Hi everyone, nfkrz's there. And today I decided to make a video entirely in Russian.
That's, uh... That's probably very strange...
BTW, I totally can't speak russian on camera,
so it will probably sound like I'm translating...
Yeah, I didn't get it at all.
OK, so I'm constantly being asked to...
to make a video entirely in Russian.
and I've had this idea for a long time now, actually...
No, I got it all.
Kinda.
In Russian.
What? I speak better... better Russian than...
I mix my languages up,
because I'm used to speaking English on camera.
I decided... I mean, that's a perfect opportunity —
Ben came here and he's learning Russian,
and his Russian is not half bad, actually...
So I said: «Why don't we make a whole video of us
simply talking Russian?»
I'm really scared, honestly, because
I know that my Russian is... damn... Barely enough for a trip.
Still, it's enough, I can buy something, I can say...
Well, I can ask for directions to the subway station.
But... to sit... on an interview... in front of a camera...
I'm, like... Well, okay.
Actually, we already discussed it off-camera, but, uh...
But?
Why exactly did you start learning Russian?
Oh gee, that's quite a story.
I always had a desire to speak Russian.
Well, to speak good...
— So... — How come? Not often people want to...
Yeah, yeah. Why? Because when I was growing up,
when I was 15, in the days of... 90s,
in the days of perestroika, glasnost...
That was very interesting to me,
that was a big experiment, well, uh...
How shall I... «Under closed doors» or something.
They had communism here. And it was so interesting to me!
So I thought: «How could I get there?» I wanted...
Like a whole new world opened up?
Exactly, yeah, that was like a fairytale or something.
Well, that was... how do you call it in Russian...
a mystery, yeah?
I always wanted to know what happens in Russia, so I had to...
— Learn the language. — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I somehow decided to learn it.
What did you start with? Schoolbooks, or?..
Oh, I... I... tried to...
tried every whey of learning.
«Every way?»
«Way», yes.
I listened to music, I read books,
I traveled through the Russia,
I attended language courses...
Where? In Moscow?
No, in Minsk.
Oh, in Minsk.
Yeah, in Minsk. For a month or so.
I came to know, while attending those courses,
that it was not for me.
So, traditional way...
— Yeah, totally not for me. — Traditional way is dull.
Because it's all about damn grammar.
And that was so difficult for me...
— Cases? — Yeah, yeah, exactly.
English only has 2 cases, so it's nothing.
In English it's like... The word «big», for example.
That's pretty much it. While in Russian it's...
[list of russian verb forms]
How the hell... I can't even...
Well, our Slavic viewers,
who speak Slavic languages,
like Czech, they know the struggle.
I guess they do.
They have the same thing going with cases. Really difficult.
Yeah, Slavic languages share their roots, they are probably all difficult.
Well, English language used to have cases too,
there were even more cases than in Russian.
— And now? — But then it all died...
—...and only posessive case remained. — Thank God! Why don't you follow the example?
I don't know... One could not even imagine
Russian language without the cases.
It's like... «I do to love yours». It just doesn't work.
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah.
I made a decision: since Russian grammar is so difficult for me —
I will pave my own way.
Did I say it right?
So I decided: my way doesn't include grammar at all.
I decided to not pay attention to grammar.
Basically, my Russian has no grammar.
I don't even think grammar is important,
because, well, I understand that my grammar is very bad,
but still, people understand me,
so I think it's not that important.
As a matter of fact, most of the people I introduced you to
were surprised that your Russian is so good.
Well, that's because I'm an englishman.
You get it?
And Russian is not an international language.
So there's not a lot of british people
who know Russian like me.
Yeah, and I actually think that it will be
a good tutorial for those...
You see, I have a lot of subscribers who learn or want to learn...
I can only say that it worked for me.
For me personally it worked, it was good.
But for them... I don't know.
Maybe some of them want to speak very eloquently.
You get it?
Like Pushkin did.
— But I don't care about that. — Grammatically correct.
Yes, exactly.
If you care about that, don't follow my way.
Goodbye.
Oops. «People».
No, we don't call it «elevator».
— How do you call it, then? — «Lift».
— Just like british people? — Yeah, «lift».
Damn, I didn't know. Yeah?
You use not the American English, but the British English.
«Elevator» for us is «silo».
Oh, got it, got it. Oh, got it. Got it!
— «Lift»? — «Lift», yeah.
And «liftchick» is bra?
Liftchick is another thing.
BRUH.
I remember you saying that you mostly memorised words.
— A lot of words. — Yeah, yeah.
And you had some sort of...
...some sort of rate, so you memorised at least that much words daily,
you had a milestone and you tried to reach it...
Yes, I... okay, so I bought a dictionary.
A dictionary of the most popular Russian words.
The first word was «and».
Then — «home».
Then — «cat».
So it gradually becomes more and more difficult.
So, the most used words?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I decided to learn 10 words every day.
