A little explanation: Russian, Belarusian and 1 "foreign" languages are part of the compulsory school curriculum for any child in the country. So at the end of the school, anyone speaks 3 languages (of course, in varying degrees of quality). The most common foreign language is English, but there are schools in which German, French, Spanish, etc. are also studied.
@@judew.5872 and I don't understand why in the USA you know only one and not even brits English? How comes? Maybe because you have a large country (from the sun to the snow) and of course you pretend everyone knows american. Yes grammatically at least very easy and this is good. Mhhhhh now? I would be interested to learn 3 languages or mhhh 2?
@@tamo3041 I do find it sad as an American that our school system doesn’t care about foreign languages that much. I will say that we all understand British English just fine so why waste time learning it. I remember that my middle school cut out Spanish from the curriculum so we had no foreign language. Needless to say, I was excited to take German in high school and am studying Russian on my own, although I am horrible at it. As you said, America is such a large country that many of US don’t feel the need to go abroad. I would love to go abroad but it’s still expensive. There’s less motivation for us to learn languages unfortunately because most people aren’t anywhere near the border with Mexico, the only neighbor of ours that doesn’t speak English. Europeans tend to not travel as far in order to encounter another language so there is more motivation there.
@@willyorgy4677 you are right by you it is really a fact of school. In others coutries .....it is different, smaller so there are borders or English music and much more. I didn't learn at school to much but yes example french it gave me the basis. And immagine as teen it was more difficout to understand (yes in real life not in school) french instead of English. (Mother language is Italian)
You're right. There were far fewer native speakers of the Czech language. And they saved him. To save the Belarusian language, it is necessary to change the regime to pro-Belarusian. To make available public services and higher education in Belarusian, to provide an opportunity for a social lift for Belarusian speakers. There are fewer Estonian speakers now, but this language is not threatened with extinction, because the authorities are on the side of the people and culture
@@Kniazhnami The thing is, Russian lang is native to a lot of those people. Many of them were born in the USSR, some have close ties with Russians. I'm from RU and both me & my friends from BR would like to see a more liberal and democratic govt here, but I hope they won't suddenly make all education and documentation on Belarussian and prohibit guys with Russian origin to have any places in the parliament or police/army of the state, isolating Russians and not giving them any opportunities, like your respectable country did. Bc if after any democratic change in Eastern Europe Russian minority would suffer and be given a grey passport again and again, I guess Putin's support will grow larger and larger among them.
@@AntonPavlovich2000Are you sure a European government forbade people with Russian origin to be part of the government? Or are only people with not a passport of the country allowed to join the government
@@sollte1239 Guys who work for the state in Estonia have Estonian roots. If you are Ivan Petrov, you won't work on state jobs (even before Feb 24). That's mainly about "you may be a Russian agent of influence or smth else" and they are paranoid about it. Even their cringey pro-Russian KOOS party is led by an Estonian. Though there is around 22% of ethnic Russians in the country. (30+% before). In Latvia it's the same, Lithuania has a more balanced approach.
@@Wisco_sin because some of them were hidden by RU-vid due to some curse words in them or something like that. But probably you can see them among your notifications.
They don't count their native language and say "two". They're often disappointed to only speak one extra language. They're actually amazing for nearly all being bilingual 👏👏
Here is the thing, they do count it so some Belarusians don’t speak Belarusian whatsoever and if they do they will mainly barely know it. And of top of that it is not a hard language for Russian speaking Belarusians so they might have learned it if they really wanted to.
@@borivoj_navratil The absolute majority surely understands Belarusian. But there's a big difference between passive and active vocabulary. Passive vocabulary allows reading books or listen to news on TV. Active vocabulary is necessary for actually fluently speaking the language. Lack of actual speaking practice due to various reasons results in deterioration of the active vocabulary. Are you from Belarus yourself?
Russian and Belarusian languages are similar, as well as Belarusian and Ukrainian. I can watch videos in Ukrainian because of my knowledge of Belarusian and I understand almost everything.
5:43 - What a pleasant surprise for Bulgarian! :) I had a totally unexpected opportunity to work with Belarussians while I was in Spain before the pandemic for a pilot, online IT-related project. I was stunned how easy and smart people they are. The group consisted of only 5 people but ALL of them were very intelligent. I can only say good things about them. Amazing 2,5 year experience! Special greets from a Bulgarian.
@@poher822 само лексикално обаче. Всъщност по същия параметът, белоруският език е по-близък с българския отколкото българският е с руския. Интересно нали?
