Learning Russian in Budapest???

Goriders wrote:

....I know Russian is common in Hungary but I havent found many details on schools in Budapest that provide this. Does anyone have any experience with this, and can point me in the right direction..... or should I start jumping the hoops for Russia. Thanks in advance!!!!

Russian is not at all common in Hungary. Very few speak it. Everyone passed the Russian exam in school simply to satisfy the Russian occupiers and Communist authorities. The main foreign languages used here are German and English. I would not have any hesitation in suggesting German lessons in Hungary.

For Russian, I suggest you try the Baltics - Latvia or Estonia, perhaps Lithuania - which have large ethnic Russian populations and a pool of Russian teachers. The weather is not as good up there but it's the EU and you can find a teacher I'm sure.

If you feel adventurous, you could always do Ukraine or Georgia perhaps and relax at the seaside but visas might be a nuisance.

Thanks Fluffy, much appreciated. I was considerint the Ukraine as well, but I have heard they speak Russian a little differently there. I will check into it more. Thanks!

uhm,  enlighten us, how did you end up with the idea that Hungary is a good place for speaking Russian? there is this thing called 'internet' out there (just google for an 'introduction to surfing the web') which is great to get you informed about almost anything...
Next time, I will ask in the Canadian forum if 'Canadian' is much different from Russian. There are surely more Russians living in Canada than in Hungary.
Also, having lived in Berlin, it is full of.. a lot of nations, Russians very prominently featuring among them. Its only some 50% more expensive than Budapest and a great place. Certainly not a problem to get a Russian student to give you private lessons cheaply.

Anyway, a point in Fluffy's advise was that the baltic states are in the EU, while Ukraine and Georgia is not.
Ukrainian is officially a different language, even one or two letters are different, but I understand that it is so similar that the two may be easily intelligible mutually (check if interested).  So, indeed not a bad place, and certainly a good chance to try a different lifestyle for a while. And get a training in hard liquors, I guess...

Of course, much of the east-EU speaks a slavic language, which are at least similar enough for some basic conversation, but different in grammatical details. (Polish, Czech, Slovakia, or Bulgaria if you want it hot...)
Perhaps a Russian speaking region in the baltics is a better idea from the language learning point of view, but not sure about the other points of view...(saying this without knowing anything).

However, in case Hungary was not a semi-random choice, let me say, that it should not be a problem to get Russian taught to you in a major city here, certainly not in Budapest. It is still a major European language and relatively important for some bussiness, as you obviously know. But it will be specialised institutions/teachers and you won't bump into native speakers just by chance every day (as it happens, my aunt is one), you'd have to look for them.

And, as we all know, funding provided, Budapest is a really charming city to be in:-)

Thanks for the tips on the internet fireroller, actually I have used it before.  If you were to use it yourself you would find Russian language schools and tutors are not all that uncommon in Budapest, however I do now agree with you it is not the place to learn Russian. The reason I originally thought perhaps Budapest is I knew at one time it was mandatory to speak Russian in school but this was just to keep the communists happy as I discovered with more research. I have decided to jump through the hoops and go to Russia. Getting a 3 month student visa is not too difficult, and can be renewed to a 12 month multi entry visa so this is the route I will go with.

Goriders wrote:

...I have decided to jump through the hoops and go to Russia. Getting a 3 month student visa is not too difficult, and can be renewed to a 12 month multi entry visa so this is the route I will go with.

I reckon this is probably the best way to tackle it. I had another thought and that was to perhaps learn it in Moldova. I would be really cheap there I am sure.

If it were me though, I'd head for somewhere like Sochi. It's the Russia Riveria, warm, by the sea and it's got an airport that's well served by airlines. Putin is rumoured to have a massive pad there so must have excellent security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sochi

Goriders wrote:

Thanks for the tips on the internet fireroller, actually I have used it before.

oh, I see, yeah I hear its all the rage these days :-p

Goriders wrote:

If you were to use it yourself you would find Russian language schools and tutors are not all that uncommon in Budapest, however I do now agree with you it is not the place to learn Russian.

that's what I was meaning to say, I just typed a bit too carelessly...

