(no subject)

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

I'm about to start to learn Russian. Any advice? Also, is Russian harder to learn than say english? Most people say english is the hardest language...just wondering.

Comments

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

If English is hard for someone, then Russian is going to be pure hell. :)

No, honestly. The only thing that is easier in Russian compared to English is the relative simplicity of spelling. The rest is much, much harder and more complicated.

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

No, I mean I speak english but how difficult is Russian. I can do polish and I basicly was self taught, is it harder than that?

[zufall.livejournal.com]

Dude, English is supereasy compared to most languages. The finer, sublime aesthetics and some metaphysical worldview kinda stuff can be a pain (for foreigners and most native speakers - or rather beyond the grasp of most native speakers to begin with) but technics-wise, English is a piece of cake.

Russian's a fun language to learn if you're a masochistic aesthete. I am, so I liked it.

[shellesie.livejournal.com]

I think english is very easy to learn, as compared with other european languages, i.e. german etc. There's no genders, there's no cases (they ARE, but we use only prepositions for distinguishing them), the grammar is quite rigid...
I can't say much about learning russian, because I'm a native speaker, sorry :)

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

What is the most difficult thing about it?

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

It's kinda like asking what is the most difficult thing in pentatlon. :)

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

pentathlon, sorry

[ex-fractaliz864.livejournal.com]

Cases? :)

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

russian is quite difficult, while english is easier than most european languages. i suggest that you start with the russian alphabet and few basic expressions from a phrase book. than you can buy youself an elementary study guide and get going with it. if you're enthusiastic about it, you'll learn it.

[andrewus.livejournal.com]

In Russian you have more freedom... You can construc t phrases as you like, and everybody will understand you:-)
But there is very difficult pronunciation for foreigners. But we have really interesting obscene Russian:-)

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

such as?

[jooniper91.livejournal.com]

Russian is hard since it's so different than English. German would be easier as it is closer to English. There's a completely different alphabet, etc. Still, if you know Polish, I think they have some commmonality since they are both Slavic languages, so it may be a touch easier for you.

Jen

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

But I'm really into Russian, so German just wouldn't satisfy me.

[fishity.livejournal.com]

Having learned English as a second language and currently learning Russian, I can say the following: English = piece of cake in comparison. But like the poster above said, if you can manage the alphabet and are still enthusiastic about it, you can do it.

It simply requires a lot of mental gymnastics in the beginning because some Cyrillic letters look exactly like Latin ones and represent the same letter while others only look the part but are a different letter...

[danvolodar.livejournal.com]

What I can't really understand is why native Russian speakers don't have any problems learning Latin alphabet. At least, I know noone who had.

[brody-pixie.livejournal.com]

So any advice on how long it takes to become fluent or any previous expierence on that one?

[procrastino.livejournal.com]

5 years of deliberate practice, or 6 months in russia.

[ex-amfora.livejournal.com]

ENGLISH THE HARDEST LANGUAGE??
*dies laughing*

[detonate-for-me.livejournal.com]

Don't listen to all these people who are telling you it's god-awful, because it's really not. :)

I never had any trouble with it except for stumbling a bit over consonant clusters. Are you taking a Russian class? Just keep up with your homework and you will do fine!

[korolyeva525.livejournal.com]

I have Russian friends who tell me they respect me for learning Russian, because they believe it is harder than English.

Russian is difficult. I found it more difficult than German, but much easier than Latin. The most difficult things are learning the alphabet and becoming good at reading and pronouncing, learning case-endings for nouns and when to use them, and learning verb aspect. But these difficulties are not so severe if you take time to study and learn. No language is "easy", but Russian has a few twists that don't make it the easiest.

Reading LJ posts in Russian helps me. I also listen to streaming Russian radio at least an hour a week. I rented Russian videos. I sought out native speakers for help. I spent a semester abroad in St. Petersburg. Every little bit helps, and with a bit of work and dedication, I'm sure you'll be just fine!

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

why do you think that Cyrillic alphabet is so difficult???? it's absolutely easy, lots of letters are close to those from the Latin alphabet. The alphabet is not the most difficult part of our language, so I don't understand why all foreigners are so scared with the Cyrillic alphabet.... So I think all persons who intend to study Russian should think not about alphabet (it's easy to study it during some hours) but about our grammer, phonetics etc.

my best wishes in studying!

[kefir-na-noch.livejournal.com]

My husband is learning russian and lives in Russia in a russian family of 6 persons where just I know english. So who is REALLY involved into Russian is him. It's really terrible language to learn, they say it's world's third hardest language.
Anyway if you know Polish it will be easier, even I, who doesn't know in Polish a word, understood what you've been talking about above.

