Roper wrote:

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From Arbi:

I think it's awfully preferential that Ray is interested in learning Spanish, but he has no interest in learning Russian.

Preferential? Practical maybe. I speak Japanese much better than I speak Spanish. However, none of my neighbors speak Japanese. A lot of them speak Spanish. So this summer, I'll be taking an intensive Spanish course. Then I can go on splits with the missionaries and be able to understand what's going on.

-- Edited by Roper at 17:21, 2007-03-01

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 There's more demand for Spanish without a doubt. But the russian community there does have significant numbers. Just to make up an example (because I have no idea of the real numbers) if 60% of the immigrant population were hispanic, and 20% were Russian (it's not out of the realm of possibility. Up near Ray they have a lot of Russians), then, if you were just going by need you'd train about 20% of the ward missionaries dealing with immigrants to speak Russian. I don't have numbers to back it up, but I am extremely skeptical that there is any push at all for ward missionaries to know Russian.

BTW, Euphrasie, I've been trying to think of a way to translate some other Ebonics phrase into Russian, but I'm not up on my Ebonics. That was a moment of comedic brilliance on your part.