One of the hardest aspects of English for Russian learners seems to be the usage of countable and uncountable nouns. We teachers commonly see sentences such as, "One peoples walk into bank," and, "Please give me a few tea," and, "Is there some books on your desk?". And, compared to Russian, English has some fairly complicated rules regarding countable and uncountable nouns (like when we use plurals, whether we use "much" or "many," when to use articles, or why a sentence like "There is much crime in my neighborhood" sounds unnatural).
Real problems happen when there are words that are countable in one language that are uncountable in the other--or vice versa. I tell my students that 95% of the time their knowledge of Russian will guide them through learning English; this is a simpler way of saying that generally the linguistic system that they have been acquiring since they were little babies--in this case, the understanding of what words are countable and what words are uncountable--is similar in a lot of ways to the linguistic system that is ingrained in an American's brain. Russian and English, although they are distant relations, are members of the same language family, after all. There are a few words, though, that give students a lot of trouble.
One of them is "people." I frequently remind my students that "people" is a countable word (one person, two people), but my students still mess it up. The problem is that my students are thinking of the Russian word люди, which translates as people. But for them, люди is uncountable--it is like an undifferentiated mass. They also often get confused by the Russian word народ, which also means "people" but in the sense of "the people have spoken" or "the Mayan people." So I get sentences like, "There are many peoples in my apartment," which may very well may be true--there could be people of several different ethnicities -but it is probably not what the writer meant.
I'm sure some doctorate student in Russian has written a thesis about this (if not, it's my topic--hands off), but it's interesting to consider the implications of considering "people" to be an uncountable noun. In a way, it is very revealing of the attitudes of Russians toward people. Russians very frequently use the word народ (народ злился; народ гуляет--the people are angry; the people are relaxing/roaming/partying), which gives a sense of a shapeless mass with its own volition. There is a similar connotation with the word люди (люди должны ходить по тратуарам--people should walk on the sidewalks), and, although Russian has a way to make "people" into a countable word (во Владимире живут 350 000 человек --350,000 people live in Vladimir), that form is only used to count the number of people in a certain place. Russian culture is much more focused on the collective and less directed toward the differentiation of the individual than American culture. This is reflected in the language--or maybe it is enabled by the language.
Anyway that's enough deep thought for one night. It's time to go to bed.
Real problems happen when there are words that are countable in one language that are uncountable in the other--or vice versa. I tell my students that 95% of the time their knowledge of Russian will guide them through learning English; this is a simpler way of saying that generally the linguistic system that they have been acquiring since they were little babies--in this case, the understanding of what words are countable and what words are uncountable--is similar in a lot of ways to the linguistic system that is ingrained in an American's brain. Russian and English, although they are distant relations, are members of the same language family, after all. There are a few words, though, that give students a lot of trouble.
One of them is "people." I frequently remind my students that "people" is a countable word (one person, two people), but my students still mess it up. The problem is that my students are thinking of the Russian word люди, which translates as people. But for them, люди is uncountable--it is like an undifferentiated mass. They also often get confused by the Russian word народ, which also means "people" but in the sense of "the people have spoken" or "the Mayan people." So I get sentences like, "There are many peoples in my apartment," which may very well may be true--there could be people of several different ethnicities -but it is probably not what the writer meant.
I'm sure some doctorate student in Russian has written a thesis about this (if not, it's my topic--hands off), but it's interesting to consider the implications of considering "people" to be an uncountable noun. In a way, it is very revealing of the attitudes of Russians toward people. Russians very frequently use the word народ (народ злился; народ гуляет--the people are angry; the people are relaxing/roaming/partying), which gives a sense of a shapeless mass with its own volition. There is a similar connotation with the word люди (люди должны ходить по тратуарам--people should walk on the sidewalks), and, although Russian has a way to make "people" into a countable word (во Владимире живут 350 000 человек --350,000 people live in Vladimir), that form is only used to count the number of people in a certain place. Russian culture is much more focused on the collective and less directed toward the differentiation of the individual than American culture. This is reflected in the language--or maybe it is enabled by the language.
Anyway that's enough deep thought for one night. It's time to go to bed.
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