the prism of our lingua, we must get acquainted with another culture. To do this, you need to adhere to special cultural competence and learn to use correct speech etiquette.

As in ours, as in any other language, such competence helps to better understand the characteristics of the national culture of another people as easily as one’s own.

Also develops awareness of identity and character nature of another language material. And, of course, the most important feeling is formed: we begin to realize how significant and beautiful our own language usage is. Understanding and accepting this, people take a significant step towards their spiritual and moral development.

Attention! The type of our linguistic layer depends on society. Language is under its influence and at the same time shapes public consciousness.

Russian language in European countries, USA, Canada is the language of emigration

Russian language in Eastern European and Balkan countries. The second most important region in terms of the prevalence of the Russian language outside of Russia has traditionally been the states of Eastern Europe - allies of the Soviet Union, which were part of the member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact organization, that is, united general economic, political and military interests, and also, in most cases, the general Slavic culture. The widespread use of Soviet industrial and military equipment (and, accordingly, its maintenance), intensive economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation made it necessary to study the Russian language as the main means of communication within the above-mentioned organizations. Suffice it to say that the Russian language was a compulsory subject of study in secondary schools and universities in Eastern Europe and was in a clearly privileged position in relation to other foreign languages ​​that competed with it (English, French, German); millions of people also studied it in Russian language courses outside the academic sector. Russian was also the most popular foreign language in Yugoslavia. In the Soviet Union itself, up to 1/4 of all foreign students were citizens of Eastern European countries.

After the collapse of the USSR, the liquidation of CMEA and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact organization, as well as the sharp weakening of Russia’s economic ties with Eastern European states and their reorientation towards political, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation with the EU, as well as the USA, the prestige of the Russian language and its practical significance have declined sharply, and the number of people actively owning or studying it, within or outside the academic sector, has also dropped significantly.

So, if in 1990, according to our estimates, in Eastern European countries, including the republics of the SFRY, there were 44 million people who knew Russian, then 15 years later there were 19 million of them, and those who actively spoke Russian - no more than 1/3 of this numbers.

The rest speak passively, that is, they still understand oral and written speech and, with certain difficulties, can explain themselves at an everyday level.

The dynamics of the number of schoolchildren studying Russian in Bulgaria is somewhat different: having decreased over 10 years (from 1991 to 2001), as in many other Western European countries, by 10 times (from 1 million to 100 thousand people), this figure has increased over the past 3 years almost doubled (up to 180 thousand) and, together with those studying Russian in technical schools and colleges (52 thousand), is already almost a quarter of a million people. It should be noted, however, that the majority of Bulgarian schoolchildren started last years to learning Russian only as a second or even third foreign language.

In system higher education Eastern European and Balkan countries, the Russian language is almost “lost” - it is studied today as a specialty in the departments of Russian studies (Russian language and literature) or as one of the foreign languages ​​of only 24 thousand students in this group of countries (in the late 1980s, Russian was mastered they have about 1 million students).

A major role in the promotion of the Russian language and culture was traditionally played by graduates of Soviet (Russian) universities - both civilian and military (there were about 150 thousand of them in this group of states), united in national alumni associations. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR, many of these associations ceased to exist, and their former activists tried not to advertise the fact of their studies in the USSR, as well as their knowledge of the Russian language, so as not to be classified as “agents of influence of Moscow.” The number of boys and girls from Eastern European and Balkan countries coming to study in Russia has also sharply decreased: in the 2002/2003 academic year, there were just over one thousand of them in full-time departments of Russian universities, which was only 1.5% of the total number foreign citizens, who studied full-time in the Russian higher school(V Soviet period The share of immigrants from socialist countries among foreign students reached 23%).

According to our forecasts, while the current volume of economic, scientific and technical ties with the Russian Federation remains unchanged, the number of people who speak Russian, due to the lack of incentives for its use in the group of states under consideration, will be reduced by half in 10 years, that is, to approximately 10 million people, of whom active No more than 5 million people (mainly in Poland, but also in Bulgaria and Serbia) will be able to speak the language (that is, constantly or periodically use it in work, study or everyday life), while the rest will steadily lose their previous language skills.

Russian language in Western European countries. The peak of interest in the Russian language and culture in Western European countries was the late 1980s, which was associated with the so-called perestroika and certain expectations from it.

At this time, due to the greater openness of the USSR, the influx of foreign tourists and various specialists, in Western countries themselves there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Russian language learners in educational institutions and in language courses. In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, interest in Russia, which no longer had the international status that the USSR had, fell sharply.

In almost all countries of Western Europe during the 1990s, the number of schoolchildren studying Russian was also declining (for example, in Sweden and Switzerland it decreased by 1/4, in Germany - by 2 times, in France - by 2.5 times , in Norway - 3 times, in the Netherlands - 5 times). At the same time, Russian in most cases is not the first, but the second or even third foreign language studied. For example, in Finland, only 0.3% of all schoolchildren chose Russian as their first foreign language, while 5% chose Russian as a second (optional) language; in France, out of 14 thousand students in secondary educational institutions studying Russian, only 4 thousand, or 28%, master it as a first language, 32% as a second and 40% as a third.

As a rule, at least half of Western European schoolchildren studying Russian are children of emigrants from the Soviet Union or Russia, as well as other CIS and Baltic countries.

In general, the Russian language in Western European countries is studied today by about 225 thousand schoolchildren, gymnasium students, and lyceum students in almost 11 thousand secondary educational institutions (before the beginning of the 1990s, the number of Western European schoolchildren who studied Russian as a foreign language was over 550 thousand people). The number of schoolchildren studying Russian in Western European countries is more than 4 times less than in Eastern European and Balkan countries (935 thousand people).