The last guy said - it's too late for him to start studying foreign language. Last year I engaged in German studies as my elder son urged me while I was in hospital ("any way you have nothing to do there"). This year I'll turn 67 and I'm far from thinking that it is too late for me. Beside my native Lithuanian I am (of course) fluent in Russian, my English is also pretty good as it is my business language for 30 years or even more now. Apart from these 3 I know Polish (on the conversational level) and some Latvian which I wish to improve. Also, due to the recent circumstances, I can understand Ukrainian quite well, together with Belorussian because these two are very similar and knowing both Russian and Polish they are not difficult to understand.
Ahaha, its always good to study up on multiple languages, in honesty it took me around 8 years in total to master English as being born in the UK! However when you've mastered your own native tongue and writing, your able to achive much more in life, I know French, German, Spanish, bit of Italian and Japanese while studying on the Russian Language. Your never too old or young to understand a language when others are there to help build it up, again though foreign languages shouldn't stop you from communication, the primary way humans communicate is through body language, glad to see people from Europe understands each other.
@@_MinskBelarus This is why I wrote "maybe", as a Ukrainian I understand Polish very little, and Ukrainian and Belarussian languages are 86% similar, hence that Belarusians understand almost as well as Ukrainians, it is certainly far from the conversational level, but it is guaranteed to understand some words from the conversation.
@@flintstudios I would say Belorussian is 90-95% similar to Russian when Ukrainian is about 70-75% (to Russian). The only thing that different is pronunciation (especial in Ukrainian). Russians need a week of practice to almost fully understand Belorussian and about a month to understand Ukrainian.
As a ukrainian I speak Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, English and understand (but can't speak as well for now) Belarussian, Czech, a little Bulgarian and Serbian Thats because all slavic languages are very similar to each other and its very easy to learn to slavic people (you just need to know some basic from this languages, like pronunciation of letters and it will go very easy)
@@bremsshadow8722 belorussian and ukranian in fact it is dialects of russian, practicly no difference. I Russian and i can understand poland and serbian, but i never learn this languages. Just slavic languages real very close.
@@freek1zsz427 Ну я был как то в РФ в гостях у родственников и они попросили что то на украинском сказать,я сказал им простейшое предложение и они ничего не поняли
As a Turk who speaks Russian and who lived in Russia and Ukraine for a while,I really cannot understand Ukrainian.Of course,I can get the point,but an effective reading or listening is really impossible for me.
Nice to see so many people declaring knowledge of Polish! In fact Belarussian and Polish are of course related to each other, so it's easy for us to learn and understand neighbouring languages.
Belarus and Poland are much more similar than they seem to be. I moved to Poland at the age of 14 and the course of history is almost the same in both countries. The only difference is that a lot of people who are considered to be Belarusian in Belarus(Emilia Plater, Konstanty Kalinowski, Kościuszko, Adam Mickiewicz, Damejko) are for some reason written as Poles in Polish history books. I guess we should just agree somehow that it’s our shared history.
Let's see. While sailing on the Baltic, I've gotten to use Swedish, German, Estonian and Russian along with my native Finnish. Sadly, in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, I've had to resort to English, and in Denmark, to Swedish. (Disclaimer: I've never sailed to Russia, Lithuania or Poland; I've traveled to Lithuania and Poland by ferry and train, but never visited Russia. I did visit the USSR though, once, went to Riga via Tallinn with my grandparents in 1988. First the ferry Georg Ots to Tallinn, then an Aeroflot Tupolev to Riga. The pilot made some impressive turns when we were nearing Riga.) Should probably learn those languages too. Would be cool to be able to sail all around the Baltic and speak to locals in their own language in all the countries. (Although I don't really know when it'd make sense to sail to Russia.) (Something I've never considered before - the Baltic Sea is almost a European Union inland sea these days, with the exception of Kaliningrad and the Russian coastline in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland.)
And immagine i live in a place for now where a dialect differs also in a space of one km. Ok it is understandable anyway but immagine if they have to change some words and I ask a professor why: he told me competition and fear. Fear of what I don't know.....maybe because everyone lies? Ok I have to make a phone call and search a piece of bread mhhhh where? Maybe luga they hate me less.
Wow, so impressive! I am guessing people in Europe as a whole speak multiple languages, where in Canada and the US only certain areas speak multiple languages, aside from the immigrants from other countries.
Don't take it to seriously. Most of us basically know a couple of phrases and claim that we know the language. In fact most of us cant hold a proper conversation in another language even though we learn a foreign language in school. And if you know Russian, Ukrainian or Belarussian you will understand any of these language at 95%. It means they can't talk but completely understand the languages in question.
