Anybody speak Russian or Bulgarian?
How was Victor able to communicate to a Russian speaker (the guy with the pills) with the Bulgarian language? Aren't they two different languages?
shareMovie Magic. ;)
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Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
MovieChat Forums > The Terminal (2004) Discussion > Anybody speak Russian or Bulgarian?
The Russian and The Bulgarian languages are similar, both are Slavic languages.
shareEnglish and German are West Germanic languages too => Everyone ho speaks English understands German :)
share[deleted]
Interesting point you got there, Timmetie.
Does it mean UK is currently ruled by the US?
so many ignorants...i suppose you all are americans right? i cant wait to see the first american who can understand dutch,thinking that both of them are germanic languages...ikostudio...run to the hills and hide
sharei speak russian..yes they are different languages, but they are similar, if that makes any sense at all..they are both slavic languages..
If you're not part of the solution, be part of the problem!
No darkman, that would be because the UK ruled the US in it's early years before some tattle-tail yelled "the British are coming" lol.
shareIdiot.
shareNo, but we did break off from England, did we not?
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m.a.d.d.i.e
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Thats just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard...
Dutch and German, sure...
English and French, maybe...
But English and German, no way !
Sure, there are resemblances since they indeed are both Germanic, but not to that extent.
"Thats just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard...
Dutch and German, sure...
English and French, maybe...
But English and German, no way ! "
dude have you ever even heard german? there are TONS of german words that sound ALOT like english words, you probably wont be able to understand a whole lot if you dont speak german, but alot of words sound ALOT alike.. and just wondering, how does dutch and german sound alike??? and english and french...r u kidding?
If you're not part of the solution, be part of the problem!
i'm from Belgium, here we speak 3 official languages: dutch, french and german; considering i can speak all of them, including english, i think i'm an authority on what i'm about to say: YOU ARE WRONG ON EVERY POINT YOU MADE
1) dutch is my mother language and german is about the closest of all languages to dutch
2) i understand a lot of german and there are hardly no resemblances to english
3) there are on the other hand alot more resemblances between english and french (alot of vocabulary is the same but pronounced totally different), then between english and german
next time you have an imagined opinion about languages like english, french, german & dutch, better shut up before you meet a Belgian ;)
Hey, shmn! I´m sorry, are you replying to my post (because I got your post by mail as a reply to mine)? However, I have never said anything about Dutch or German, because unfortunately I don´t speak any of those languages and therefore I wouldn´t dream about giving any opinion on the matter.
So, it would be very nice if you could explain why I have to "shut up before I meet a Belgian".
Cheers!
....Brain is a muscle. Use it or lose it....
that's because i'm replying to Funkey_Munkey and not you ... i don't even get why you'd get an email about my reply to Funkey_Munkey, just check the nested thread
shareProbably an IMDB mistake. I don´t know why I got that mail. Anyway, sorry I attacked you.
Regards
....Brain is a muscle. Use it or lose it....
You are extremely stupid (not to mention completely illiterate). And, oh, don't pride yourself too much on Belgium, which is essentially a non-country. It always reminds me of Douglas Adams (if you don't get the reference, it's not my problem).
Hama cheez ba-Beer behtar meshawad!
Actually MacFundamentalist, English and French not so much as they are of two different language types.
Also, if you could speak ye olde English you would be able to converse with a Dutch person (not fluently of course but the similarities are astounding)
English has changed somewhat over the years but the grounding remains Germanic just as Russian and Bulgarian are Slavic.
I can speak english, and i've been taking German lessons for about 2 and a half years now and i still can't speak it. There might be a resemblance, (though i can't see it) but it really does not work that way. If it did i would be getting straight A's in German by now.
share[deleted]
Yeah he's right, was on a ski vacation there and i found it pretty easy to cammunicate with the locals (im russian myself).
p.s in bulgarian the word "yes" means "no" and "no" means "yes" - led to some freaking weired and funny incidents at first...
Not the word-yes is still yes,and no is still no-da and ne.However,if you shake your head for "i disagree"(for example)in Russia,its the other way around in Bulgaria.Nod for NO and shake for YES,if that makes any sense,lol. :D
And,yes,russian and bulgarian are pretty similar.
