The Russian language is considered one of the most difficult to learn. Is the Russian language in demand in France? Has the number of French people willing to learn to speak Russian decreased after the deterioration of relations between Europe and Russia at the political level? The site learned about this from a teacher of the Russian language in France, Ani Stas.

"The French want to learn Russian to spite their media"

— Anya, tell us about yourself and your system. Your Russian language teaching system is quite specific, because you do it via Skype, right?

- This is true. I live in a small town in the French mountains. In general, I am Russian, I am from Siberia, from Barnaul. This is a fairly large city from the point of view of France and from the point of view of Russia is also rather big.

- Are there many people who want to study with you via Skype?

— I myself was surprised by the desire of the French to learn Russian. In fact, even people living in Paris are skyping with me. We are using professional program we create groups of three or four people and study using the videoconference mode. At the same time, we never have a large class. Two, three, four students study with me, and we talk with them. I share my knowledge with them. They can learn from the elements that they see on the screen, as I use multimedia, show them different pictures. We have a very good atmosphere and people are well motivated to study Russian with me.

- Do you have groups of different levels - for people who are just learning the alphabet, and for people who are already advanced in the language?

- The technique also exists for beginners, for those who, as you rightly say, are still learning the alphabet. And there are advanced people who want to advance in their knowledge. All sorts of cases come across to me, and I try to unite people among themselves according to their linguistic level in order to teach them according to some specific pedagogical plan.

I have pensioners, I have students, I have active people, that is, those who are in the active stage of their lives and are actively working - all ages. My lessons are not only for children or teenagers, I am ready to teach everyone.

- How many students do you have?

- From five to eight thousand people study with me via video link.

- It is surprising that you found such a market, because Russian in France is even more exotic than Chinese. Do you have the feeling that Russian in France is quite a rare thing?

— Yes, you are not mistaken, it is great to learn Russian in France. Although the opportunity to engage in them is now reduced. There were people who taught Russian 20-30 years ago at school. And they still speak Russian even better than the students who are studying now. Because, unfortunately, the level and methodology of teaching the Russian language in France has dropped dramatically. Even in the official Russian language exam to become an employee in the French Republic as a school or faculty teacher, the level of Russian is lower than that of Chinese.

- It's a pity, because from the point of view of civilization, it would be easier for a Frenchman to find a job with the Russian language, learning Russian, than if he learned Chinese. Because China is thousands of kilometers from France, and Russia is right at the door of Europe. And Russians are always happy to receive the French in Russia.

- Yes I agree with you. The teaching of the Russian language has now become so rare that it does credit to those who wish to learn it. You know, from the point of view of working in France, finding a job with a Russian is quite difficult. You won't find it right away. Because we know that economic relations relations with Russia are not particularly dense now due to sanctions, in particular the recently introduced ones. Now this has become a real problem.

We all hope that soon the situation will change, it will get better and relations between Russia and France will improve in the economic sector. This is very important for us teachers.

- When you are surrounded by people, do you feel Russophobia, hatred for Russians? Perhaps you feel a bad attitude towards immigrants from Russia in everyday life? Or is this not happening?

“I felt it a little at first. I would not say that the French people are the enemy of the Russian people, the Russians even have a good reputation, but there is some fear because of the mass media.

The attitude towards Russia is biased, some people believe that the Russians are evil. Of course, I'm not talking about managers who diabolize Russia. But sometimes some people say, "If you see Putin, tell me what I think about what the Russians are doing there." So in the brain of some people there is not a very good, not a good image of Russia.

- Probably, there are people around you who, speaking about Russia, think: matryoshka, vodka and Russians who drink vodka at minus forty degrees to keep warm and lead bears on a leash.

- Yes, unfortunately, I also face this. But today, thank God, everyone watches not only TV, but also the Internet. There are projects like mine that can open up a completely different image of the country. There are people who write to me: "You are promoting a very good image of your country." People even say, "We know that what we see on TV or what we read in the papers is not necessarily the truth." Like this. So I will continue.

— How many of your students went to Russia?

— Some of my students really went to Russia and found work there. They married Russians or married Russian women, and now they have a Russian-speaking partner, a member of their family. I come across such people, I am very pleased to share knowledge with them and to see them in my classes.

Interviewed by Alexander Artamonov

Prepared for publication by Maria Snytkova

Today, French is one of the most popular languages ​​to learn among Russian speakers in many countries, and especially among Russian speakers in France. After all, if you look at the statistics in France, 400,000 Russian-speaking people officially live here today. If you fall into this figure, then you probably already have a question “Where and how to start learning French? A good French teacher - how to find? French textbook - which one to choose? In fact, these issues are not so easy to solve while in a foreign country.

