That was one thing why I didnt like this movie that much. There is no way that russian guy could understand anything tha
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Dutch4ever — 16 years ago(December 14, 2009 07:25 PM)
People saying that Dutch and German are similar have no idea what they are talking about, a German would never be able to understand a Dutch person (if they don't speak Dutch ofcourse).
The formation of the English language was greatly influenced by Latin, German and French over the centuries which formed the English language. -
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maria_weman — 17 years ago(January 17, 2009 03:07 PM)
Languages can be so similar that you can understand each other. I'm Swedish and Swedes can usually, without too much difficulty, understan Danish and Norweigan when spoken or written. I don't know if this is the case with Bulgarian and Russian, though.
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romelova — 9 years ago(December 03, 2016 06:15 AM)
The similarity between Bulgarian and Russian languages is based on the Cyrillic alphabet with certain exceptions for a couple of letters. The difference is in the grammar and pronunciation. Though, people from the two nations could generally understand themselves in a conversation, it takes a deeper knowledge until one can claim they know a foreign language.
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id-entity — 17 years ago(February 17, 2009 06:40 AM)
Although Hanks worked with Bulgarian as his root language, the language he was supposed to be speaking in the film was "Kracozhian," so your question is moot. We can assume whatever we want about the linguistic similarities between Russian and "Kracozhian."
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jlprizm21 — 16 years ago(May 22, 2009 09:21 PM)
I'm from Macedonia and I speak Macedonian and it's really close to Bulgaria so I could pretty much understand what Victor was saying. But that's what I was wondering too. I know some of their words are similar to ours but I really don't think that he could understand him let alone translate. My friend is Russian and although alot of the words we use are similar we could definitely not talk to each other or translate what we're saying. But maybe he knew more Russian than me. haha.
I love the Internet. -
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stanbutler-inc — 16 years ago(June 28, 2009 11:27 AM)
Most of the Bulgarian people speak russian (we learn it at scool), but in the movie he was speaking bulgarian and the other guy was speaking russian. Yes they are similar languages and it is posible for a bulgarian and a russian people to understand eachother.
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spaminput — 16 years ago(February 15, 2010 04:31 AM)
Until the end of the cold war, Bulgaria was, for all practical purposes, occupied by the Soviet Union. Bulgarian children were forced to learn Russian and even had their names Russianized. Or so I was told by a Bulgarian au pair named Daskalov who had been able to change it back from Daskalova once the Russians left Bulgaria. So it's not surprising that the Hanks character was bilingual.
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elly_l — 13 years ago(July 20, 2012 07:56 AM)
your friend was either very pretentious or was bulshtting you.
Daskalov is a male surname; Daskalova is a female surname; It's similar in all slavic languages. It was at some time during the 70s, 80s, modern to use russian names, but since both languages are very similar, names like Sergey and Jury are not concidered as foreign to bulgarians as are Ryan and Vanessa ( also modern names, but during 2000s). It's just that government was kissing russian as back then and is kissing american as* nowadays.
usually women from Bulgaria who lived abroad during the 80 and 90s changed their surname from female to male, sometimes adding "off" at the end. Maybe they wanted to "blend in" and not sound so "slavic", maybe they wanted to avoid confusion, but there never was time in Bulgaria when someone changed their surname, espessially from male to female! because of "russian occupation", for 2 reasons: 1) there never was russian ocupation, only political kissing of soviet as*. 2) it's the same way names are formed both in bulgarian and in russian, as well as a number of other languages, so you can't really russianize your name. -
mikeklondyke — 11 years ago(December 13, 2014 07:46 AM)
Bulgarian children were forced to learn Russian
Almost in every EU country (or anywhere in world) the children learn English, nobody asks them if they want or not.
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mark-hansen11 — 14 years ago(March 06, 2012 04:05 PM)
Well, in the movie it is said that Krakhosia is bordering Russia, and Maldrogovich (sp? -the russian guy) lived close to the border.
It's like this.. Danish people understand swedish, for the most part, but it is two seperate countries. Even norwegian is rather easily read and understood.
So even if they're two seperate countries, the languages will have an effect on one another when they're that close.
Thinking about my previous example.. I actually understand swedish better than some danish dialects, haha. Oh yeah, I'm danish.
