Conversation with Evgueny

I have just finished to read and listen to 93 lessons of “Conversations with Evgueny”. It’s a very amazing collection of interviews, from young boys at the university to experienced old business men. Cold War, Australia, Obama-Romney election, cooking, everything is present in this extensive survey. I recommend it to you.
Here is the link for the first lesson.

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I cannot share your enthusiasm. I definitely prefer lessons from native speakers only.

I know that one of the speakers is a native speaker. But Evgueny’s accent sounds much too strong in my view. That is why I cannot enjoy these lessons. I’m sorry.

Especially for English are so many resources available. In my opinion, there is no need to use material from non-native speakers.

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Vera, you are the reason. Evgueny has a very strong accent, naturally, he is Russian. But the other speakers are natives and they are the center of the dialogues. Also, the languages are not like a Holy Bible. The languages are realities without value or the value of languages are subjective. The native level is not an objective value, is is only a reality. How is the reason for to study a foreign language, if only we can speak and write like natives? The native level is not a reasonable target.

Of course, +Vera, if you don’t like this material or it’s not what you’re looking for, by all means use something else. Fortunately, there’s a lot to choose from, as you point out.
However, I do thank Evgeny for his contribution. I’m not reading English at Lingq but I do find it useful to listen to conversatiоns where one of the speakers is non- native. Evgeny himself has posted some conversations with non-native speakers in his native Russian. Steve has also posted some of his conversations as he was learning foreign languages.
The content’s interesting, one of the speakers is native and, thus, a good model for pronunciation and you can also check out a fellow learner of the language striving and making progress. All of that makes this kind of material very interesting in my view.
Besides, a case can be made about the importance of understanding non-native accents.

Again, don’t use any lessons you don’t enjoy but I personally wouldn’t discourage other approaches.

If Evgueny didn’t had made all the great material for the german language here on lingq just because he is not native, the library would have been massive shallower. Although I acknowledge all the great material you Veral and other natie-speaker have created but still this argument native this and that is in my opinion not that important. I mean look at languages like swedish and french for example here on lingq, if we had someone like Evgueny(non native) that could create material for this languages that would be tremendous helpful.

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What did evgueny do wrong, then?

Who are you asking, John_Le? He didn’t do anything wrong in my view. That’s what I meant.
Vera seems to disagree, though.

I agree with you in what you say. There is no mistake, my post has been a reply to the post of the forum fellow and moderator Vera.

I had read vera’s post yesterday and I thought, crazy, a non native speaker posts a lot of content (I have already listen a little bit to the accent of evgueny and I know there were troubles in the past about corrections in German done by evgueny).

So, I was curious and I listened to the content for 2 hours or so and I was surprised and astonished .
I came to the conclusion this is really good stuff. And the voice of evgueny do not bother me at all, in contrary, it is right out of life.

I noticed that evgueny speaks sometimes one or two sentences for introduction and maybe one at the end, between the sentences of the native speaker he goes Ah!…Wow!…hm…thanks…and so on, her and there a word, what makes the speech real…

I would say about 97% of the content is interesting, living speech from native speakers.
However, what I want to say is plainly said by the others repliers of the post.

IMO this has been always the idea of LingQ, I mean, to go off from the beginner stuff as soon as possible to real live content. At least this is what Steve Kaufmann has said in the beginning when Ling started in 2007 or so. For me it was a language revolution back then and even though I stopped the account (just sometimes a glance) for a long time because of diverses reasons I continued english learning that way and „preached“ to others to learn a language that way.

So, I think it is more than just an opinion, wether we could go back to sanitized, monotone, rhetorical schoolbook-stuff (even for advanced learners) or enjoy realistic speech as we have the opportunity.

Yes. concerning the question. I have seen the great job evgueny did. So I wonder what did he do wrong (to Vera).

“…a case can be made about the importance of understanding non-native accents.”

I have been on conference calls, in English, with participants simultaneously who were Russian, Chinese, Scottish, and Indian (Bangalore). In addition to admiring everyone’s command of English, I was amazed that they were all able to understand each other’s heavy accents. (Those Scotsmen can be hard to understand. :wink:

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I think the answer is simple: He didn’t do wrong, there is just the fact we have preference and so on, experiences etc. I like it or I like it not (or him or her).

What ever, I am not interested in a forum battle. :slight_smile: (I am sure no one is) For me the thing is clear, it’s obviously.

So, I obey the wise advice: when a women (my wife) get angry step to the door next to you, go out for a walk (or have a beer), and when the storm is over come back. And then you are going to have a nice conversation (with your wife).

For me the thing is closed.

Thank you. What I wrote is my opinion. I shared MY preferences. I wrote:

  • I cannot …
  • I definitely …
  • … in my view.
  • In my opinion…

I’m astonished that my OPINION was taken as if I’m were making a statement that should be a FACT. Lu1974 shared his opion and recommended the lessons, and I shared my opinion.

I don’t want to put more energy into this thread. I’m not interested in a forum battle too. That is why I decided not to answer to the other posts.

P.S. I’m not angry. I shared my view.

Danke Vera. Wunderbar, dann bleibt ja die Kirche im Dorf, wie man so schön sagt auf Deutsch. Das ist grossartig.

Ich respektiere deine Meinung vollkommen und freue mich auf weiteren, animierten und fairen Forum Austausch mit dir und allen Anderen. :slight_smile:

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