Well cause you guys speak English and second language is not essential for you :) it's nice to have but nothing more. Imagine if I only knew Polish... I wouldn't be able to work in a well paid occupation (mostly international environment and clients) and I wouldn't be able to travel. It's not like all people here are fluent in English but most of them can at least communicate without major issues. It's a necessity.
I speak English only (I live in Canada on the west coast) but I wish I knew five or more languages. French is compulsory but when I went to school, you could opt out after 3 years of French if you chose to go to a technical college after school. Our French teacher was Scottish and it was difficult as it was to understand his English as he had a very thick Scottish accent. His French was almost impossible to undestand which is why I opted out. My friend is Japanese and married a Canadian guy. She was actually born in South America as a number of S American countries have large Japanese populations. Their daughter grew up learning to speak English (her first language), Japanese and Spanish since her mother also spoke it. She went to a French immersion school (where the school curriculum is taught almost entirely in French). She is now completely fluent in 4 languages but she is the exception since most children only grow up speaking English with an elementary grasp of French even if it is also an official language of Canada.
wow it's great that you have a friend who is from South America, what country does he live in? I am also from South America, from Chile, although I understand that there is a large Japanese community in Peru.
@@larsbender3862 No, actually four good friends who WERE originally from South America but are Canadians now and have been living here for many years. The one I wrote about is originally from Argentina. She moved to Canada and moved her mother here too about two decades ago. Her mother speaks Spanish and Japanese with very basic English. The other three are: one from Chile (where you live now) who was escaping the regime then (speaks Spanish, of course and excellent English but still has his accent 😊); one from Brazil, married to a Canadian guy (speaks Portuguese and excellent English with a strong accent); and lastly, a *very* good friend from Colombia who moved from Canada to Colombia as a young child with her parents. She married a sweet guy from Colombia and they ended up moving back to Canada and had four wonderful kids here. She speaks both English and Spanish with no accents.
Should practice up German, Spanish or even Russian, I've practed on those mainly since our French teacher was also from Scotland, her accent was easy to understand, just not when she was also studying up French since it was a teacher paid extra so the school could save funds on not hiring someone experienced :( Ever since then, met a German friend, French friend and even a Spanish friend, each taught me bit by bit and in return they started speaking English, so we both helped eachother to achive new languages and it felt amazing to do! Its easy too, just repetition, never leave a word unread and keep at it, one day you'll speak the words your reading.
Is so limiting in what sense? As far as I’m aware, a person who speaks English can communicate almost anywhere. I do agree that knowing a different language (I’m fluent in 2 and OK in a third) is helpful if one spends a lot of time in a place where the other language is spoken.
English is a very useful language, but it's great to learn another language, too. The process of learning a language is such an interesting and satisfying journey, and it's not a race as you have the rest of your life to continue improving.
While I agree that knowing just one language is limiting, English has an order of magnitude more words than my own so you could be excused for getting lost in it.
Some people were so funny , love the sense of humor. I only wonder what they understand under "knowing a language". For me that is make at least a normal conversation with someone , not just know some words or phrases.
It depends greatly on the person, as it is a subjective matter, in my humble opinion. Take me, for example. Besides my native Hungarian, I speak English fluently (not at a native level of course, but I'm content with my English skills), and I can also understand and speak Russian, however I'm far from being fluent in that language, but I definetly know a lot more than some odd words and phrases. I could easily order a beer in Russian, or ask for directions in Russian, which implies a certain level of the ability to speak and understand a language, but not fluency.
Very sympathetic people. Interesting that hardly anyone speaks only Belarusian. As a German, I think it's very cool that a few people there speak German 👍
That is what colonization does. The natives get overrun by their masters and forced to pick up the new language. Those that only speak Russian are eighter from colonizing russian families, or they completly assimilated to their overlords. Sad regardless.
@@TroenderTass so what’s the problem to stop speak it? Is someone forcing them? No. They choose Russian because its the most used language on the internet after English. A lot of scientific articles and books are written in this language or translated into this language. What kind of colonisation are you even talking about. Don’t actually answer. I’m not interested in your opinion
@@lukaspodolski8139 Since you aren't interested in their opinion allow me to answer instead. During the period between 1945-1991 many people from East Germany to Russia were indeed forced to learn Russian. Also, you are correct in that when they gained independence many younger people chose not to learn Russian, as they were no longer forced to.
I’am so happy that a girl was wishing to learn Portuguese, my native language! All young people will be warmly welcome in Portugal. Weather is warm and food is good, so… why not?
@@evertonmv1217 it’s a sad story., but in the end justice was made: his wife received a 800.000,00€ compensation from the Portuguese Government and the 3 persons involved are in jail.
