Anybody speak Russian or Bulgarian?
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shobra-ns — 17 years ago(May 18, 2008 06:26 PM)
I'm Serbian and I agree most Slavs could understand each other in a conversation if they put some work in it.
But the thing I don't understand is the taxi driver at the end
Goran
being Albanian.. that doesn't make sense
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temporary234 — 17 years ago(June 30, 2008 01:15 PM)
Russia never ruled Bulgaria Timmetie you are an idiot.. before you say something stupid like that check it
Maybe not, but Bulgaria was part of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Sphere of Influence. So what's the big deal? -
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entej — 17 years ago(October 09, 2008 08:12 AM)
"""
But the trick is that the "Russian with the medicine for the goat" in the movie doesn't speak Russian Being Russian myself, I know that for sure:) I didn't understand a word from what he was saying, though it did sound like a Slavic language
what the hell? maybe you sould turn up the volume or something? This was the RARE case in the US movie when there was the REAL russian-talking guy without any foolish accent! I'm always getting realy mad when they try to make somebody speak "real" russian in the movies but NOT in this one -
babamulon — 17 years ago(June 21, 2008 08:07 PM)
He is not speaking bulgarian. It is a mix of several slavic languages. Some of the words he was saying even dont exist. However, I am Macedonian. I understand Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian Even though i never learned those languages. I understand 90% of everything you say in those languages.
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coolworld — 17 years ago(July 14, 2008 06:36 PM)
Im Russian and I didnt understand a word But I wasnt trying to, I heard the first two lines of what he said and switched my brain off, because I thought he was just mumbling something with an accent.
However, I do agree that if two languages are alike, its possible to understand them even if you dont speak both. For example, I speak Spanish and I understand Italian, French and Portuguese.
.Brain is a muscle. Use it or lose it. -
ddamjanov — 17 years ago(August 25, 2008 03:13 PM)
I am Bulgarian. Though Russian and Bulgarian are similar languages, Bulgarians can understand and speak russian, the opposite is not quite right. That's because Bulgarians until 1989 learned russian at school as a compulsory language.
Tom Hanks speaks bulgarian and the guy with the goat speaks russian. It's quite strange that the Russian understood what Tom Hanks was saying. Usually that doesn't happens in the real life -
janitor-2 — 17 years ago(September 06, 2008 09:04 AM)
Yeah, Russians tend to be quite ignorant in that aspect. While we (Bulgarians) were forced to learn their language, I can literally spend an entire hour attempting to communicate something to a Russian without him/her showing a sign of understanding.
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vlahov — 17 years ago(September 14, 2008 10:30 AM)
Tom Hanks speaks almost fluent Bulgarian. That is because of some member of his family - his wife is half greek half Bulgarian (he does not speak greek obviously because it is more known to americans than bulgarian language)
The movie is also full of cliches such as "God knows what Gulag he is been running from" regarding Bulgaria but who (out of Americans) bloody cares
It's part of my job to communicate with people of all different nationalities here in Bulgaria. Done so I've met Russians who learned Bulgarian in 2 years so well you can barely notice the accent and I know also a Russian guy who is 45 yrs old, living in Bulgaria for 25 years and can speak the language with horrible accent as if he is visiting the country for couple of days and is using phrase-book. It's maybe because the people are different. To be quite frankly, I have never ever meet an American speaking Bulgarian with no noticeable mistakes, it is only that I don't really care about that. -
chochko23 — 17 years ago(September 14, 2008 10:44 AM)
I would agree with vlahov - Tom Hanks most certainly speaks bulgarian in the movie. I am Bulgarian as well so I can confirm that. Regarding the Bulgarian/Russian thing Bulgarians understand russian but russians rarely understand bulgarian.
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central_p — 17 years ago(September 14, 2008 12:33 PM)
I can agree with chochko23. The similarity between Bulgarian and Russian is more like the similarity between English and French than Dutch and German which are Germanic.
My experience shows that Russians do not tend to understand Bulgarian but certain similar words.
In real life I doubt that a Russian could understand a word of what Navorski told the Russian guy.
I'd say that Bulgarian is not quite Slavic language as scholars claim. It is a very different language than Russian, Polish, Czech or Serbian grammatically. Yes there are very similar words but there there are also many similar words in English and French.
BTW The language thing in the movie was funny. Navorski spoke Bulgarian but read booklets in Russian. LOL. -
entej — 17 years ago(October 09, 2008 08:24 AM)
"Yeah, Russians tend to be quite ignorant in that aspect. While we (Bulgarians) were forced to learn their language"
Now that is a very strange thing to say. What can word "ignorant" do anything with this? Its not like Bulgaria was dominating in that ussr-thing so why russians could possibly be forced to learn your language in those times? Its not a matter of ignorance, it a matter of popularity.
"I can literally spend an entire hour attempting to communicate something to a Russian without him/her showing a sign of understanding"
And that is not a sign of stupidity, how can someone understand you if you're speaking with him in a complete different language -
EduFaria — 17 years ago(December 21, 2008 06:21 AM)
Colword you shoud be a genius (lol)
Im Brazilian and, naturally, Im a Portuguese speaker. Yes, with some effort and patience, we can understand some spoken Spanish and even read some words in this language. But it doesnt mean we can understand French. No way. French is as far from Portuguese as English is. Even the written French is totally unintelligible for a Portuguese speaker/reader. The structure is different and the Portuguese vocabulary has the same similarities with the French one as it has with English.
Maybe, a Portuguese speaker reading Italian can understand a word here another there, but we cant understand an Italian speaker, even if he speaks slowly.
Its the same for the Spanish speaker. They cant understand Italian, and French is even worse. -
kthulukthulu — 17 years ago(September 15, 2008 09:16 AM)
I'm a bulgarian and i can say that this scene is very very unrealistic.The russian language use the bulgarian alphabet but they're not simmilar languages.Russians cannot understand bulgarians and bulgarians cannot understand russians.As the guy before me said "In real life I doubt that a Russian could understand a word of what Navorski told the Russian guy".End of story.
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vkatsva — 17 years ago(September 21, 2008 08:08 PM)
I'm Russian. I could understand words but not sentences of what Viktor was saying. I think a Russian could make sense of Bulgarian if spoken to slowly - I doubt in real life the Russian guy would understand him.. It's odd that they couldn't find a Russian interpreter at JFK
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raqwinter — 17 years ago(October 03, 2008 10:49 AM)
Can anyone please translate what they said to each other?
I understand Tom Hanks was speaking bulgarian and the russian was speaking russian I don't know if they would really understand each other, but I wanted to know what they meant in the script, how he would make the other say "goat".
I speak portuguese and understand spanish, but most spanish speakers don't understand portuguese. maybe bulgarian and russian have the same issue.