Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined.
— Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Competitive Russian Language quotations
I'm no linguist, but I have been told that in the Russian language, there isn't even a word for freedom.

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!


Most Russians don't treat the government, or those in power, as something close to them. They don't believe that they, as ordinary people, are able to change the development of things. That's why they have a very specific ironic sentiment towards power and the figures that represent it. I wanted to translate this irony into the cinematic language.
Russian is a very deceptive language, because it looks easy at first: it's like setting out for a gentle stroll and realizing that you've committed yourself to scaling Himalayan peaks.
I'm interested in Russian language, culture, history.
.. and I lived there, for four years, as a reporter for the Washington Post and have visited many times since.

The beauty of a language is, generally judged by its soft or rigid, melodious or harsh, ring. Other aspects, such as the flexibility of derivation, play hardly any role in grading. Were it the case, Russian would certainly be placed on the winner’s stand. It would rank first in plasticity.
Not now, for the last three thousand years, Hebrew has been penetrated and fertilized by ancient Semitic languages - by Aramaic, by Greek, by Latin, by Arabic, by Yiddish, by Latino, by German, by Russian, by English, I could go on and on. It's very much like English.
Russian is such a tough and complex language that I am happy enough to understand everything and read most things pretty well, but, without constant practice, my speech is not what I wish it was, and I would sooner write in crayon than write a letter in Russian.

When writing dialogue, I hear it in both Russian and English, and try to find a language that combines the two.
I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian.
Just as the Russians and the Soviets didn't manage to wipe out languages in Lithuania, neither have they managed to wipe out religion to the extent that we had feared.

After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. When I attended fourth grade, I had to learn Russian as my first foreign language in school. I found this quite difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, but as time went on, I seemed to do all right.
Putin imagined it would be different.
So, like many Russian leaders before him, he imagined that Ukraine was basically Russia, but they speak with a funny accent. Actually, it's not Russia; it has a different identity. It has a very different language. Russians don't automatically understand Ukrainian. And, in particular, the way Ukraine has developed over the last two decades is different from the way Russia has developed.
Here in the U.S. we do have a problem with a president Donald Trump who uses language in two distinctly destructive ways. One is to lie, and to use words to mean their opposite. Like, when he calls the Russian investigation a "witch hunt." He can't call it a "witch hunt" because a witch hunt is something that a powerful person does against a powerless person. The most powerful man in the world cannot be the object of a witch hunt.

After [Donald] Trump and his campaign manager both initially denied having anything to do with the platform change, a Trump campaign official now admits that the campaign pushed to soften the Russian language in the platform. It says it was done specifically at Trump`s request.
One limits oneself in this country if you come as a legal immigrant to this country and you choose to only speak your language whether it be Polish or Russian like many of my own relatives who came here if you speak only Russian and Polish you're limiting your opportunities in the United States.
There's a huge and hungry market for the books on style and fashion in Russia, though the books should be done in Russian, not English since there are few readers who've master foreign languages well enough to buy foreign editions.

I love languages (I speak French and Spanish and have been studying Russian) and accents; so one definite dream role would be being able to combine those elements into a character.
What happens when you speak colloquial Hebrew is you switch between registers all the time. So in a typical sentence, three words are biblical, one word is Russian, and one word is Yiddish. This kind of connection between very high language and very low language is very natural, people use it all the time.
I have to admit that I don't even try to speak Russian, though I understand it perfectly. I wouldn't want to insult the language by testing out my pronunciations

If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.
We must create the conditions for immigrants to normally integrate into our society, learn Russian and, of course, respect our culture and traditions and abide by Russian law. In this regard, I believe that the decision to make learning the Russian language compulsory and administer exams is well grounded. To do so, we will need to carry out major organisational work and introduce corresponding legislative amendments.
It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day.
Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.

Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul?