Why is Russian one of the main languages taught in schools?

[notevenat20]

I have always wondered this. Secondary schools always teach French but if they do more languages it will be German , Spanish or Russian.

Why Russian? It has little importance for business and people don't tend to go there for holidays. There are not many Russian people in the UK either relatively speaking. Where has this idea come from?

I’ve worked in more than a dozen schools in England, from Academies in some of the poorest areas in the country to Public Boarding and Independent schools...

Never ONCE come across a Russian class, despite having a lot of Russian students in three of those schools (30% in the Public School).

It’s been French, Spanish, German, Italian, Mandarin. In that order.

I omitted Latin/Ancient Greek as thought they wouldn’t count!

I know several schools which teach Russian, and it's quite popular in those schools which do.

It's a good language to learn for international or business interests and in the future the Russian economy will be significant, as will that of China. With USA's current arguments with China, it has thrown Russia and China together much more....and China has a huge need for the oil, gas and minerals which Russia can provide. On top of that, the climate change warming means Russian goods can get through the ice-free top of Russia's ocean across to China, (called the Northern sea Route) and this is being developed for the future.

Looking longer term, global warming will unfreeze Siberia, a vast area full of fuel, metals and mineral deposits which the world needs....just as other sources are running out further south. Russia is poised to capitalise on this, Russia and China are playing the long waiting game. All a good reason to learn the language....at least, as much a good reason as our learning French because "it's a business language".

The top 5 languages taken at GCSE are French, spanish, german, Polish and italian. In terms of number of entries, Russian is 10th.

www.alcantaracoms.com/gcse-languages-entries-2019/

I don't think it's very common in schools tbh but it's potentially a useful language for employers as Russian and related languages are widely spoken in Eastern Europe, and also potentially useful for anyone thinking of studying linguistics, diplomacy, international relations etc.

I taught myself some Russian many years ago because I needed to be able for read Russian documents for my (private sector, manufacturing industry) job.

Russian is one of the languages at our local state grammar. Ds2 took it from y7 and is in his 4th and final year at uni doing Russian. Ds3 is I y9, he's doing it for GCSE and also wants to do at uni.

I don’t know of any schools that offer Russian in my county, though possibly one or two private schools do. We don’t have any grammar schools in this area either. If any school offers more than one language to GCSE, it’s a bonus.

Russian is one of the four languages taken from year seven at my DS comp.... Never came across it as an option anywhere else. DS has gone for Spanish and German though.

Only come across it at places like Winchester College and Eton!

I can do a really really good Russian accent, (I'm not Villanelle) but sadly my Catholic secondary school didn't teach me any actual Russian. Don't know any that do!

Learning Russian at school would be awesome.

Also, very useful if you're hoping to become an astronaut.

At my DC's school they offer French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Mandarin. No Russian.

@BikeRunSki

Some schools in Barnsley taught Russian in the 1980s (not sure if they do now) as part of a sort of socialist twinning thing.

Just googled. At least one high school in Barnsley currently offers Russian.

Comp educated here, I took Russian through to A level and found it useful for history lessons etc. Loved the subject, and used it quite often in my adult life despite still not visiting the country (always on the list but never made it yet)

I learned conversational russian as an adult because it would be useful for business.

At my university, most of the Russian students did it an initio. They all had fairly bleak year abroads compared to everyone else flirting off to France or Brazil. It’s a bit of a risky offer at school level as it’s much harder then the Romance languages.

I think it's a hangover from the Cold War, then after that Russia was going to be The Next Big Thing although lots of people though China would be too. Spanish, French (and Portuguese) are useful for Africa and South America as well as Europe, Arabic is useful.

If Russian really was a common subject, then it would show up in the GCSE results tables
but it does not

It's not? 😂

DD learned English (to C1) and Russian (to B2) from year 1 at school - she could have added Spanish, too, covering three major indo-european language families. Facilitates communication with people from countries with other slavic languages, easy to read and spell if you have mastered the writing, interesting grammar (aspect is fascinating), great literature.

The school I went to (small, rural secondary) taught it from the 70s onwards. I took it to A level. Despite not having used it directly for over 30 years, I’ve found it useful in that I can read Cyrillic, I can read and understand chunks of a lot of Slavic languages, which was useful in a previous job where I worked closely with Eastern Europe. I’ve also used it when I got lost in one if the aforementioned Eastern European countries, many people in the ex Soviet satellites learned it at school so I could make myself understood and understand directions.

Also Russian lit in original language is awesome.

The threads that you start just get weirder and weirder OP...

Russian. My school's boarding school teaches it but whoever, on here suggested Polish as a popular language, I am not sure that is the case in UK. I'm interested to hear otherwise

Sorry. 'My son's boarding school'

I learnt Russian at school- state school, 36 years ago (I started it as a second language in 1984, and did 'A'Levels in 1990- so historically, it was an interesting time to learn the language). I loved it, but unfortunately don't remember much, having not had to use it often.