To know a language is to read, write, speak and understand that language. The better a child has mastered these skills, the better he or she has mastered the language.
It is wrong to say that I know Russian if I can only read it and find it difficult to write a letter. But every skill hides many pitfalls. After all, when we study a language, we unwittingly study someone else's thinking as well.
The skill of "writing in Russian"
The difficulty for children and sometimes adults is that in Russian you can't write as you hear. And some moments make you wonder. Why do you have to write "i" after "ts", but in the words "gypsy", "chicks", "chicken", "tsiklal", "tsits" you write "y"? Why are "how much" and "by how much" spelled differently?
Russians themselves admit that writing is difficult: you have to connect letters correctly, know where to put a comma and when to write "o" instead of "a". Yes, everything is not so unambiguous and the process of writing reflects this very well in life.
The skill of "reading Russian"
We are proud of Russian writers and the fact that we can read their books. Lermontov, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Bunin, and later Pasternak, Dovlatov, Nabokov, and Brodsky. And the point here is not only to enjoy the syllable, descriptions, plot. Reading Russian literature, we penetrate into the Russian soul, understand it more, become better and more moral. The list of writers who, according to Brodsky, influence the mind and soul includes our compatriots.
The skill of "speaking Russian"
It is easier for Russian children to understand where to put the accent in the word "curd", how to pronounce "wash" or "defending", what "kosil kosil" means, as they absorb it with their culture, with fairy tales, in kindergarten and school. It is more difficult for children of emigrants, because they are in a different cultural context. But it is quite possible to speak Russian, and even without an accent, if you want to. The main thing is to want to.
The skill of "understanding Russian"
All skills are complex, but this one is particularly different from the others. You can understand Russian only by understanding the peculiarities of thinking. How else can you explain that the phrases "aha, of course", "no, of course", "well, yes, of course", "yes no, probably", "aha, well, yes, of course" are negations?
Why in Russia has the phrase from the song "Poplar fluff, heat, July" become a symbol that a person is far over 18? And if we say: "He went to Invitro", the people around us will immediately guess that the person went to a medical laboratory, which means that one should ask about health and be ready to sympathize.
