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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maria_weman β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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. -
thegreatdarktrooper β 16 years ago(May 25, 2009 01:16 PM)
Yeah jlprizm21, it's pretty clear that you understood the Bulgarian speech since the so called Macedonian language is actually a Bulgarian dialect, but that's a different story.
ΠΠ°Π»ΠΈ ΡΠ°ΠΊΠ° ΠΏΡΠΈΡΡΠ΅Π»Ρ?
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stanbutler-inc β 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 β 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 β 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 β 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.
Will you say that they are forced to learn English? -
mark-hansen11 β 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. -
Saluton β 13 years ago(July 18, 2012 03:44 AM)
So. I'm Russian. I watched the movie dubbed at first and thought this scene was unrealistic but now I'm watching the original and I can say this scene is actually very well done :))) Bulgarian and Russian are, indeed, only partially intelligible between the speakers of the languages but it was really enough in that particular situation. Navorski and Milodragovic didn't understand every single word of what the other one was saying, but they still got the message across so they could understand each other in general and Navorski was able to translate because it was simple enough. It would have been the same if any other Russian and any Bulgarian had this conversation and made an effort to understand each other. They got it right during the rehearsals.
I'm not the only one, though, who didn't understand Milodragovic, indeed played by a Russian actor, in the dubbed version but it's the dubbing company's fault because the sound of the dubbed lines was - and usually is - very different from the sound in the movie as a whole and it's hard to switch. Also, Milodragovic is not a Russian surname, it looks Serbian to me, but that's a small detail. A Russian can have a Serbian surname, after all -
elly_l β 13 years ago(July 20, 2012 08:17 AM)
truth is: bulgarian can understand russian (espessially older generations, who had studied at school), but can not speak right. Thing is most of the bulgarians say they speak "Perfect" russian , because they think the two languages are so similar, that just changing the general sound and adding "-aya", "-oy" or -"chik" at the end of any bulgarian word makes the word russian.
On the other hand, russians don't bother trying to understand or speak bulgarian, because they know there always be some bulgarian who will understand them and communicate with them on good enough level of skills, because he/she has studied russian at school as a part of the programme.
But, yes, if two intuitive enough people meet, one bulgarian, one russian, chances are they would understand each other well. after all, the structure of speech and most of the words are pretty similar. (although the bulgarian word "maika" (mother) means "tank top" in russian, and the bulgarian "jivot" (life) means "abdomen" in russian, but those are more of an exeption to the rule and subject of humor)
I think same situation can be achieved by using swedish/norwegian people, or spanish/portuguese, or checz/polish.