How many words were there?
Well, there were 20000 words in a dictionary.
But, of course, I don't know all of them...
Yeah, that's impossible.
I probably know something like 3000 words.
That's enough, I suppose.
I'm also interested in...
I guess, I once asked you about it on the Internet.
For example, when I visited the Czech Republic...
Well, from the slavic countries I only visited Czechia,
I never visited other slavic countries,
because I didn't really spend time in Europe.
So when I visit Czechia, I can read and undestand their signboards.
— Because their language is Slavic too, so the word roots... — Yeah, the word roots.
But you don't understand the signs, for example, in Czechia.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
Well, when I read the commercial signs on the street,
I can kinda understand what they mean.
But for the most part I don't, because I can't speak Czech.
Well, me too, me too.
Well, I mean I can't use my Russian there,
they won't understand me.
But they... Conveniently enough,
their numbers sound almost identical.
You know, pyat'desyat (50), pyatnatsat' (15) and all that.
I noticed that as well.
They have a lot of words that you can...
I can easily see the connection...
But you probably can't, because, for example...
There is a «Lekarna», for example...
Does it sound like anything to you? Do you understand?
«Lekarna»... well... Explain it differently.
You ever heard the word «Lekar'» (healer), for example?
Nope.
«Lekar'» is the archaic Russian word for doctor.
Oh, got it.
So «lekar'» is a doctor.
But nobody says it like that anymore.
That's, like, a word from Tsar's days.
— «Lekar'». — Old Russian.
The thing is, I know that word.
So when I see «Lekarna»,
I realise it's connected to a doctor,
so I'm like: «oh, that's a pharmacy. Lekarna. Clearly».
Oh, got it, got it.
Well, there's a lot of words, probably from Old Russian,
or... I... you see, I learned them from books,
(Ben is questioning his usage of cases)
The words there were modern.
Well, some words were archaic,
and I know that because
sometimes I use a word
and my girlfriend says: «c'mon, nobody uses that word», you get it?
So I use a word that may be modern,
but I use it...
— Contextually wrong? — Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So people say: «What do you mean, I don't understand», you get it?
But this word exists, yet...
Nobody uses it that way.
Yeah, yeah, it happens often.
Right, so that's the problem with Russian language —
Russian is...
for most of the other Slavic speakers,
it's incomprehensible.
In Russian, those words that sound archaic for us,
like «ochi» (eyes), «usta» (mouth),
all those words are archaic, nobody...
We say «rot» (mouth), not «usta».
In Polish, in Czech that would still be «usta».
Or «ochi» (eyes) — we say «glaza», not «ochi».
Ah, I get it, I get it.
And words that we don't use anymore,
they are still used in those languages.
So a lot of languages — Ukrainian, for example —
sound funny for us.
Because they sound like broken Russian
with some ancient words.
Yes, when I visited Belarus,
somebody said to me:
«Let's buy a bottle of greh» or something.
He meant vodka, that's another word for vodka.
Maybe for alcohol.
«Greh» or something.
«Greh» means «sin».
Yeah, I understand, maybe that's the reason?
A sinful drink, huh?
Infernal drink.
That was an entirely different word, so I didn't get it at all.
Oh, also in Belarus and Ukraine,
when I visited local village
on the border between Belarus, Ukraine and Russia,
people there spoke some kind of mix.
— A little bit of Russian, a little bit of Ukrainian... — Surzhik.
Surzhik, yeah, kinda.
And I didn't understand them at all.
Some elderly woman was talking with me, and I... damn, that was...
Honestly, I'm not sure that I'd be able to understand Surzhik.
I probably wouldn't.
Yeah, yeah, maybe.
While listening to Russian songs, do you understand everything? Or...
Not everything.
But I get the gist of the song.
Or the movie, or the show.
But I totally don't get 100% of the lyrics.
Well, I can...
How much percents, then?
50, maybe? Maybe less...
But you're making progress, right?
It was much worse early on,
lyrics were incomprehensible,
but nowadays you're slightly better.
Ever so slightly.
And I already decided...
Oops, not «decided». «Noticed»...
...that this time I spent 2 weeks in Russia,
and my Russian is already
better than it was 2 weeks ago.
A lot of practice here.
It's so important to have practice.
Do you get it?
You see, you can follow my steps:
sit in the kitchen for a year,
memorising 20k words every day...
But if you want those words to settle in your head, in your brain,
then you need to speak. Speak-speak-speak-speak.
Same goes for Chinese:
I... whenever I go on holiday,
I don't practice Chinese at all,
so I forget everything.
I'm like that, too.
And the best practice for me is a village,
where I have to speak Russian,
because nobody speaks English, you get it?
So, a village is what I prefer to
travel to. The province.
The ass of the world, you might say.
The ass of the Russia.
So nobody speaks English there.
And if I can't talk to them, what can I do?
You're done for. You will be done for.