I came to rest in Lisbon and Porto. Beautiful and open people. I really enjoyed the live music and Portuguese songs. They touch the strings of the Belarusian soul
"pretending" is it a correct word? I'm not a native english speaker, so i'm a little confused. I thought to pretend means to behave so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not (synonim to lie).
Whats the problem in the learning some language in the era of Internet? On RU-vid, it is easy to find lessons on any language -- even the most exotic ones...
@@user-jm3xl7rg5k Nothing wrong with learning different languages via the Internet, RU-vid or whatever, I do this as well. My comments geared towards the older ones who learned these languages organically through movement, and what interesting story they may have as to what caused the movements. Like the gentleman that speaks Moldovan, Azerbaijan, Belarusian and Russian.
The usefulness and opportunity to practice foreign lanuages have increased many times over with the internet. For example I greatly appreciate that I can take part in discussions about my hobbies in German forums, apart from English and (my native) Swedish ones. In Sweden foreign film and TV is not dubbed, but instead subtitles are always used, so hearing foreign languages is also easy. But of course we all want to visit other countries. Talk to the people, eat the food and so on. (I wonder what went wrong in Putins head and heart?)
of course there is a difference, as a russian i can understand about 30% of belarussian language because it sounds familiar, and it's the same with ukrainian, and it works in both sides. but at the same time, it's dramatically hard to russian citizen to understand czech, polish, serbian or some other slavic languages
The language distance between Belarusian and Polish or also Belarusian and Russian is the same - 36 points. It is similar to the distance between Flemish and English - 37 points of 100. German is much closer to flemish - 25 points.
I love to hear that many can speak german, my native language!! I assume they consider german as a nice/ beautiful language, as i consider russian as beautiful. I want to become fluent in russian so bad :)
In UK many of us have remains of school French, German or Spanish to a low level convenient for ordering drinks or being polite. Meanwhile on holiday abroad waiters and other hotel staff can speak an impressive number of languages. In UK again a number can also speak Gaelic or Welsh.
That's a revelation, people who work in hotels and speak with tourists from different places all day every day have a good knowledge of many different languages.
@@heybabycometobutthead So? It’s almost a given when we travel abroad. How often will you come across that degree of linguistic expertise in UK hotels and restaurants. Do you imagine staff just pick it up by telepathy? They learn languages.
I feel like a failure only knowing one language. Kudos to all these people. Much respect. I regret not learning a language when I was young. (I’m an old man now. Like the last guy said, About time to kick the bucket)
I'm learning other languages as a precaution and for better opportunities. In my country I feel that business is getting worse and taxes are rising. The worst are the laws that make my business difficult. I guess you didn't learn another language because you didn't really need to. If you really need to learn another language, it's easy on the internet. For those who speak English, I believe that French or German is easier. For me who speak Portuguese, it was easy to learn Spanish.
You don't need to. I have taken classes in English, German, Russian, and Spanish. I can count on one hand circumstances where the last three have actually been useful to me. Language is a tool for communication. That's it.
Can't see the flag on small screen but if you're Serbian, drop that idiotic "panslavism". We won't be friendlier towards you just because you're Slavic - you need to stop whining about NATO 1999, and stop kissing Russia's ass. I mean, Kusturica was my hero, now he speaks on Russian TV, that's a complete disgrace.
Good one. Great concept. I am surprised that more Belarusians speak Russian than Belarusian. And English is their 3rd language, following just behind Belarusian. One could psychologically profile the entire Belarusian base of people based on the premise: do you study languages in order to work in Russian speaking areas, or do you study English in order to work in the West?
Russian, Belarusian and one foreign language (which is English in most cases) are taught in schools. Learning all of these languages is compulsory and this is a part of the standard education. Only mentally handicapped or disabled persons may be exempt and allowed not to learn Belarusian. In the old soviet times, children of soviet military personnel (often migrants from the other parts of the Soviet Union) were allowed not to learn Belarusian language in Belarusian schools. That's why some of the 50+ years old may have serious difficulties with understanding the Belarusian language. Some people also could have migrated to Belarus in their adult age and never attended a Belarusian school. But despite learning languages at school, many are not confident in their language skills. They either don't mention the language at all or make a disclaimer about their poor skills.
@Анти Наука I studied higher mathematics in a Belarusian university in Belarusian when it still wasn't forbidden. There are textbooks and dictionaries. Regarding the translation of terminology, do you mean translation from English? Because English is the international language of modern science and Russian is just one of the multiple local languages.
