My anecdotal evidence goes against the OP as well. Since my wife is from Russia I have met a fair number of Russians and in my experience their English isn’t that good.
Those who speak decent English still retain a rather strong accent in my experience. But accents are hard to get right. I know my English still has traces of Swedish in it.
Foreign movies and TV-series in Russia are dubbed which probably affects the English pronounciation. It certainly does that for Germans, Italians and French whereas Scandinavians and Dutch who do not dub shows have a bit better pronounciation.
I was an “immort” (mod type) in an all-text internet game for eight years. We had a lot of players from “the ex-SSSR”, having been recomended as “a great place to practice your English skills” in a Russian book.
This helped me understand my Ukrainian boss because when he made grammatical mistakes, they were the same ones I was used to from the “Russian” players, many of whom could write perfectly good English after a couple of years with us (by which point they’d been studying English for maybe 20 years) - but still slipped up occasionally. I don’t remember what the specific errors were, right now, but we had one Russian who got kicked out, came back in and convinced most people that he was American… except two of us who insisted that “this Ken guy sounds like Dan, are you sure he’s from California? Sure, sure? Bet-cher-house sure?”
Many people have less problems writing a foreign language than speaking it, at least if they’ve had formal training on it.
Many Russian women I’ve known speak very lightly accented English, but with a nasal quality I can’t really explain. The men retain their heavy accents. Go figure.
I know a lot of Russians, including Mrs. Slug, that have reasonably strong accents. One trip to the Russian grocery here would confirm that.
Of course, lots of Russians have lived in the states quite a while and probably have improved their English substantially. I just don’t meet many of them.
So this is purely my own opinion/theory based upon my interactions with Russians who speak English and live/work in the U.S.
I believe the main reason so many Russians retain such a heavy accent is due to the insular nature of Russian communities within the US. This can be at a large scale such as a Brighton Beach or on a small scale within the family. Of the Russians I know as a friends or work-associates, I am practically their only non-Russian friend. Within their homes, they speak Russian. They socialize with other Russians, almost exclusively. The eat at Russian restaurants if possible, or if in non-Russian restaurants will speak Russian almost exclusively. Their children play with other Russian children. Their house-keepers and baby-sitters are often other Russians who have been recommended by others in the community. Their mechanics, plumbers, painters, carpenters are Russian, as are any other service provider they may need.
Before everyone piles on, these are generalizations and based entirely on my experiences with between 15-20 Russians I know living in the US. Hardly a representative sample, I know. Almost all of them who are of my age have been born here, or moved here with their parents at a young age. I found it interesting though that all of them fit into the above characterization in terms of their insular nature. The only exception to this that I have personally met was my ex-wife who came to the US originally as a high-school exchange student and stayed for college. She was completely disconnected from the Russian community for many years during this time period and as a result did not have the same accents in her speech. She could, on the drop of a hat, pick them back up but for the most part barely had a accent.
This is definitely true for my family. We moved to America in 1991. Both my parents have pretty strong accents; however, while my dad has a pretty good grasp on english grammar and makes only a few mistakes when he writes, my mom’s english is pretty bad and most people stuggle to decipher what she is saying. The use of present progressive is one of her biggest mistakes.
On the other hand, I was 1 when we came here and my brother was 13. We both speak english very good.
I had read some theory a while back… I might be totally misstating this, but that it is easier to speak a language well if your own language has roughly the same number of phonemes, and a majority of the phonemes overlap.
I noticed when I was learning Spanish and Japanese that they were difficult because they have so few distinct sounds compared to English… many of the words sounded similar, and in fact there are many homophones. But when I studied German and Albanian they were much easier because of the greater phonic diversity. I’ve heard Russian and Mandarin also are accessible to English speakers for this reason.
It could be a bunch of crap and I don’t have a cite, but I read it somewhere and my experience is consistent with it.
My experience is with Ukrainians, not Russians, but I think the situation is probably similar for almost any group. Pre-puberty most people can learn to speak any language with little or no accent and great fluency. Post-puberty it becomes more and more difficult. Sort of like trying to put fruit into Jello after it’s been in the refrigerator for for a long time. You can do it, but it’s not pretty.
The Russians you see on TV are probably highly educated, coached, and motivated to speak with little or no accent. My mother-in-law, who eventually learned enough English to hold down an office job, had strongly accented English, but did OK. My husband, who was about 10 when he started to learn English, has a New York accent, but not a foreign one, except for a couple of sounds. My father-in-law and step-father-in-law, who held jobs that didn’t require all that much communication, had horrible English, very stilted and difficult to understand.
I wouldn’t say that this is an inaccurate characterization. In fact, its one of Mrs. Slug’s biggest complaints about her fellow Russians. The biggest is being told that she has sold out her Russian soul by marrying an American, what ever the f*** that is supposed to mean.
There was a well known Russian in the US during the 80’s (?) who was a diplomat, or a reporter for pravda or something like that. I mentioned him above, and now I can’t remember his name.
Puskin, Putin, I dunno.
Vladimir Posner, she guy you saw on Donahue in the 80’s, was also the same guy you saw on 60 Minutes on Sunday (he was the talk show host, not the chess player).