Goriders wrote:

I have decided to jump through the hoops and go to Russia. Getting a 3 month student visa is not too difficult, and can be renewed to a 12 month multi entry visa so this is the route I will go with.

have fun! also a good place for liquor training, and  russians have the reputation to be typically pleasant company - apart for the unpleasant ones, obviously.
I wish my line of work would make it sensible to visit countries like russia a bit more often, but I will have to stick to the rich nations for now...

fireroller wrote:

there is this thing called 'internet'

Which is only useful if clear and understandable content is placed there. And a lot of clear information about Hungary is not easily available online in English. Which is why Goriders made a perfectly reasonable attempt to "come to the source" and ask at this forum.

What Hungarian information is provided online in English, in too many cases, is still often lacking in quality. I have seen many business and government web sites which will vary in their degree of misspellings, erroneous grammar or simply written in a way that is almost incomprehensible in English.

klsallee wrote:

there is this thing called 'internet'
Which is why Goriders made a perfectly reasonable attempt to "come to the source" and ask at this forum.

The non-question
"I know Russian is common in Hungary"
has awaken my super-sensitive national pride. I feel the implied statement that Hungary is too small to be worth knowing/researching things like what the local language is and how close it is to Russia or how long it was under Russian influence.
It is a bit far off from reality and touches on some cultural pride issues.

In turn, if I go to, say, a forum located in french-speaking-Canada, and ask if they have trouble to learn french (or even better: 'proper french' or announce that Russian is common there, or something like this  - should I not expect to harvest a certain level of, uhm, wondering?

But that may be my personal thing, so I apologise if anyone was hurt in the process.

klsallee wrote:

What Hungarian information is provided online in English, in too many cases, is still often lacking in quality. I have seen many business and government web sites which will vary in their degree of misspellings, erroneous grammar or simply written in a way that is almost incomprehensible in English.

I guess that is true, however there is still tons of stuff out there, certainly more in English than in Russian... :-) In my experience, government websites are not a good source on nearly anything. I am pretty much used to milk the internet, so I probably tend to underestimate the effort. Well, he is a full year older than me...

I still think, it was a valid side-question, how the statement about Russian being a common language here was deduced.

Whatever, I think we are a bit hijacking this forum entry and making a fuzz about nothing, making poor Goriders think we will cook and eat him, should he  at the end decide to come to budapest (true Hungarians prefer raw, anyway)

Fireball, there was no political assumptions involved when I made that off the wall statement that apparently hurt your "super sensitive national pride". For that I apologize.

Hungary is worth knowing/researching these things and that was the sole reason I originally posted this question. Please note the title (Learning Russian in Budapest???).

Your more than welcome to come to french speaking Canada and learn french. They have alot of french schools there (imagine that), however "proper french" may be subject to some debate. Sadly I would not suggest you go to Canada to learn Russian as it is not common there. I say this with my "national pride" 100% intact.

Hey, no need to apologise! I didn't assume anything that sinister from your side, my last post was more of a (perhaps less needed) reply to klsallee.

But I am aware that Canada is a good place to learn French, and that this may involve debates about 'proper french', that was actually what I was referring to, to make my point, badly as I see. I learned German in Austria, English in Wales, and was heavily advised by a Brazilians not to learn Portuguese in Portugal, so I kind of heard of similar situations.

But about learning Russian in Canada... at least Toronto is bigger, a more multi-ethnic and immigration-based society, offering a better university than Berlin (where I just graduated) hence, I would assume, enough Russians will be there to find one who is happy to teach us either for pocket money or for some other language in exchange. But indeed, I went there once to learn - English, how boring...
Nothing of the above is true for Budapest, in that sense I'd bet a few bottles of whatever that more Russians go to Canada than come here :-(
I had my last russian lessons in - Vienna... but no its not common there! :-)

Oh I missed this thread I guess (I'm back btw :-) )

For future readers:
There should be lots of 50+ Russian teachers around in Hungary, they just have different jobs now as demand disappeared 20+ years ago.

Many neighboring countries however have native languages more similar to Russian (relative to the similar-to-nothing Hungarian language.)