Native russian speaker here, I know english and have been studying german, spanish and japanese. I thinks it's fun thing to do but I actually don't believe I'd ever have a necessity to talk in these languages, so I'm okay with only knowing english as foreign language
I'm surprised to see some of them don't know (?) their local language. I knew that they also speak Russian in Belarusia but didn't know it was more common than their native language. Thanks for the video!
Belarusian was banned and people who speak Belarusian take to local nazi centres (oh, I mean , to police station). Belarus was influenced by russia and lukashenko is Kremlin puppy
@@sollte1239 Не понятно откуда взялась Россия во времена СССР... Коммунисты скорее больше хотели унифицировать союз и дать людям образование, чем выводить из оборота отдельные десятки или сотни языков. Ради этого из русского языка даже убрали много правил и 3 буквы.
Belarusians are a lovely people! Had the pleasure to make many friends there in 2021, despite the shit government they have. They were all very clear how much they hate it, but some were more careful before talking about it. I truly hope they will get the democracy and freedom they dream of sooner rather than later.
а почему study а не learn ? Парень на 1:31 минуте говорит, что изучает Английский и в переводе у вас указано study. Если я не ошибаюсь то будет правильнее в данном случае будет learn English.
as an American I can speak some english, but I can curse fluently in mexican(spanish, its really not the same), german, french, italian and a little bit of Ukrainian & russian(recent war videos help).
@@encycl07pedia- All the people who responded to these questions meant to say they speak ‘American’, then. So do you! Thus the spelling of ‘encyclopedia’.😂
Kudos to these folks !!! I tryed, I can't learn any of them..........took tons of spanish class's & all I can do is read the menu at Los Amegos.......Oh wait, it's in English !!
Such multi-lingual people. Impressive. Seems more people in Belarus speak English than Belarusian. I find it hard to understand how that is. There's a a whole world out there that I have no idea. Thanx for the insight. Interesting, even if baffling.
*I find it hard to understand how that is.* It's not hard, it's called repression from Lukashenko/Putin. I'm actually surprised to see that a lot of people still can speak Belarusian - I thought it was less.
There's a dark truth behind it: only a fifth of Belarusians speak their language, the rest speaks Russian. It's much worse than in Ukraine, where in the west only 2% speak Russian.
In the 90s belarusian was the only official language, but Putin's and Lukashenko agreed in adding Russian as well in the 2000s Also the partial isolation the country has from the West due to its regime made it closer to Russia than any other ex soviet country (Latvia was almost 45% Russian at one Point, but the narrow majority, of Latvians, after the collapses of the Ussr, heavily disencouraged Russian to save and revive the Latvian Nation. Now around 23% Latvians are Russians and 35% speak Russian at home. In Belarus the opposite happened since it was already majority Russian by 1991, Russian was encouraged and Belarusian repressed
I am Ukrainian, but I have been living in Russia for a very long time. Therefore, I know Russian, English and not much Ukrainian with French. A few years ago I studied Spanish, but now I don’t remember anything😅
@@rockmusicman21 Quite normal. You will be treated well if you do not tell everyone that you are against the war. But there were a couple of disputes and discussions when I talked about my position to the "wrong people"
@@izio9747 у меня три вопросы для вас (никакая провокация, просто хочу знать что люди Донбасса думают и делаю эти вопросы людям оттуда); 1- В Донбассе действительно есть многие про-русские люди? А: Да, очень много. B: Нет, это пропаганда из России. C: ну....50%-50%. 2- Украинская армия бомбила/бомбит Донбасс? A: Да, очень жестоко. Украинцы не жалели/жалеют нас. B: ни как нет, всё это пропаганда. C: бомбили, но украинцы хотели попасть на вооруженных сепаратистов (сепаратистов или героев Донбасса, кто как понимает) а не на мирных жителей. 3- Донбасс это: 1- Украина 2- Россия 3- Украина, но большой автономии (так как Каталония в Испании).
@@SlavBoss-sn5cv 1. До 2014 скорее 50/50 Сейчас там остались одни про-российские люди и в основном это пенсионеры или женщины с детьми. Мужчин, даже инвалидов и пенсионеров почти всех мобилизировали и они буквально прячутся. 2. Очень сложно сказать, обстрелы и нападения были с обеих сторон. Были даже рассказы от родственников моих что проукраинские ребята скоординировали на сброс бомбы в пункт выдачи воды где помимо нескольких военных так же было много мирного населения естественно. Так что скорее С, но предполагаю что особо не было жалости, так как к тому времени остались только пророссийские жители. 3.Украина и Россия. Не надо забывать что часть Донбасского бассейна находится на территории России) Но вот на счёт Крыма так сказать не могу, там действительно большинство хотели присоединения к России, так как там было слабое развитие инфраструктуры.