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

they say it's world's third hardest language
for whom? for whom?
For any Croat, Ukranian or Serb our language will be very easy to study :))))))))))

[mekkababble.livejournal.com]

You said you're a native English speaker, right? From someone who's studied French and Latin, I'd say Russian is moderately difficult (but that's possibly because it's from another language family than the other two). From foriegn friends, I've heard English is simple compared to other languages.

Apart from the spelling, there are fewer Russian words than there are English ones (so my teacher says). If you do plan on attempting Russian (as I'd imagine most people here would encourage you to do), just stop thinking in terms of English sentence structure. It makes life so much easier.

Sorry, a bit more

[mekkababble.livejournal.com]

Kudos to you for self-teaching Polish. I hear it's terrible to learn.

[mangiami.livejournal.com]

No language is inherently harder or easier to learn than any other. The only thing that matters is the degree of difference between your native language and the language you are trying to learn. I take it English is your native tongue (it's mine too), so Russian probably won't be too bad. It certainly isn't as hard as Arabic, Vietnamese, or Mandarin.

[mangiami.livejournal.com]

Oh! Hints for learning Russian:
Look for any similarities to other languages you know, and build on those as linguistic paths. A lot of times, I see little connections between Russian and Latin because they're both Indo-European, and those help me a lot.

Cyrillic is a lot easier if you have a look at Greek letters (lowercase, mostly). For me, Cyrillic was easy to learn because not even knowing Greek, just seeing it as a blend of these Greek letters and Latin ones (that's NOT the historical evolution of the script, but it's how I conceptualize it) made it easier because I'd tease out which ones were like Latin letters and which were like Greek and which were uniquely Russian. So, I'd learn them in those little groups, and that made it easier. It helps to just drill on the letters every way you can. Every time I see "Toys'Я'Us" I read it as "Toys YA Us," and when I'm around campus and see people's sorority tote bags and I see like "AПО" or something, I just remind myself, "Oh, that's the same in Russian." Just little things like that help because they are so effortless and interesting at the same time. Well, they are to me at least.

[litchick.livejournal.com]

I think Russian is easy to learn, once you get over learning the alphabet and some of the basic grammar. After that, the endings start to repeat, and if you've ever studied a romance language, you'll appreciate how easy the verb system is. There are also roots that begin to repeat, a certain logic that you gain over time.

I mentioned this in another post; they can teach a computer to speak Russian, because it is so logical. If you've ever played with the spelling and grammar check in Word, you know how impossible it is to teach a computer English.

So don't give up! Talk to yourself in Russian when you are doing your daily routine, and write new vocab words over and over again. This will help you assimilate the language, especially in the beginning. Good luck!

[stephan-nn.livejournal.com]

I heard that Hungarian is more difficult....

[kragoth.livejournal.com]

I disagree with english being a hard language. It's very much like italian...there's very little grammar, and the exceptions we have aren't really useful. How often do we talk about geese? It's a word you'll never need to know. Words like Fish that don't change in the singular plural come as a relief to a foreign learner. Plus, there's no real case system. Sure, we do have cases...but there's nothing really special about them like russian and latin does. Do we have special uses for our "Possesive case" or "objective" that falls in the lines of "Ablative absolute" or "Instrumental of means"? I don't think so. To express anything like that, we use the objective which is the same as the nomnitive. Verbs don't really change forms either...so english therefore would be considered an easy language. The only difficult part is the past tense, which one can get a firm grip on after a lot of practice...and our past tense is nothing compared to case endings and verb aspect. I know many people whom thought english was easy, and had a very good grip on the language itself in a year. A year! Ok, with that stated.... I'd suggest getting a dictionary and a textbook.

[sushchestvo.livejournal.com]

Once an Italian told me that we have a very clever alphabet because there is a letter for each sound.
Well, though the Russian alphabet was derived mainly from the Greek one, I see many of our students have trouble learning it while studying ancient Greek :) For me it's surprising but it's really so.

[strange-divine.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I hear both. Some say it's very difficult, others say it's not that bad. I am taking a Russian course this semester in university. I had the first class just last night, and while it's really 'elementary' Russian, I found that a lot of Russian words derived from English/French/etc. But then again, the whole declination thing can get confusing, I admit... I've had Latin and German lessons in the past, so it was a bit familiar to me. I think that once you know the 'latin' equivalent for each cyrillic letter, it gets much easier.

[strange-divine.livejournal.com]

Oh, and one more thing: unlike English (and French), written Russian has the advantage of not derivating a lot from spoken Russian (or vice versa - I think you get my drift). Each letter has to be pronounced.

[-ufo-.livejournal.com]

not quite right:)