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Hi, I'm planning to learn Russian in college. Does anyone think it's a hard language to learn from scratch? Thanks.

By Ticklemepink (Ticklemepink) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 11:01 am: Edit

same here!

By Chapter322 (Chapter322) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 12:29 pm: Edit

It's definetely NOT! I taught myself. No books, just Russian music, it's great. Ty soglasna? I never studied to learn the rules, like if I had taken a class, but I can understand people(if they speak slowly and clearly haha), and read cyrillic.

By Dzleprechaun (Dzleprechaun) on Sunday, June 06, 2004 - 05:34 pm: Edit

It's a hard language to learn correctly because there's so many rules and different conjugations and especially the changing stresses and pronunciations. That makes it hard in its own kind of way. You'll be able to udnerstand the gist of what people are saying but w/o formal education you'll be stuck on a pretty basic level. Kak ya (like me). Of course, I had the benefit of learning it as a more or less native language but still...

By Pinkdude (Pinkdude) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 01:37 am: Edit

Thanks. I was kind of worried abt the new scripand all that. I think it's really interesting, though. That's why I want to pursue it.

Ticklemepink-what made you choose Russian?

By Digmedia (Digmedia) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 02:37 am: Edit

I took two years of Russian in high school because the Russian Club had the BEST PARTIES in the school!!!

Anyway, the Russian alphabet was the easiest part of the whole course. It's amazing how quickly you learn that part. And I think BASIC Russian is quite easy. However, once you go beyond that basic level, it got hard in a hurry.

By Rachelvish (Rachelvish) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 10:38 am: Edit

anyone here who knows russian want to talk to talk to me? lol

The hardest part is that if you're not a native, understanding the prefixes and things like that are difficult.

Russian is supposed to be one of the hardest languages- its not easy to learn from scratch. Of course the alphabet is easy to learn- since Russian also has some roots in Latin. Also, sounding authentic is difficult. Anyway, it's definately worth it if you get into the language! Russian is awesome!!!

By Thedad (Thedad) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 03:18 pm: Edit

I think Russian has more roots in Greek, e.g., "yazik".

By Dzleprechaun (Dzleprechaun) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 04:00 pm: Edit

The Latin roots mostly come from French, which is about the only language the Russian aristocracy spoke for an extended period of time. Past that, though, the strongest influence does come from greek, since it is the greeks who brought Orthodox Christianity to Russia.

By Ticklemepink (Ticklemepink) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Pinkdude-

My family is from eastern Russia and I learned that when we did some kind of international hertiage project in 3rd grade. Each of us had to study a country of our background so I chose Russia over Hungary (one great-grandfather). Ever since, I've been fascinated and took every opportunity to learn all about it ranging from studying the government structure to the economy to the Russian Revolution, etc, etc. I even took a Russian literature course last summer which was AMAZING!

It was one of the deciding factors in my final college choice!

When you talk in Russian, do you feel it's more throaty like German or nasal like French and Spanish? All I know is that when I listen to the speakers, all I can think is... how heavy the accent is! LOL!

By Dzleprechaun (Dzleprechaun) on Monday, June 07, 2004 - 10:08 pm: Edit

Russian is much softer than the guttoral German, but not quite as fluid/musical as French/Spanish/Italian. So yea it's more nasal I guess.

By Esmeralda1 (Esmeralda1) on Tuesday, June 08, 2004 - 08:52 am: Edit

I'm a native speaker of Russian, but I've heard that it's hard to learn. I'm obsessed with the language and also Russia's art, literature, and history. So, I guess my perspective is kind of biased, but I would definitely recommend studying the language or culture.

The Russian letters are similar to Greek, but if you've studied French, it should help - there are a lot of words that are exactly the same in both languages.

By Fenix_Three (Fenix_Three) on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 04:47 am: Edit

I'm Russian too. Yeah conjugation is hard, but since I'm a native speaker I never had to learn the rules formally. As for reading, I think it's easier than French or English because you pronounce most words exactly the way they're spelled, so you'll most likely not have trouble with spelling (except for the occasional silent t and those vowels that sound like "ee" but are actually a different letter). Anyways, the alphabet is easy, very similar to Greek but more vowels. My advice is to take at most 2 years/semesters and then do an immersion program before going in depth with grammar and such. It'll be much easier once you've been around Russians for a while. Although I wouldn't recommend actually studying in Moscow, very dangerous and cold.