acho que nunca vi alguem a querer aprender português!😱eu ando a aprender russo, e fiquei mesmo surpreendido quando ela disse que queria aprender português hahahahha
I think you'd better just ask people "How many languages do you speak?" Because generally there isn't only one language in one country. For example, In Russia there are Yakut Shaka Tatar Komi... In Spain there are Spanish Catalan Basque... In China there're Cantonese Hokkien Mandarin Tibetan Mongolian... In India there're Hindi Tamil Bengali... And even some people can't speak their native language 😅 Your video title is "How many languages do you speak?" but in the video you asked "How many foreign languages do you speak?" Seems some people included their native language, but some people didn't. I'm confused :)
Thank you all for speaking English it helps us lazy English by not having to learn a different language , but the guy 1.31 will never learn English by being a Newcastle united supporter
@@LMB222 Not ‘legible’? Sorry, genius, ‘legibility’ applies to writing, not typing, which, of course, is what people do on the internet. So much for ‘proper’ English - what a moron!😂
Wouldn't that be the same as me as a Norwegian adding Swedish and Danish to the list? As those are similar to my native tounge. I speak German and English, my written German is probably sehr schlecht now. No practice makes one forget. Thank you for your report. Interesting as always. Stay safe! 💙 💛
Belarusian and Ukrainian are almost the same but Russian is quite different because it takes more from Old Bulgarian than from the ruthenian root language of Belarusian and Ukrainian.
If you study these languages, then you will need to study each separately. for Ukrainians and Belarusians, this is a nice bonus that they initially know several languages from the very beginning.
“Wouldn't that be the same as me as a Norwegian adding Swedish and Danish to the list?” If you are talking about those few people who said “Ukrainian”, then yes. Although it is not possible to know every person's circumstances and what they implied when they replied so.
I don't think it's the same, because in Belarus most people actually speaks Russian, but some people also speak Belarusian. But I don't think that Scandis can actually speak each other's languages, maybe they can understand each other etc. but I don't know if you would count that as speaking. I'm Polish and I can understand Czech and Slovak, but I wouldn't say I speak Czech or Slovak, whereas Belarusians actually speak Russian and some of them speak Belarusian.
To do this, you need to ask them something in English. You don't know how things really are. My English speaking friends had no problem talking to local young people on the street to ask for the right way and advice on local restaurants
While I was in college, a fellow student at the apartment house was fluent in six languages. From a very young age, his parents and each of his two older siblings spoke one language each in his presence, thus he knew four languages before he graduated high school. He later learned two additional languages. For spare money he translated and typed foreign technical journals, so apparently he was quite fluent in them. As I recall they were English, French, Russian, Spanish, Swedish (?), and German. Alex, I hope the intervening years have been good to you. It was a pleasure knowing you.
as a Ukrainian, I was very surprised at how few Belarusians speak Ukrainian, because Ukrainian and Belarusian are very similar (84 percent of the total vocabulary).
Understanding is significantly easier than speaking. I can understand Ukrainian speech reasonably well after learning most of the common unknown words, but I can't speak it. I wouldn't claim any kind of Ukrainian language proficiency, because I will be surely making a lot of mistakes even with the most basic phrases. But I know that some Belarusians started speaking Ukrainian after moving to Ukraine.
Беларусу не патрэбна вучыць украінскую, таму што ён яе і так збольшага ведае. Навогул, мы можам размаўляць кожны на сваёй мове і выдатна адно аднаго разумець.
@@ceasarby1033 а я би повчив беларускую мову. Мені подобається звучання - воно видається якимось архаїчно-величним. Мабуть через більш тверду вимову приголосних. Але вже після війни, адже наразі не дуже доречно.
Well as most of people said in comments we study Russian and Belarussian languages as well as one additional. Also fun fact . In fact we can speak Belarusian we can understand and speak polish and ukrainian languages. Also we have a lot of different languages at our schools. On my own I can speak around 8: Russian, Belarusian , Polish, Ukrainian, English, French, Deutsch, Hebrew.
I speak Spanish (native), English (intermediate/ conversations with friends) AND started learning russian 2 months ago (beautiful language but rather hard to learn)
Thank you all for your positive comments, i'll do my best to learn hahaha, but i must admit that with russian verb conjugation i'm starting to panic😰. I guess depending on your native language it can become more or less difficult to learn
When someone asked how many languages you can speak, I assume its excluding your native language since of course you would be good in it. If you can speak another one or more languages fluently apart from your native tongue, its already quite impressive.
