A lecture entitled The Structure and Origin of Russian was hosted on October 26th, as a way of assisting students to learn the culture of Russia and improving students’ ability to learn Russian. Prof. Sun Daman, vice-dean of the College of Arts hosted the lecture andforeign teacher Oleg demonstrated his understanding about the ancient origin of Russian language and its influence over the world language system.
“I believe Russian is not as complicated as you have imagined and what I said will stimulate your enthusiasm since Russian is an ancient language with great charm.” Oleg said.
In the lecture, Oleg illustrated life traces of ancient Slavic tribes, and pointed out similarities between Russian and other languages including Sanskrit, Latin, through comparisons pursuant to letter, root and articulation, which aroused students’ interest in the history and culture of ancient Russian.It offered new academic perspectives in learning Russian history.
He alsovideoed the magic of ancient Russian alphabets, each letter embracing aspecial connotation like camel, house, ox head, etc..
Oleg also gave students some suggestions on studying Russian. Students are expected to focus on the basic roots and prefixes of Russian as an attempt to solve the problems of lacking vocabulary.
“It’s a good way to study Russian by combining the roots and prefixes together. Having a good command of hundreds of roots and prefixes will enable us to grasp thousands of Russian words,” said Oleg, “Simultaneously, it can also deepen our comprehension of Russian texts without referring to the dictionary.”
His another suggestion is to learn Russian with the help of other foreign languages. For instance, there are about 2,000 English words similar to Russian in both pronunciation and meaning. What we have to do is to find the common ground between Russian and other languages.
Finally, he pointed out that emphasis should be put on the tense changes of Russian verbs, which gives full expression to the regularity of Russian grammar.
This lecture brought students new understanding of Russian language. “The aim of this lecture is not only to introduce some basic skills in learning Russian, but also point the clear direction in our afterwards research”, said prof. Sun Daman.
“Considering the great benefit of this lecture, I hope the college can hold more in the future.” Li Xiaoying, chairman of the Russian Association, puts her hope.