Perhaps you meant the way Bulgarians nod for Yes/No. Otherwise, Yes is Да and No is Не in Bulgarian. Не is Yes in Greek.
shareBulgaria was part of “Soviet Block”. Everybody had to have Russian as a second language in school – from grade three (3) to grade twelve (12) and more if somebody went to have a higher education. Russian is not my mother language – but I speak and read Russian fluently, thanks to 14years of studying it at school.
shareMy neighbor is Bulgarian, and he can "understand" and speak some Russian. I guess I can compare them to Spanish and Portoguese , perhaps... But he, my neighbor, owns a coffee shop and he was able to communicate with Russian customers.
shareIts a very similar dialect, I speak Polish and was surprised about the similarity to Polish
share[deleted]
My friend speaks Slovenian but is able to understand Czech. Slavic languages are quite similar when you take it down to the basics.
Everyone has the freedom of religion, but religion should be free.
~Anonymous
It's not like Victor and the Russian were having an intellectual conversation, so it's completely believable that they'd understand each other, even if slightly.
You are right, Slavic languages are quite similar in grammar, lexis and pronunciation, so if you are familiar with the context, or if it is not very difficult, Russians/Bulgarians/Polish/Chech/Ukranians etc. can understand each other, or at least make themselves understood. Plus, as some of the posters have already said, Russian used to be one of the major foreign languages learnt at Eastern European schools until early 90's....
But the trick is that the "Russian with the medicine for the goat" in the movie doesn't speak Russian Being Russian myself, I know that for sure:) I didn't understand a word from what he was saying, though it did sound like a Slavic language...
What I can't get here is why the producers would hire a gifted and popular Russian actor for the role which makes no sense at all, and make him speak gibberish at that?%%% share
My parents are Macedonian which was one of those countries a part of Yugoslavia so they understood a lot of it, I even knew some words although my skills in speaking the language is poor.
It might be different grammar and different words here and there most Slav languages can be understood if you know one language.
I bet that you look good on the dancefloor
Dancin to electropop like a robot
from 1984:SPERM-TTW
That is very weird since I'm Russian too and i clearly uderstood what the guy with medicine was saying, with no accent of course being well known russian actor. Though I did get nothin of Tom Hanks speach addressed to the guy.
The languages are close, right. I've been to Bulgaria once, but probably not being so bright I understood nothing from their talking, thx to god they spoke russian. Some words sounded familiar but when they were speaking fast it was complete blank.
I'm Serbian and I agree most Slavs could understand each other in a conversation if they put some work in it.
But the thing I don't understand is the taxi driver at the end Goran being Albanian.. that doesn't make sense :)
I am Bulgarian ... first Russia never ruled Bulgaria Timmetie you are an idiot.. before you say something stupid like that check it .... and most of you are right we Slavs :) can understand each other
shareRussia never ruled Bulgaria Timmetie you are an idiot.. before you say something stupid like that check it
Maybe not, but Bulgaria was part of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Sphere of Influence. So what's the big deal? share
The big deal is no one should pull statements like that out of their ass. Its just about being respectful you know?
shareI laughed at that too! But the whole movie, I felt I was watching my ex boyfriend (crat) and his family (Bosnian) and the Serbs in my hometown. Mannerisms and all.
Then they brought in the shiptar!
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But the trick is that the "Russian with the medicine for the goat" in the movie doesn't speak Russian Being Russian myself, I know that for sure:) I didn't understand a word from what he was saying, though it did sound like a Slavic language...
what the hell? maybe you sould turn up the volume or something? This was the RARE case in the US movie when there was the REAL russian-talking guy without any foolish accent! I'm always getting realy mad when they try to make somebody speak "real" russian in the movies but NOT in this one
He is not speaking bulgarian. It is a mix of several slavic languages. Some of the words he was saying even dont exist. However, I am Macedonian. I understand Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian... Even though i never learned those languages. I understand 90% of everything you say in those languages.
shareI´m Russian and I didn´t understand a word... But I wasn´t trying to, I heard the first two lines of what he said and switched my brain off, because I thought he was just mumbling something with an accent.
However, I do agree that if two languages are alike, it´s possible to understand them even if you don´t speak both. For example, I speak Spanish and I understand Italian, French and Portuguese.
....Brain is a muscle. Use it or lose it....
I am Bulgarian. Though Russian and Bulgarian are similar languages, Bulgarians can understand and speak russian, the opposite is not quite right. That's because Bulgarians until 1989 learned russian at school as a compulsory language.
Tom Hanks speaks bulgarian and the guy with the goat speaks russian. It's quite strange that the Russian understood what Tom Hanks was saying. Usually that doesn't happens in the real life...
