(no subject)

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Here's a question for the learners in this community: what do you think is the hardest aspect/part of Russian to learn, from your experience? Are there any grammar topics that you loathe or love because they're so difficult?

Comments

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

2 words: VERBAL ASPECT! OMG if I could throw one part of the Russian language into the grammatical wastebasket, it would be that!

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Strange. I would think that verb conjugation would be more difficult... Or declensions of numerals and деепричастий: "с шестьюстами шестьюдесятью шестью" or "защищающимися"?

How do you say деепричастие in English, anyway?

[dr-s.livejournal.com]

Стыдитесь, сударь: деепричастия (напр. защищаясь) не склоняются. Вы имели в виду причастия.

причастие = participle
деепричастие = verbal adverb, adverbial participle, gerund

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Let's just say I was trying to catch non-native speakers, and you spoiled my fun. :)

I was inclined to say "gerund", but was not sure.

[hockeyophile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, numeral declensions are difficult only because I keep forgetting to decline the first part of the number as well (if it's a compound number). My Russian professor tells us that native Russian speakers find it a bit difficult too and try to avoid doing it. Is that true?

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. I try to be very correct in my speech, but even so I usually wind up just declining the last word ("с шестьсот шестьдесят шестью долларами в кармане"). Afraid this is going to go away. :(

[constpd.livejournal.com]

Yes, really. Native Russian speakers very often forget to decline the numerals properly. Even TV narrators often say “пятьсот двадцати пяти” or “пятиста” instead of correct “пятисот”.

[chus.livejournal.com]

Yes. That usually irritates me. But well-educated people don't do that anyway. Or get a cutting remark about such unbecoming behaviour. 8)

[katrina-vl.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's quite true about that. Actually "a bit difficulty" sounds a bit poor for the challenge :-) I guess hardly 30% of all Russians can speak it out correct if they do not deal with any preparation... Guess it's not a #1 item at the list of must-learn things for a non-native, though a difficult one surely. When your Russian is somewhere about the level of comprehensive reading Dostoevsky and Tolstoy then you might probably bother about it. IMHO while learning English the like is the difference between the use of perfect/perfect continous: you do not actually need this before you come to Upper-intermediate or so. When you are Beginner you may use The Past, Present and Future Simple - nobody would blame you for that!

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

Declension of numerals hasn't been a big problem for me because it seems easier to memorize. Aspect, however, changes all the time depending on context. I still feel quite lost when trying to determine aspect.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

I'm not very advanced in Russian, but so far I don't like the fact that there are 6 or 7 different noun cases, and 4 different verb conjugations.

[hockeyophile.livejournal.com]

Verbs of motion, with verbal aspect a close second.

[crimson-clover.livejournal.com]

I agree. Verbs of motion are the death of me...especially with verbal aspect.

[raeyn.livejournal.com]

why, the exceptions, of course. yes, russian has all these nice, sensical rules that are layed out, but when you get to it, there are a million exceptions! we were going to (in protest) make "neo-russkiy"

but for the most part, i seriously felt that the language made sense.

xoxo

[imma2qoot4u.livejournal.com]

Hey i think a lil bit of verbal aspect... but that is only because i just started learning it...

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

I never had much of a problem with aspect; although it is (literally!) a foreign concept, it's so congruous with the imperfect and preterite cases of Spanish (not exactly, but very much like them) that I was able to transfer some concepts over.

What I always get confused is deverbals/participles (читающий, etc). Whenever I encounter them in my readings, I generally just guess from context what tense and whatnot it is. Plus the fact that they often get piled in with 18 other adjectives, and it gets hard to "decode" them sometimes!

[yers.livejournal.com]

if it has Щ in its suffix, it's a present participle; if Ш, a past participle.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

prefixed verbs of motion. No question.

[simonff.livejournal.com]

go over
go under
go into
go along
go off
go on
go through
go by
go about
go for

Don't think the English verbs of motions are easy for Russians. :)

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

those aren't hard because they're verbs of motion, they're hard because they're phrasal verbs (verb plus particle resembling a preposition) - which there are many less-motiony examples of. : )

[simonff.livejournal.com]

Then I am not sure I understand - what is this difficulty with the verbs of motion that everybody complains about? I assumed it's the wide variety of prepositions that can change their meaning...

BTW, the "particle resembling a preposition" is sometimes called in Russian lingustics a "послелог". I am not sure how official it is, though.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

It's really difficult to keep track of all of them. Remembering that you have to specify if you're going in one way or making a round trip, doing this as a one time completed action, or a repeated action, by foot or by vehicle... Then when you add the prefixes on top of all that and the verbs for carrying things, most people's heads explode...

[ouwiyaru.livejournal.com]

definitely word order--we're told at the beginning word order matters much less than in English, but whereas many more word orders are possible very few sound like modern Russian--that, and the apparent random adding of "и" into conversational sentences.

Yeah, try the anatomical aspect

[milady-winter.livejournal.com]

"Надень нахуй шапку, а то уши отморозишь"

A professional nitpicker here

[hellga.livejournal.com]

It should be, "Надень, нахуй, шапку, а то уши отморозишь". In order to pose an anatomical problem, it should be "Надень на хуй шапку, а то уши отморозишь". Not that the difference in noticeable in conversation :)

Re: A professional nitpicker here

[milady-winter.livejournal.com]

Are you for real?
Then nitpick this one:
Why "пиздато" - good, but "хуево" - bad?

What is here to nitpick?

[hellga.livejournal.com]

I nitpick grammar, spelling, and punctuation exclusively :p

Re: What is here to nitpick?

[hellga.livejournal.com]

Just in case, "nitpick" = находить и исправлять мелкие ошибки на которые 99.99% читателей не обращают внимания :)