Clever Geek Handbook

Compare the English and Russian accents of Sergey Brin from Google

Sergey Brin is one of the most iconic personalities in the global IT sphere. In fact, this is the founder of a new era, who, together with Larry Page, founded not just a search engine, but a company of the future.



Everyone who was even a little interested in the personality of Sergei Brin knows that until the age of 6 he lived in Moscow, after which he moved with his parents to the United States. Sergei is a classic bilingual who learned two languages ​​at an early age. How did this affect your knowledge of English and Russian, and what can you call an entrepreneur's accent? Let's figure it out.







Sergey Brin is a natural bilingual. What does this mean?



First, let's take a look at the biography of the co-founder of Google. He was born in Moscow in a family of scientists and lived in the USSR until the age of 6. Naturally, in Moscow he attended a kindergarten, where everyone also spoke Russian.



When Sergey was 6 years old, his family emigrated to the USA. The elementary school was already American. And little Sergey had to study English intensively in order to communicate with peers.



This is a classic situation of children's bilingualism, when at an early age the child is forced to learn two languages ​​at once.



We will not consider the psychological impact of bilingualism on the child's brain. This topic is quite controversial.



Therefore, we will focus specifically on languages. At such an early age, the brain is extremely plastic, so language skills can change. The level of proficiency can change over the years, up to the complete forgetting of one of the languages. The situation, in fact, is quite typical for children of immigrants who studied the first language before a certain age, and then simply did not study it.



Most often, knowledge of the first language either deteriorates significantly, but at the same time the basic level of proficiency remains, or remains at the same level, but does not develop. Without a conscious study of the language, its improvement is impossible.



Here the role is played by the fact that the child is constantly in the ecosystem of one language, and in the second at best only speaks with parents. Over time, such a skew becomes more noticeable.


Sergey Brin devoted time to studying Russian both in childhood and at an older age, so today he has an excellent conversational level of Russian. But there are a couple of nuances that we will talk about a little later.



Compare the accents of Russian and English by Sergey Brin



It will be fair if we consider the accents of both Russian and English. Breen is bilingual, which inevitably means the influence of one language on another and vice versa.



But here a surprise awaits us - Sergey Brin has pure American English.





Let's take a look at the example of Sergey's interview at the economic forum in Davos in 2017. Bryn speaks in a pure American accent.



Here are a few features that can be easily traced:



, [a:], [æ]. , ask, can’t, task, chance. [æ].



, [ɒ] [ʌ]. «», «». : top, most, got, .



[r]. , «r» . , «car» [ka:]. . «car» [kar]. [r]. .


To be completely boring, Sergey Brin's accent is pure Californian. The nuances in the articulation of the front vowels and diphthongs clearly indicate this. And this is not strange, because he lived most of his life in California.



Now let's evaluate the Russian language of Sergey. Unfortunately, he very rarely gives public interviews in Russian, so we use an excerpt from the 2008 NTV report.





And here you can clearly hear that Russian is the second for Sergey Brin. Even though he was the first to learn it as a child.



Yes, Sergey is fluent in Russian. He speaks very well and grammatically correctly, does not get confused in declensions and word forms. But the emphasis still betrays him.



«», «» . [] [r]. , [].



, . .



, « , …» « , ». , «I don’t think that…» «One thing ends and the other begins». , .


That is, even natural bilinguals have a "first" language and a "second". And often they do not coincide in time of study. After all, Sergey Brin began to learn Russian earlier than English, but it is English that should be considered the first for him, because he speaks it better. And it is English that has a stronger effect on other languages.



The reason for this is quite simple - which language of practice has the most, that is the "first". It is not uncommon for people in adolescence or even adulthood to move to another country and after a few dozen years have partially or almost completely forgot their native language - simply due to lack of practice.



It is possible to maintain knowledge through the Internet, but the ecosystem still plays a role. Which language will be better developed: the one in which you watch the video an hour or two a day, or the one in which you communicate 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week? The answer is obvious.



By the way, this works the other way. Today, learning English with the help of the ecosystem is one of the most effective methods that are used in EdTech services. Artificial immersion in the ecosystem is also effective for learning foreign languages. After all, with its help you can pump over all aspects of language proficiency: from written grammar to conversational skills.



Interestingly, only those bilinguals who make the effort to learn them in adulthood have equally good command of languages. Children usually learn the language at the minimum necessary level for themselves, therefore, the "second" language is given much less time, which is why its level is weaker.



Would you be interested in learning more about the Foreign Language Ecosystem? Write in the comments.



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