Here, of course... Somebody asked us:
«So, you and B&B, do you converse in English or in Russian?»
In English, of course.
Because when you meet a person who speaks...
If your English is better than my Russian, why would we converse in Russian?
That would be stupid.
Well, you said that you enjoyed
finally being able to speak English.
That's because I haven't heard a word in English for two weeks.
Not even once did I met someone speaking English.
So my brain got so tired...
Yeah, because you always have to think, that was driving me crazy too.
I need that feeling of affinity,
so I can speak English and you do understand
what I want to say.
So yeah, I got tired.
I can't even imagine that.
Would it be that difficult to me if I had to speak English all the time?
I don't know.
Because I think my English is...
Well, I don't really think about how to translate something.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I have to
because I blank out, so I think: «How do I put it?»
But most of the time I speak...
...automatically, just like that.
I travel around Russia, and when I encounter people,
basically, they all ask:
1) What's your name?
2) Where are you from?
3) Wow, why are you here in Russia?
I'm so used to these questions...
They are pretty mundane.
They're all the same.
No need to think, you already know their questions and your answers.
And now it's the opposite, like a test of sorts.
Yeah, exactly right.
Because I want to...
I need to use the words unusual to me.
I think you're doing pretty good,
I mean... Did you get everything I said throughout this interview?
Well, not every word, but...
Maybe because I talk too fast?
You do talk very fast, honestly.
Is it true that people talk slower in other Russian regions?
Do they talk slower in villages?
It's better... It's easier for me
to understand people in villages.
Because the pace of life there is slower.
Well, old people don't use slang...
It's not about slang,
it's about the... yeah, the rhythm of life,
the life is much slower in villages.
While in cities everyone is in a hurry,
so they speak a mile a minute.
Yeah, I noticed that,
people from big cities
are the hardest to understand for me.
The easiest for me are from Dagestan.
Because they too aren't proficient in Russian,
just like me,
So it's easy for me to talk with people from Dagestan and Caucasus,
because we're on the same level.
You can blend in.
Like you're one of them.
Dagestani man.
Look, I think that...
Firstly, all my Russian viewers will like this video very much,
and they'll be like «Wicked!», and they'll respect you,
if they do not already.
«Do u respect me?»
But I mean well, like...
«Do you respect Russia?»
I mean, that's worthy of respect —
to be that...
...to push yourself...
See? I can't even...
I speak like my thought process is in English,
because I'm used to speaking English on camera.
You took time and effort
to learn a language.
I can say that's really cool.
I can say that a lot of people
want to speak Russian. A lot of foreign people.
And they ask me:
«How did you do that?»
They want to me to say
that I have some sort of «secret method»,
that helped me learn Russian.
To say: «Simply do THIS for 5 minutes,
so in 6 monts you'll be...»
The 25th frame.
There is no... sorry, I'll tell this straight:
there is no secret method.
You just need to take time,
take time and talk with people.
No shortcut.
Yeah, there is no shortcut.
Shortcut is talking every...
well, often talking with people.
Practice, practice, practice.
That's the shortcut for you.
Yet it will take a long time
until you can fluently talk Russian.
I guess this video will encourage people
to start learning language too.
Or someone who is already learning it bit by bit
will go like:
«Damn, if he can do it, I can do it too!»
So I hope this video will encourage somebody
to learn Russian. Maybe even someone that's Russian to do it.
A lot of Russians don't really know Russian, so...
In Dagestan?
No, even in Russia.
They write terribly, with a lot of mistakes.
I don't know how well you write in Russan...
I can write like a baby.
Big letters...
At least you can read Cyrillic.
In books — no problems.
Oh, you can even read books?
Yes I can, because the letters are big.
But I can't... uhh... When the letters are connected.
How do you say it in Russian?
Cursive [handwritten]. I don't know, «kursiv» or something.
I don't understand it.
So, guys, we made a video entirely...
So, guys, we made a video entirely in Russian.
Hope you like it,
so you won't ask for it anymore.
If you will say that my Russian is strange...
In real life my Russian sounds normal, okay?
Without English accent.
I'm just not used to talking Russian on camera.
That's very odd for me.
Oh, I have a question:
Will you make subtitles or?.. [WHY YES BEN HELLO THERE]
— Yes, I dunno, that'll be abysmal. — Damn, good luck. Godspeed.
I feel like I need to pay somebody to make subtitles.
Because I'm gonna die subtitling this.
It's horrible. [yes it is]
You'd have to spend a week on these subtitles.
Damn. Well, well...
It's alright, I'll manage.
Maybe I'll really pay somebody, like,
a grand. [you wish]
Like, make subtitles for me...
Ben: Yeah, yeah, I think that would be better.
...cos it's impossible.
So, guys, hope you liked this video.
Feels strange to say it in Russian, but...
If you liked it,
smash the like button,
subscribe to his channel, to my channel,
and... yeah, see you in the next video.
— Bye! — Bye!