In higher education in Western Europe, 28.5 thousand undergraduate and graduate students master the Russian language. They study at 178 universities, most of which are located in Germany, France and the UK, where the largest Russian-speaking communities are located (Table 3). It is noteworthy that the number of students studying Russian in Western European universities is even slightly higher than the number of Russian studies students studying Russian as a foreign language in Eastern European and Balkan universities (a total of 24 thousand people).

Table 3. Prevalence and learning of the Russian language in Western European countries (as of 2004)

The Russian-speaking community, formed from several waves of emigration, can to a certain extent contribute to maintaining interest in the Russian language and culture in Western European countries. Its population, according to our estimates, is 4.3 million people, the largest part of whom live in Germany, France, Greece, Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain (Table 3). At the same time, the greatest contribution to the development of Russian culture in the far abroad through the activities of friendship societies and associations of compatriots is made, as a rule, by “old” emigrants - the descendants of those who came to Europe many decades ago.

The total number of residents who speak Russian to one degree or another in Western European countries is currently 7.9 million people. Despite a certain decline in interest in Russia and the Russian language among citizens of Western European countries, a reduction in the number of students studying Russian in the system of secondary and higher education, the total number of those who know Russian compared to the end of the 1980s not only did not decrease, but even increased slightly thanks to migration factor: Germany alone received more than two million emigrants from the former USSR - mainly ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan and Russia, as well as many migrants from Ukraine (whose number in Germany is more than half a million people). However, as recent immigrants from Russia, the CIS and Baltic countries integrate into Western society, their role in maintaining the interest of the population of these countries in the Russian language and culture will decrease. It should also be taken into account that, in contrast to the first wave of Russian emigration caused by emergency circumstances (threat to life) (1917 - 1920s), whose representatives made great efforts to preserve national traditions, religion, spiritual values, culture (in families they tried to speak only Russian), participants in the latest (post-Soviet), pragmatic emigration goals, tend to assimilate as quickly as possible in recipient countries, voluntarily losing their national identity, and without their own practical benefit do not advertise their Russian origin (as a rule, there is no need to talk about the effectiveness of their propaganda of Russian culture and the Russian language).

Russian language in countries North America, in Australia and New Zealand. In the countries of North America, Australia and Oceania, a total of 4.1 million people speak Russian (mainly in the USA and Canada). Interest in the Russian language, as in European countries, reached its peak in 1989-1991 (for example, in the USA in 1980, 24 thousand people studied Russian, and in the 1990/1991 academic year - 45 thousand), after which interest in it fell, but then gradually began to revive in the early 2000s.

In the secondary education system, Russian as a foreign language is currently taught in a limited number of schools (about 120 in total), where less than 8 thousand schoolchildren study it. In addition to the secondary education system, children and adolescents also study the Russian language in Sunday schools at Orthodox parishes and public organizations and associations (this form of education covers several thousand people). The Russian language is represented much more widely in the higher education system. In this group of states, a total of about 30 thousand students study it in more than 200 universities (Table 4).

Table 4. Prevalence and learning of the Russian language in North America, Australia and New Zealand, 2004

3 - Mutual trips (mainly of a tourist nature) between Poles and Russians largely contribute to maintaining a fairly wide prevalence of the Russian language in Poland. For example, in 2003 and 2004, an average of 1.2 million Poles visited Russia and, accordingly, 650-670 thousand Russians visited Poland. -

In the 20th century, the Russian language entered the list of world (global) languages, which was spoken by just over 350 million people. The spread of the Russian language has been going on since the activities of Russian Empire, and then the USSR. Currently, Russian is the native language of approximately 165 million citizens Russian Federation, citizens former countries CIS and Baltics. About 120 million more citizens know it as a second language or foreign

In 2013, the Russian language took second place in terms of its use on the Internet.

Countries where Russian is the official language:

• Belarus (along with Belarusian language)

  South Ossetia (along with Ossetian)

  Transnistrian Moldavian Republic (along with Moldavian and Ukrainian)

  DPR and LPR (along with Ukrainian)

Countries where Russian is taught as a foreign language

In modern states of the post-Soviet space, the study of Russian as a second language (native or foreign) takes place in the following types of schools:

• Russian as a native language: from the 1st grade - Russian-language schools of the “national minority” in Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic countries or Russian-language schools with the study of Russian as a second state language in Belarus;
• Russian as a “second native” language - Belarusian schools;
• Russian as a second language: from 2nd grade - Kyrgyz, Kazakh schools and Armenian schools with in-depth teaching of the Russian language;
• Russian as a foreign language: from the 5th, 6th, 7th, and even from the 10th grade - the Baltic countries, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Moldova. In the Baltic countries, the possibility of studying Russian as a first foreign language is formally retained, but in fact it is studied by choice (as a second or third foreign language.
• Bilingual schools, in which part of the subjects are studied in Russian, and 40% (and higher) in the language of the titular nation - Latvia, Estonia;
• Mixed schools, in which there are classes taught in Russian and in the language of the titular nation.

They are interested in studying Russian in China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and other countries where they see Russia as a reliable economic partner. Applicants to Russian universities from Africa are showing great interest in learning the Russian language. However, despite the aggressive anti-Russian propaganda, there has been a surge of interest in the Russian language in the USA and Austria, where in Vienna alone, in two years, the number of schools where the Russian language is studied has increased from 9 to 24.

Russian language courses are conducted at 63 representative offices in 56 countries.

Prevalence and learning of the Russian language in Western European countries (as of 2004)

Prevalence and learning of the Russian language in North America, Australia and New Zealand, 2004