Bad idea, it's inconsistent. People can have multiple native languages or in extreme cases, they can have none at all (e.g. abandoned child). In your definition, if someone says 0, it's ambiguous. If they say 1, it's also ambiguous, because now you don't know if that person actually knows two languages or you're just talking to someone who was dropped in the middle of the forest and only learned to speak later in his life. On a more practical note, I have a friend who's Russian-Romanian. She's ethnically Russian and speaks Russian at home, but she was also taught to speak Romanian since she was a child, because it's the language everyone else uses. So if she said 1, because she also knows English, it would hide the fact that she actually speaks 3 languages.
I am Belarusian, I live in the city of Brest, on the border with Poland, and therefore I understand the Polish language well (at one time we were in the Polish state.) And plus Polish television is not far away. I know a little English and as a child I was taught German for one year. I understand the Ukrainian language well. But I speak Russian. My mother spoke only Belarusian. I didn't know Russian. But I grew up in an orphanage where everyone spoke Russian. In the cities they speak Russian, in the villages somewhere in Belarusian, somewhere in Ukrainian. Russian language prevails.
You forget Portuguese 1 !!! lolol interesting, Я немного говорю на русском, белорусском, родном испанском и продвинутом португальском и среднем английском, немного на французском и понимаю итальянский :D
will be more (like on the entire planet) in the future as english is kind of the new native language of the planet among the many local language. its also due to a demographical shift: planetwide youngsters are better with English while the older generations with none or less English speakers are dying year by year. this represents also the difference between the 20. century (ppl lived more isolated or rather with the immediate neighbors - among local dominating languages vs. in the 21. century there is now a much more global impact and fluctuation and mixing. 30 years ago English was for most kind of 'School English' without much practice because no need. This changed now, you need it all the time ...
I'm European living in Venezuela. Spanish is my 5th language. In Venezuela everybody is monoglot and they think they are better than me since I don't speak Spanish as good as they do. I have had youngsters laughing in my face "You don't speak Spanish?". When you visit Venezuela you could speak all the languages in the World, but if your Spanish (Castellano) is not excellent....Venezuelan monoglot will let you know you are underneath him/her.
lol. They come from a sh...y South American country. You should ask them what it's like being Brazil's neighbor and how most of the world can't even locate Venezuela on a map.
English is the language of the world, everyone should learn it so that all humans can communicate with each other, wouldn’t that be great? Here in India, there are so many languages but all the road signs are in English.
Belarusians have no negative sentiments towards English language. And it will be only more popular in the future thanks to Internet. It's interesting to encounter an Indian who looks at English language in a positive way. Many Indians, that I communicated with, could not get over their grudges about their colonial past in one way or another.
@@vozism322 Haha. No, that is not the reason (although it is indeed an easy language - I speak as an English person with several languages). Explanation: the largest empire in the world was administered from London for about 150 years. After that another English-speaking country, USA, assumed the role of linguistic superpower. For decades there were huge parts of the world where despite this no-one really needed to know English. But that all changed with the Internet, and also the adoption by international business and also the EU of English as their lingua franca. It's all over now. Neither Spanish nor Chinese even come close. I hope there will be enough love for other languages to live. For example, one language which I know is Irish. Irish people have quite a funny attitude towards the language (which is very difficult). Most people have affection for it but they find it daunting to actually speak because, for many historical reasons, the society went beyond the point of using it frequently. It's hard to get back from there, very hard.
Нет, это не здорово, английский просто подавляет языковое разнообразие других стран. Сейчас легко можно встретить эмигранта, который за годы жизни в другой стране и двух слов не выучил, потому что «ну все же говорят на английском» :|
Was pleasantly surprised to hear quite a few of them have basic knowledge of German. And I would like to know how close are Russian and Belorusian, I mean is the latter considered a separate language or merely a distant regional dialect? Would a guy from Moscow understand a belorusian without ever studying the language?
The difference is bigger than between Polish and Czech. Belarusian is a old Slavic language. In 1933, the Soviets forcibly reformed the Belarusian language to bring it closer to Russian and forbade the use of the Latin alphabet. If you take a newspaper from 1918, it will be in Belarusian in Latin script. To date, there are two spelling options - tarashkevitsa and norkamovka (Soviet version), as well as the Latin script and even Belarusian Arabic
i'm russian and i don't understand belarusian or ukrainian whatsoever. russian dialects are easy cause at worst i just have to ask what a certain word means, the foundation of the language is the same.