The same question worries the French, they are diligently looking for how to learn Russian for foreigners. With such a large Russian-speaking population in France, you need to know at least a minimum of the Russian language. An equally important problem affects bilingual Russian-French families who are looking for ways for their bilingual children to learn Russian as a foreign language. After all, it is much easier for such children to learn Russian as a second native language.

Lessons FR RUS languages

Lessons French

Russian language for children and adults

Russian and French, where to start learning.

When learning any language, be it Russian or French, the learning system should be gradual and the same for any foreign language. The study of French or Russian should first of all begin with its basics, that is, the student must master the initial reading skills, gain an initial vocabulary and must know the minimum grammar base that will allow him to build simple sentence structures. These are the first and minimum requirements for everyone who decides to learn Russian or French. After that, everything will go, as we say, according to the “pyramid” system. One information will be superimposed on another, thus, you will expand your knowledge of the language and replenish your vocabulary.

Learn French or Russian without a teacher?

A good teacher of French or Russian is one of the essential parts of learning a language. After all, French for beginners for adults and children, as well as Russian for foreigners, will depend on how much the teacher himself loves this language and knows how to properly present it to his students. A good teacher of French and Russian should first of all focus on the end result in learning. Which, in turn, I, Svetlana Sabi, a teacher of French and Russian as a foreign language, do. First of all, it is important for me that my student love the language being studied as much as I love it, and, of course, be set for a positive and quick result. As a rule, according to my method, when we start learning French for children or adults, just like Russian as a foreign language, we see progress already in the second or third lesson. At the first lesson, my students already know how to read in a foreign language, they know how to compose the first elementary phrases. A lot depends on both the teacher and the student in learning, but we must not forget that when studying French or Russian, for best effect you need to work steadily and without interruptions. In turn, as a teacher of French and Russian in Cannes, Nice, Monaco and throughout the French Riviera, I can guarantee my students a quick result if they fulfill all my requirements and tasks that I give in class and at home.

I work with both adults and children. My smallest student is three-year-old Vanechka, the oldest is seventy-year-old Leonid (we are learning French). My nine-year-old student Alexander (we learn Russian), when he saw me for the first time, said the following phrase: “Hello! My mother is also Russian! Today Alex speaks Russian quite well! Lorient, a Frenchwoman, came to me knowing only a few words in Russian, and after a couple of months she spoke Russian correctly. Today Lorient works in Russia! I can give many such examples.

Students come to me with a request to teach the language, with almost all of us we start from scratch. And when they start to speak well enough in both French and Russian - this is the best reward for me as a teacher!

Everyone has long known that the French are not strong in foreign languages. Indeed, when you come to France and ask a question not in French, you are unlikely to get an answer from the first person you meet. Unless, of course, this is a museum employee or a professional waiter. Young people will smile embarrassedly and spread their hands, and older people will simply shake their heads, annoyed that you do not address them in French, and run away from you like the plague. But even in this country that does not like foreign languages, there are also French people who learn Russian and love the Lube group more than Patricia Kaas.

And why, in fact, the French learn foreign languages? Robert, who has worked as a landscape designer in Australia for ten years, says:

Many French people are still taught in school that French is spoken by all the educated people of the world, and France is the navel of the Earth. In France, the most Better conditions life: temperate climate, developed social system, magical cuisine, beautiful women. Why go somewhere else? Therefore, there is no need to learn foreign languages ​​...

The main reason for the lack of knowledge of foreign languages ​​by the French is their education system. It is believed that the main and most difficult subjects in school are the exact and natural sciences: mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Only the most backward students choose the humanities, or, as they are called in France, literary classes. No matter what class a French student is in, no matter what faculty he chooses to study at the university (even if it is translation), the score in mathematics will still be five to six times more important than the score in English. The most prestigious schools in France are the higher schools of economics and specialized schools for the training of engineers. Schools are expensive, but all French students dream of going there. Having a diploma from such a school almost automatically gives you access to highly paid jobs, which is very important in our time of crisis.

It is not surprising that French youth devote all their efforts to mastering mathematical formulas, and not to studying the grammatical structures of a foreign language. Interpreter Claire confirms this:
- If I didn't have a score of 14 out of 20 in algebra and geometry, I would never see the Graduate School of Translators in Strasbourg. IN recent months before entering the School, I took lessons not in English or Russian, but in mathematics ...