Yeah, Russians tend to be quite ignorant in that aspect. While we (Bulgarians) were forced to learn their language, I can literally spend an entire hour attempting to communicate something to a Russian without him/her showing a sign of understanding.
shareTom Hanks speaks almost fluent Bulgarian. That is because of some member of his family - his wife is half greek half Bulgarian (he does not speak greek obviously because it is more known to americans than bulgarian language)
The movie is also full of cliches such as "God knows what Gulag he is been running from" regarding Bulgaria but who (out of Americans) bloody cares...
It's part of my job to communicate with people of all different nationalities here in Bulgaria. Done so I've met Russians who learned Bulgarian in 2 years so well you can barely notice the accent and I know also a Russian guy who is 45 yrs old, living in Bulgaria for 25 years and can speak the language with horrible accent as if he is visiting the country for couple of days and is using phrase-book. It's maybe because the people are different. To be quite frankly, I have never ever meet an American speaking Bulgarian with no noticeable mistakes, it is only that I don't really care about that.
I would agree with vlahov - Tom Hanks most certainly speaks bulgarian in the movie. I am Bulgarian as well so I can confirm that. Regarding the Bulgarian/Russian thing Bulgarians understand russian but russians rarely understand bulgarian.
shareI can agree with chochko23. The similarity between Bulgarian and Russian is more like the similarity between English and French than Dutch and German which are Germanic.
My experience shows that Russians do not tend to understand Bulgarian but certain similar words.
In real life I doubt that a Russian could understand a word of what Navorski told the Russian guy.
I'd say that Bulgarian is not quite Slavic language as scholars claim. It is a very different language than Russian, Polish, Czech or Serbian grammatically. Yes there are very similar words but there there are also many similar words in English and French.
BTW The language thing in the movie was funny. Navorski spoke Bulgarian but read booklets in Russian. LOL.
"Yeah, Russians tend to be quite ignorant in that aspect. While we (Bulgarians) were forced to learn their language"
Now that is a very strange thing to say. What can word "ignorant" do anything with this? Its not like Bulgaria was dominating in that ussr-thing so why russians could possibly be forced to learn your language in those times? Its not a matter of ignorance, it a matter of popularity.
"I can literally spend an entire hour attempting to communicate something to a Russian without him/her showing a sign of understanding"
And that is not a sign of stupidity, how can someone understand you if you're speaking with him in a complete different language
Colword you shoud be a genius (lol)
I’m Brazilian and, naturally, I’m a Portuguese speaker. Yes, with some effort and patience, we can understand some spoken Spanish and even read some words in this language. But it doesn’t mean we can understand French. No way. French is as far from Portuguese as English is. Even the written French is totally unintelligible for a Portuguese speaker/reader. The structure is different and the Portuguese vocabulary has the same similarities with the French one as it has with English.
Maybe, a Portuguese speaker reading Italian can understand a word here another there, but we can’t understand an Italian speaker, even if he speaks slowly.
It’s the same for the Spanish speaker. They can’t understand Italian, and French is even worse.
I'm a bulgarian and i can say that this scene is very very unrealistic.The russian language use the bulgarian alphabet but they're not simmilar languages.Russians cannot understand bulgarians and bulgarians cannot understand russians.As the guy before me said "In real life I doubt that a Russian could understand a word of what Navorski told the Russian guy".End of story.
shareI'm Russian. I could understand words but not sentences of what Viktor was saying. I think a Russian could make sense of Bulgarian if spoken to slowly - I doubt in real life the Russian guy would understand him.. It's odd that they couldn't find a Russian interpreter at JFK :)
shareCan anyone please translate what they said to each other?
I understand Tom Hanks was speaking bulgarian and the russian was speaking russian... I don't know if they would really understand each other, but I wanted to know what they meant in the script, how he would make the other say "goat".
I speak portuguese and understand spanish, but most spanish speakers don't understand portuguese. maybe bulgarian and russian have the same issue.
That was one thing why I didnt like this movie that much. There is no way that russian guy could understand anything that came from Hanks... But Hanks knew russian cause he studied english from magazines in russian in this movie.
About conversation. I think russian guy got it only because of the sound "Meee", nothing besides that hasn't been said secretly and wich hasn't been translated :)
Yes you are right! Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar mainly in writing. I studied Spanish, that's why I can understand some Portuguese mainly written or spoken slowly.