Я беларус, и я говорю на русском, отлично знаю белорусский, но из-за отсутствия практики не могу говорить на нем так же свободно как и на русском, хотя очень хотелось бы. Кроме этого, отлично понимаю украинский, но плохо на нем говорю, знаю английский на базовом уровне, благодаря чему могу объяснить на английском что угодно, но с кучей грамматических ошибок, а так же на минимальном уровне понимаю польский
We would like it. But the occupation administration thinks otherwise ((. Those who went abroad make their RU-vid channels in Belarusian, unite families to open Belarusian classes for children in the countries where they live
I'm Belarusian and can guarantee you that it's impossible to speak Belarusian without being glanced at, although most people would have respect for you, especially if you are a youngster. People don't get to practise communicating in Belarusian with each other, hence they tend to forget some of their vocab over time.
Спасибо для ето видео 😎. It's unfortunate that more Americans don't speak multiple languages - I think if you asked this in the US you would get almost no one with more than English! Мне очень нравится русский язык!
@@taylorbrown8329 I'm American. It's not a generalization. According to the US census, 26% of Americans can speak a second language compared to the international average of 56%, but, that's a misleading number at that because 13% of Americans are naturalized foreign born and then on top of that, kids of foreign born parents most likely speak a second language at home So put that together and you have a very small percent of Americans second generation and past knowing a second language. Thanks for checking in though with your..... opinion.
A large part of the US population is given the option of studying different languages in high school. In the United States, in fact, more than 400 languages are spoken due to the fact that there is a lot of immigration from different parts of the world, so there may be a large percentage of people who are bilingual. Please do not fall into prejudice.
I kinda wish I was able to speak 2 languages fluently but in the west that is just not needed in their country they seem to have very good language skills.
I speak 3 languages completely: Armenian, Russian, English. I can support the dialogue in: Serbian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Japanese (a new language that I am learning now). And the explanation why I can speak Belarusian, Ukrainian and Serbian is very simple - there are many neighbors of non-Russian nationality.
My family escaped from land close to later Latvian border from bolsheviks, I have even Belarusian family name. I'm polish, but due to our common heritage I am very interested in Belarusian history. Watching Belsat I can understand 70%, without knowing Belarusian . Żywie independent Belarus.
My mom is russian with Belarus and Polish roots, but we moved to Switzerland really long ago. So I speak: Züritüütsch, German, English, French, a bit Italian, Russian and barely Polish. Wanna learn Spanish also :)
I’m an American who can only speak English and a smattering of French. I’m very impressed with these people’s language skills. Much more English than I would have guessed.
they say they can speak all those languages, but how they speak it is a different story, i bet many of them say they speak a language even though they only know how to say hi how are you in it
Русский - мой родной язык, но я знаю английский C1 и базу испанского, для начала хочу выучить испанский как минимум до класса C1-C2, а так хочу учить арабский на египетском диалекте. Чёрт, арабский ну реально очень красивый язык! Мне предлагали учить остальные языки СНГ, но я об этом ещё думаю. Моя мама русская, но она всё детство прожила в Казахстане и знаете что? Чёрт, она на казахском шпарит порой лучше коренных жителей. Когда у неё спрашивают, "эй, а какой твой родной язык?" она всегда впадает в ступор 😄
Что для тебя являлось главным инструментов благоприятно влияющим на изучения иностранных языков? Моральная сторона важнее физической? Я имею в виду что большего прогресса ты достигла благодаря упорству и желанию или благодаря изучению с помощью курсов, приложений, препода?
@@dianadegtyar7533 тут если у тебя самого желания нет, то ничто ты и не выучишь, надо найти мотивацию чтобы начать, я например выучил англ. чтобы смотреть фильмы только в оригинале и также слушать песни, а вот если ты окажешься в среде где говорят этот язык, еще лучше
interesting - but ditch the music! I would like to see how much Russian I can understand but I can't hear them speak clearly. But thanks for the video. But, pleasantly surprised by how many people could speak Belarusian - I know Lukashenka has done almost nothing to support and normalise the language and there is still some stigma that it's the language of the "uneducated" and "peasants" or "old people". Glad to see so many (well, more than I expected) speak it in Minsk. All strength to Belarusian language.
Just checked on wikipedia and indeed, 70% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, only 23% speak Belarusian at home, crazy. edit: i speak French and English fluently, and some Dutch and Portuguese, though i'm a beginner in both languages.
@@wild_reader Well, it's all about patriotism. A lot of Belarusians basically lied during census about their "native language". They would like to speak Belarusian all the time and see more Belarusian language in public life, education, art, etc, but there are a lot of reasons why that's not happening right now. It will take decades to fully revive it.
You forgot to mention Moldovan and Georgian at the end of the video, which is kinda sad especially considering you didn't forget Swearing, which was mentioned only as a joke. Cool video though)