Learning a foreign language in France is very difficult. In schools and universities, the main emphasis is on mastering the "academic foundations" of the language. As a result, the French can read and sometimes even write in a foreign language, but certainly not understand or speak it: all exams are written. It is believed that a foreign language can be learned only by studying or working abroad for a couple of years.
English in France is a compulsory foreign language. Second most popular foreign language is Spanish: it is easy to learn as a Frenchman and is spoken in many countries around the world. And for engineers who are going to travel to industrialized Germany to exchange experience or to work, it is necessary German. But, since it is considered a "very difficult" language, except for the inhabitants of the regions of Alsace and Lorraine bordering Germany, almost no one speaks it.

The Russian language in France is included in the rare category. The most popular "rare" languages ​​here are Arabic (the country's colonial past obliges) and Chinese. Far East is associated here with an immense market and the ability to quickly make capital, so the Chinese language is the sharpest competitor to Russian. The amount of knowledge about Russia that the average Frenchman has is about the same as about China. In addition, Russian is also included in the category of "difficult" languages.

Who is teaching him? There are several categories of French who dare to take such a step. Firstly, those who want to continue working with Russia or the CIS countries. Secondly, those who already have a Russian spouse or who intend to find one for themselves. Finally, these are people who are sick of Russia and everything connected with it.

"Business partners of Russians" usually want to learn the maximum required phrases in the minimum amount of time. Usually they have either negotiations with a Russian company, or a business trip to Russia. They ask them to teach “colloquial language, not grammar.” So, for example, the structure of the first learned questions is simplified to: “My passport, yes?”, “This is the Kremlin, yes?” or “Where is the Astoria Hotel?” Representatives of this category have their own set of “necessary” phrases, which invariably include the following: “You are very beautiful”, “Give me the phone, please” and “I love Russia”.

If a Frenchman has a Russian wife, then sooner or later he will have an acute desire to learn Russian. He takes Russian lessons to communicate with friends and relatives of his wife on vacation, as well as to surprise them with phrases from simple Russian pop music like: "I'm a robot, and I have no heart" or "Don't regret anything and love just like that." There are those who want to learn the language in order to find a Russian wife. In such cases, the set of necessary phrases ... is the same as for "businessmen": "You are very beautiful", "Give me the phone, please" and "I love Russia."

The third category of the French - those who love everything Russian - is the most motley. These French people want to learn the language out of love for birches, nesting dolls, grandmothers, tsars, Siberia and vodka. Many of them studied Russian at school and want to remember it in their student years in order to read Russian literature in Russian and travel to Russia from time to time. For example, Benedict is an assistant bailiff and a wealthy Parisian who has never been to Russia. Her favorite group is Lyube, she knows all the lyrics by heart and buys a ticket to London for the last concert of Nikolai Rastorguev.

Sometimes she forgets how to say: “Pass me the bread, please,” but she quotes Dostoevsky and “The Elusive Avengers” from memory, reads “Harry Potter” in Russian and watches the Rossiya TV channel without translation. Or Magali - actress and entrepreneur. She studied Russian at school, loves Chekhov and Akunin, traveled all over Russia and likes to screw some Russian colloquial word into French speech. Expressions such as "Cool!", "It's unreal!", "Let's break away?" - have become an integral part of her vocabulary. And the animator Thibaut is obsessed with Russian history and culture: he knows the names of all Russian tsars better than any Russian, as well as all the artistic movements of Russian art, even the most avant-garde ones.

The French have a hard time with our language. Many are simply not able to pronounce the sounds “s”, “x”, “u” or “ts”, not to mention cases ... It is interesting that it was not without reason that French was once the language of diplomats: for wishes and requests, the French use the subjunctive mood. So, if a Russian says: “I want to give him a phone”, then for a Frenchman this is too direct. He will say: "I would like to give him a phone." One Frenchman, on the basis of such a comparison, said that the Russians are more rude than the French ...

It is also difficult for the French to understand why there are so many impersonal constructions in Russia: “I am cold, scared, fun, interesting ...” And also why, after “zero”, Russians put a noun in plural: "Zero rubles." They also puzzle over why it is necessary to say “rest” and not “rest”. And it is quite difficult for them to catch the difference between the words “freedom” and “will”, “space” and “space”, “sadness” and “longing”, “holiday” and “walking”, “comfort” and “coziness” .. Many, after several years of learning the language, come to the conclusion that Russian has much more nuances and each phenomenon of life is called in its own way. And most importantly, the Russian language is really great and powerful!

Elena Razvozzhaeva, NV correspondent in France