(no subject)

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

I have a question, inspired by happy_accidents post. Am I at a huge disadvanage in learning Russian because I picked it as the first on my list to learn?

Comments

[anikk.livejournal.com]

Not at all. Russian will provide a great base for learning other Slavic languages. It is not that hard either (don't believe what people say about this) - if there is a will, there is a way.
I started with Finnish, then went on to Estonian (both are significantly more difficult than Russian), before going on to study Russian. You'll be fine.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not a total amature: i've been studying it since around september. However, I wonder if it is easier to do so if I am used to the language-learning process already.

Its both hard and not hard, from what I have found. Though the will factor SIGNFICANTLY impacts this, and i know that now that I have become remotivated, I am really making huge improvements lol.

[anikk.livejournal.com]

I think that the next foreign language you learn will come easier for you, because you will be used to learning systems... It's funny, but I find myself comparing languages all the time. I live in Azerbaijan and the language here is very close to Turkish, which I haven't studied. There is a debated link between Altaic (Turkic) languages and Uralic (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian) and I find myself getting excited all the time by the similarities between Azeri and Finnish, for example... - Learning a language is a constant series of learning, forgetting and then relearning things... I speak Russian here, but my Russian is by no means fluent...I'm constantly reminded of what I don't know or need to study up on. And of course, the Russian here is pretty wacky: the people here mix Russian with Azeri all the time, in the same sentences.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Haha that sounds like the Russian-Azeri version of what us Miami people call Spanglish lol

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

What you say sounds like you mean that Finnish and Estonian are Slavic languages.

If I were not a native speaker, I'd start from Polish and then went to Russian. That way, I leard grammar and some of the vocabulary first, then I learn the alphabet and the rest of the vocabulary and thus have all Slavic languages covered in short.

The problem with East and South-West Slavic languages is that East languages like Russian and less so Ukrainian and Belarussian treat the vocabulary of Est Slavic languages as older and in some ways more obsolete. Russian is gone the farthest from the rest of the languages. Most words that a Russian person sees in Polish are a very old part of Russian. It doesn't work the other way around - a Polish person will not necessarily recognize the vocabulary of a modern Russian text.

[anikk.livejournal.com]

No, Estonian and Finnish are NOT Slavic languages.

When I said that you'd be fine, I meant you'd be fine, because Russian is much easier than a lot of languages... If you are confused about the world's languages, I think you should get a book and read about the different families and how they are related.

For the record, I have two friends who started off with other Slavic languages... One knew Polish first and learned Russian, no problem. The other knew Czech and learned Russian, no problem.

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

Moi? Confused? 8)

I'm BA in linguistics, and I also have experience with learning related languages.

But that's exactly what I said! That one should start with Polish and Czech and *then* proceed to Russian! :))

[anikk.livejournal.com]

I obviously read your comment too early in my work day... I don't know if it really matters what order you learn a language; I just think that if you are motivated enough to learn a language, you'll learn it, regardless of what you already know...

[aveleen.livejournal.com]

That's quite natural and goes without saying... but a person here DID pose a question, in what order it would be better to learn languages.

[happy-accidents.livejournal.com]

I'm influential <3.

I may not know much about Russian, but in no way are you at a disadvantage.
Perhaps learning such a drastically different language (than English) will provide a sort of zest to learn even trickier languages in the future (think Finnish, eek!)

-Happy Russionating

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Russionating. I think I love that word lol

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

When I first started Russian, I was happy that it wasn't my first - taking some Latin first helped a lot because I learned how inflective systems work in a somewhat English-like language, before I moved onto inflective systems in a non-English-like language. It would've been harder for me to jump into Russian first, because inflection is such a big, different concept than how anything works in English. But if you've been doing it for months, that's exactly what you did, so congrats! Probably the worst part (the broad concepts that are so very un-English-like) is already over.