I was judging from the announcers on Radio Moscow back in the day, zashibis, not from any information about language instruction specifically. So your information is no doubt better than mine.
And your second paragraph is of course spot on.
My general impression is that English learners make too much of the difference. I'm pretty sure OP won't sound either British or American when he speaks, but Georgian. You've got to get to quite a high level before the Atlantic divide becomes an issue.
in all thecountries of the former USSR(i don t know about the baltic states)british english is studied,especially in russia.they refuse to accept anything american.even their international passports are written in french(not in english)
at schools and universities,in all official documets american spelling is considered as a mistake.
in georgian schools british is the standard as well(we use british IPA)though american IPA is much more easier.
even their international passports are written in french(not in english)
If this was ever true, it's certainly not true now: русский загранпаспорт
they refuse to accept anything american.
You mean besides American movies, American fast food, American music, American TV shows, and American brands (e.g. Proctor & Gamble)?
ya i checked it seems they changed it.
but 9 years ago one my russian friend had a problemfor for that reason.
his diploma was issued in english from tbilisi state university and his name was written in french in his
international passport.when he returned to ufa(bashkiristan,russia)they did not accept his diploma then he sent
all the documents to tbilisi to his close friend who officially translated the diploma and they accepted it.
now i ve lost his e mail to ask him about once again but that what i remember.
when i said they refuse to accept anything american i meant the russian government not the people.
for ordinary people everything american is very valuable far away.
for example ,you know it well,for every georgian going to america is a dream that will never come true.
Most people I know who speak 'British English' are fairly relaxed about any US influence; and its reciprocation. There are, however, two things which do annoy many in Britain: using US spelling (e.g. using 'center' instead of 'centre'); and, usually when reporting what is called 'news' saying, for example, 'The leader announced Tuesday...' instead of 'The leader announced on Tuesday...'
US spelling and usage seem to annoy British reviewers of books translated into English.
US reviewers, on the other hand, seem to expect British translators to use British forms.
#15 -- It's from a lifetime of reading US and British book reviews, tonya. I've only seen one American objecting to British forms (slang and dialect, not ordinary grammar, vocabulary, or spelling) in translations (Elizabeth Hardwicke in a jokey article in the NY Review of Books about 10 years ago, talking about outdated British slang and dialect in the Penguin versions of I Promessi Sposi, les Rougon-Macquardt. etc. Hardly a month goes by without a British reviewer mentioning US spelling or forms.
If I have time I may try to find something but it won't be a scientifically valid statistical sample even if I do pull something up. Why don't you try to find an American (other than Hardwicke) objecting to British forms in a British translation, or a British reviewer not objecting to American forms (when they're present)?
It's not so strange, is it? Think of what your reaction would be if you read a translation that reads foreign to you and the translator said "yes, but I'm from the West Indies." Now of course from the point of view of a USAnian, US English doesn't occupy the same position in the Anglophone world as West Indies English, but from the perspective of a Brit, it might.
(If it's any comfort, it's the same in other languages. I think most Belgian translators would aim for a 'neutral' translation, and that means leaning over to the Netherlandish side. If they didn't, Dutch readers would probably find it cute, rather than annoying (since Belgium isn't a world power, I guess), but it would stand out as a bit weird.)
