Этот трудный русский язык

[gera.livejournal.com]

Dear Russian learners,

what aspects of the Russian language do you find most difficult?

Comments

[soidisantfille.livejournal.com]

Verbal aspect, for sure.

[gera.livejournal.com]

Can you elaborate, please?

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

It's either pronunciation (three years and I still slip up on a lot of the basics) or all of those small idiomatic phrases used to emphasize, compare, or just fill space.

[gera.livejournal.com]

all of those small idiomatic phrases

For example?

[soidisantfille.livejournal.com]

I think that the idea of aspect is hard for English speakers to wrap their minds around because we don't have a direct equivalent. I've also studied French, so that helped a little bit, but I still don't know intuitively when to use imperfective or perfective verbs in the past tense in Russian. I tend to default to perfective, making everything completed actions.

[frostflake.livejournal.com]

I have trouble with verbs of motion. There are so many nuances and specific usages that often seem completely illogical (contrary to the rest of the language, which is very logical).

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Oops, I hit 'enter' before I intended to.

I'm really too confused to even give good examples. Phrases with бы or же in them. The emphatic (I think) и. The difference between также and тоже. Вот. Да, when not used to mean "yes". And a lot of others. It's just so hard to remember all of the little details about these words and when they're used.

Other aspects of the Russina language that people often say are difficult don't give me nearly as much trouble. Imperfective vs. perfective? I think I've got it. Verbs of motion? Complicated, but once you learn the rules, pretty logical...

But these little words just drive me batty.

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

Perhaps my biggest problem wasn't so much a language one as a literature one, but in some of the stories I read/translated, the sentences just went on foreeeeeeeeeever. With the verb at the very end. I think in "Господин из Сан-Франциско" there were entire paragraphs that were one sentence.

I suppose that was just the style of the era, though. I can't stand English prose when it goes on and on like that either.

[tectonic-drift.livejournal.com]

Most definitely pronunciation. There are some vowel combinations I just can’t seem to pronounce right (yet) such as the “аешь” in думаешь or the “лая” in весёлая. I also find the sound щ and ц difficult in some words. And learning to speak a word is very difficult without hearing it because stress is so important, and even when a stress mark is provided I find it difficult because I am not good at distinguishing stresses.

[gera.livejournal.com]

I would say that также roughly corresponds to also, and тоже to too.

Да which is not yes, means either "and" or "but", depending on context. If you can figure out the context, you are fine.
It's archaic and is only used in proverbs, tales, poems etc.

Бы and же are hard to explain :) I can offer only sympathy there ;)

[red-kitti.livejournal.com]

I would have to say verbal aspect too... and then after that, the cases.

Believe it or not, I speak Finnish and Estonian, which are much harder languages (14+ cases), but because I have never actually lived in Russia, Russian is much harder for me...

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

It took a while for me to learn not to try to make sense of a sentence until I had translated all of it. I was incredibly confused until I figured out that I was going about it the wrong way.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

There are some vowel combinations I just can’t seem to pronounce right (yet) such as the “аешь” in думаешь or the “лая” in весёлая.

It's the closest that Russian comes to diphtongs. Most people would pronounce "лая" in "весёлая" somewhat like the English word "lair" (with a British accent), but less distinctly and further back in the mouth.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I would say that также roughly corresponds to also, and тоже to too.

English is somewhat fuzzy in its distinction between "also" and "too", so it's hard for me to remember which to use based on that comparison. Usually, I just have to open up a grammar book each time I want to use one of them.

Бы and же are hard to explain :) I can offer only sympathy there ;)

Some help you are! Seriously, though, that's why they're so hard. When you have rules, no matter how complicated, at least you can memorize them. I've yet to see a set of rules for these particles that make sense.

Someday, someone will figure it out and win the Nobel prize. ;)

[nemica.livejournal.com]

I always thought that it's much easier to read long sentences in Russian than in English because in Russian we use *a lot* of commas to separate one part of a sentence from other.

[globus-nahok.livejournal.com]

['dumaiesh]
[ve'siolaia]

ia, ie,io - short sounds, close to the first two sounds German name Jens.

[lizphiz.livejournal.com]

I second that. I'm finally beginning to use the cases intuitively (and correctly, sometimes, even!), but verbs of motion baffle me, no matter how many times I try to memorize them - there's always some new prefix that changes their meaning entirely.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Concerning бы: Anton Chekhov had a dog called Tyotka (Aunt,) which had a habit to look into her master's eyes as long as he would keep the eye contact. He would speak to the dog while it was looking at him, to the great writer's guests' and family's amusement. His usual speech to Tyotka was:
- Дорогая Тётка, вам бы в больницу бы б, полежать бы б, вам бы там бы полегчало бы б.
(Dear Aunt, wish you would go to a hospital, you would spend some time there, you will get well there, something like this.)
Of course he overused бы, which is only needed here once; this made a special comical effect on his listeners.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

You haven't read much German literature, then, I suppose ;-)

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Until you get acclimated to the way that Russian uses commas, they can be even more confusing because you expect the clauses to follow English rules. Although, once you get a feel for it, I do think they help (they help me).

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

The intervocalic [j] is pretty much lost in pronunciation, don't you think?

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

For me, I embarassedly admit that it's memorising the vocabulary. Ответственность and откладывание don't have any meaning for me. The only way I can remember is if I break them down into roots.

[aciel.livejournal.com]

I have this same problem.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

So far, it’s mostly vocabulary, but that’s always difficult for me. Specifically in Russian, probably stress on words — Russian is almost as irregular as English on that.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Aspect is killer as are verbs of motion...

That and trying to regulate my grammar when I'm speaking. I tend to think five times faster than I speak in English, so it's even harder for my Russian to catch up to my thought processes.

But as of now, participles and verbal adverbs are killing me...
I seem to keep screwing up past passive and past active.