For ex, Romanians can understand Italian almost approx 80% but the Italians can't understand Romanian. And that is because some Latin words that are preserved in Romanian are replaced or changed during actual speech.
Other than that, the movie is a like a fantastic tale based on some possible realities. I don't care what language they speak but I just realized is a Slavic one.
Although fake, it makes sense to be on the site of the former USSR and the myriad republics that broke more or less free after 1990.
I loved Terminal...They mocked bureaucracy and some stupid laws
I'm Portuguese, and I have Spanish friends and we understand each other very well. The languages are similar, only Italian is close to Spanish or Portuguese, but it's harder for us to understand them. I suppose it's like that with slavic languages, they can communicate with each other but they have different languages...
shareNorwegian and Swedish are very similar languages too... just thought i'd mention that
I Uranus
When it comes to learning English from a Russian Language Tourist Guide is it not possible that Viktor can also speak some Russian, and he only used a Russian Language book to learn English because he could not find a book in his mother language
Where I live in England, my local accent is apparantly similar to the language on the West Coast of Norway, I think some of our dialect was brought over with the vikings
Andre, I know we are getting out of the subject, but I don't agree that portuguese is so easy to understand for a spanish speaker. The same for the opposite case. I'm Brazilian and I have some friends from other latinamerica countries and, man, they have to put some effort when they're speaking to make me understand them. They have to speak slowly and, even, to explain me the meaning of some words.
I've been for a couple of years in USA and met some guys from porto rico. I had to speak (at least to try to) spanish because they couldn't understand a "catzo" of my portuguese.
Maybe, reading could be easier, or... I should be the stupidest dude around....
E também não sei porque estou me esfalfando para escrever em inglês para alguém de portugal....
Abraço
I'm portuguese and in my experience, portuguese people understand spaniards FAR better than spaniards understand portuguese. as an example, I once had a lecture done by a spanish professor who couldn't speak a word of portuguese yet we all (about 50 people) understood her and had no problems taking notes. honestly don't know how to explain this.
written italian I understand about 60%, but spoken not so much. french is not that similar to portuguese at all, except some basic phrase structures.
as a side note, I speak a bit of polish and I've found I could understand some czech, croatian, serbian and some (little) spoken russian (as I can't read cyrillic yet).
and to the person that said german is similar to english just because both are germanic languages, thats BS. I speak fluent english and am having a hard time learning german.
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Only clowns will play with those balloons.
The Russian guessed that he had to say "medicine for goat" because Navorski-Hanks repeated it many times, holding the medicine in his hands, and it made Dixon stop and talk to Navorski again. Although the Russian didn't speak English and the Russian word "meditsina" only means medicine as a branch of science, it was still clear that Navorski was referring to the pills. Also, the Russian was under stress, which made him think harder and come up with the correct idea.
As for translating their complete dialogue, it's rather difficult but I can try if you insist :)
I`m a Bulgarian too, and everything the others said it`s true - both languages are Slavic and they`re pretty similar. I`ve never studied russian and yet I can understand some of it, if a make an effort to, so these scene with the russian guy it`s plausible.
But I`m just wondering why Tom Hanks was speaking bulgarian languge since Krakozhia is a fictionary country? And he had an accent..it soundet more like russian even though it was 100% bulgarian. Bulagiran language it is really "hard" sounded, not like russian.And Navorski - it doesnt sound like a tipical Bulgarian name.
And for the record - I didn`t like the movie and I was a little bit offended, but that is just my opinion.
I think his wife is Bulgarian
People saying that Dutch and German are similar have no idea what they are talking about, a German would never be able to understand a Dutch person (if they don't speak Dutch ofcourse).
The formation of the English language was greatly influenced by Latin, German and French over the centuries which formed the English language.
I am Bulgarian and I can have a normal conversation with a Russian since the languages are very similar.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? And I'd say is it too much to ask for both?" - Tony Stark
"I am Bulgarian and I can have a normal conversation with a Russian since the languages are very similar."
Me too :)
Languages can be so similar that you can understand each other. I'm Swedish and Swedes can usually, without too much difficulty, understan Danish and Norweigan when spoken or written. I don't know if this is the case with Bulgarian and Russian, though.
shareThe similarity between Bulgarian and Russian languages is based on the Cyrillic alphabet with certain exceptions for a couple of letters. The difference is in the grammar and pronunciation. Though, people from the two nations could generally understand themselves in a conversation, it takes a deeper knowledge until one can claim they know a foreign language.
share