Off-Topic / WWWSC General Discussion

I don't consider Columbo like that tbh.

I can't stop it, I'm afraid... As long as you know you've voted, what for would you feel scared anyway? lol

Yesterday on YT was published an interview with Dana Sokolova (in russian obviously). Mostly she talks about her career etc, but a few things I found very discriminating.
1. She disapproves herself as a latvian. Here's what she said: "I am a russian person from the brain to the bones, and, of course, Russia was waiting for me and I was waiting for her. Unfortunately, Latvia is very principled against the russian language and some national issues ... I was only born there, lived for a while. That just happened. Riga is simply a city where my family lived."

I would like to remind people who think like her - those principles about non-local/non-national languages you'd find in every self-respecting country.

Obviously, now that she has great success in Russia, she disapproves everything related to Latvia. And I know why - because it might hinder her career, if she'd say she's latvian. Nationally minded people from Latvia are not very welcome in Russia. Those who have gotten any success there have "sold their souls" to gain the admiration. They all speak very neutral about our relationship with Russia just to be sure they didn't offend anyone there.
This is what happens, when you gain popularity somewhere else - you forget where you come from and which country gave you everything you got before the big fame, even if you are a russian who's born to russian parents (although I'm not 100% sure both her parents are russian). That's what happened here. And referring to some "national issues with russians and russian language" is just lame. Just because we want to be like every other normal country, where main language is the national language, doesn't mean we are some fucked up people that just want all the worst for Russia and russians. They have lived here since WW2, but most of them haven't even bothered to learn latvian language, because they still think they are our masters, so they can speak russian wherever and whenever they want. We've already accepted that for too long. We have to stand up for our own language. But that's something russians who live here since who knows when don't want to understand.
Imagine situation, when a russian goes to live/work for example to UK or Norway. Do you really think that someone allows them to speak russian there on street or at work if they speak with someone who's not russian? No, they don't. They are forced to speak in that countries national language. A few years ago I saw one documentary about russians that have gone to Norway to work. The interviewer asked them about the language they use in everyday situations, they said - norwegian. And that's because they wouldn't be there if they didn't learn norwegian - they would be kicked out pretty quickly. And this is how every country should be like - stand up for your national language and don't allow some immigrants that want to work/live there force you to speak their language. They should be the one's adapting, not you.

I was also living/working for 10 months in UK, but I never even imagined I could force someone to speak in my language, even if I was speaking with a latvian. I was in UK, so I was speaking in english. The only times I wasn't speaking english, was when I was speaking with my latvian colleagues. And also only outside work. If we were at work - we always spoke english, because that was a rule there. Even if it wouldn't be a rule, we'd still speak english at our workplace, because we are the one's that need to accept their traditionsand laws, not the other way round.

BTW, we don't hate Russia or russians - that's just a myth our own local russians have made up. All the time it's them who keep complaining how bad we are to them, even though we haven't done anything. They get all the same things we do. But they're still not fine with that. Obviously we don't like that russians try to rule us, that's why they think we hate them. But that's not it - we hate what they've done to us in all our history and that they don't admit the occupation of our country. We hate those things, not someone who's russian. But they've managed to turn it around and make it look like we hate all russians. If they'd admit everything they've done to us in last decades/centuries, then we'd live happily ever after, but this stubborness is what keeps us from good relationship.

As for the UK

As you said, in work - it's general protcol that you would be expected to use English with people you're working with and yourself while your working, but during breaktimes etc if you were chatting with someone in the cafe from your country you wouldn't be slammed for using your native language. In fact, when I worked at IKEA, during break times a lot of Polish workers used to speak to each other in Polish and we weren't bothered.

In public, yes - most British people find it strange when they hear a different language because they're not tuned to hearing another language, especially if its not a generic/plain-Jane language that English people know about like French or Spanish. But when people hear Latvian - for example - its natural for people in the public to give a weird look, because they're listening to something they rarely hear.

The Starbucks I go to all the time - given I live in the North East of England - probably has at least 10 other languages to English daily. Yesterday I heard French, Danish, Arabic, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Chinese (Mandarin), Chinese (Cantonese), Hindi, Vietnamese, Tagalog. The lady from France who saw me studying French grammar came over and even started giving me encouragement etc.