[AJ007]

Political change must go hand in hand with cultural change. It is easy to blame a democratically elected leader, yet quite difficult to identify the underlying problems of those who elected that leader to power.

Russia is decades ahead of other countries, but they have a long path ahead of them. A good start would be teaching English in elementary school.

[pbz]

I'd be very surprised if they don't teach English in elementary. In Eastern Europe they start teaching English from kindergarten.

[AJ007]

I have not met any Russians who were proficient in English, that learned it locally in school. I have met Russians who were fairly good with English that learned it after living in the US for a while.

Compare that to, for example, someone from the Philippines who will be proficient enough in English that you think they are an American.

[asmosoinio]

Not arguin against you, but I think your example was a pretty poor one: The Philippines was basically owned and ran by the US for a hundred years. So when discussing English skills, it is not a good example of a "regular other country".

[AJ007]

I never said the Philippines was a "regular other country", thus why is this in quotes?

In my own personal business, I estimate without native English proficiency my employees would be worth 1/5th or less of what they are to me now. I would have to hire an bilingual manager to run projects, and that person would have to be paid a lot. My turnover would be higher and the accuracy of instructions would be diminished, thus resulting in slower project execution times.

Irregardless of the non-ideal situations of the past, current citizens with English proficiency benefit enormously -- in the form of money.

Being proficient in English is a really big deal. As an American child I was told over and over again that it was important to learn a foreign language to increase my ability to get a job. As an adult, I found the opposite, that English above all other languages was critical in running a successful international business.

[asmosoinio]

The double quotes in my reply do not mean an exact quote, more like what is described in Wikipedia as under Irony or maybe Signaling unusual language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_quotes#Signaling_unusual...

You used the Philippines as a counter-example to Russians not having very good skills in English. I think the example was badly chosen: Like if you choose to compare them to Canada or United Kingdom. Of course there are countries where people have better skills in English than in Russia. But I think comparison with one of these extreme examples misses the point -- you should compare Russia to other countries that are competing for being "the world leader in software development".

I do think however that we are discussing about a bit different things though, as I didn't understand how your reply had anything to do with my message -- except for the double quote part.