[bucky]

I was going to post this to the “Russian language: no more bullshit” thread but it got pretty long so I thought it might work better as a separate post.

Anyway, I’ve gotten a lot of useful advice from this forum, so I thought I’d give back by describing what I did to learn Russian. I spent almost three years in eastern Ukraine teaching English several years ago and got to the point where I could comfortably carry on a conversation on most common topics with native speakers and read Russian classics like Dostoevsky and Nabokov in the original with minimal use of a dictionary.

In the broadest sense, the most important thing I did was commit to at least two hours of studying or practicing Russian every day, no exceptions no matter how much I didn’t feel like it on any given day. I’d often do as much as four hours or even more of studying and conversation practice. I mixed this up between the following:

1) Vocabulary
2) Reading aloud for pronunciation
3) Directly studying grammar
4) Reading for comprehension
5) Talking to native speakers (and listening to mistakes they make when speaking English)

Before getting into details on these, let me say that three months before arriving in Ukraine, I worked through all three levels of the Pimsleur Russian program. Pimsleur is an amazing way to get started in Russian and if you follow the program (the main thing is not to skip a day ever, for any reason) it works. I was able to communicate with Ukrainians in Russian on a very basic level on my first day in Ukraine.

So, high level, my advice would be:

1) Spend three months doing all three levels of Pimsleur Russian without skipping a day for any reason.

2) After you’ve finished Pimsleur and acquired basic conversational skills, study or practice Russian for two to four hours a day until you’re highly conversational. After about a year in Ukraine, I could carry on a conversation fairly easily with educated Ukrainians speaking grammatically correct Russian who wanted me to understand them (i.e. little to no slang). The time frame will obviously vary for different people.

Now let me briefly break down each of the five points I mentioned above:

1) Flashcards
Obviously, make cards for important words you struggle to remember. However, be sure to also pick up these two products:

Russian Vocabulary Cards: Academic Study Card Set (https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Vocabular...rds+vis-ed)

Roots of the Russian Language: An Elementary Guide to Wordbuilding (https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Russian-Lan...n+language)

Memorize everything in them. In particular, I consider “Roots of the Russian Language” to be my secret weapon in cracking Russian. I found vocabulary the hardest thing in learning the language. For example, the word for independence in Spanish is “independencia” but in Russian it’s “nezavisimost.” ROTRL teaches you the simple roots used to make up long, complex Russian words and you memorize groups of words based on one root. For example “vod” is the root that means water, so you learn “vodavorot” (waterfall) and “navodneniya” (flood) and “vodapad” (water fall) all together. After a while the way Russian words are formed just starts to make sense and you can often guess at the meaning of long words you haven’t seen before. This book is essential. I can’t recommend it enough.

2) Reading aloud for pronunciation
This helps with any language, but it’s tough in Russian because Russian words have accents and if you accent the wrong syllable native speakers will often be unable to understand you AND the accents are never written, except in textbooks for foreigners. To whit, this book is great because it contains Russian stories with the original Russian with accents on the words, as well as an English translation on the facing page:

Russian Stories: A Dual-Language Book (English and Russian Edition) (https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Stories-D...an+stories)

After a while (a long while) you start to get a general feel for how the accents work and you don’t need to see them written out most of the time to pronounce the word correctly.

Note that Russian pronunciation is hard for native English speakers. In my first year in Ukraine I often knew how to say something correctly, I just couldn’t pronounce it so that Ukrainians could understand me. It can be very frustrating. It’s going to take time to get it down. I still can’t really pronounce the word for “furniture” correctly or hear the difference when people correct me.

3) Directly studying grammar
Grammar is hard in Russian. I had an advantage because I’d already studied German and Latin, languages that share some grammatical features with Russian that don’t exist in English or most Romance languages. You can try to figure the grammar out with a text book on your own, but if you don’t have experience with another Slavic language or an ancient Indo-European language like Latin, I’d recommend getting a professional tutor. The good news (for Americans at least) is that the exchange rate in both Russia and Ukraine heavily favors the US dollar right now, so you can get an on-line tutor for a few dollars an hour. I use this site for conversation practice, but you should be able to find a tutor who speaks good English and can help you figure out the grammar here too:

https://preply.com/

4) Reading for comprehension
I don’t have a lot of specific advice here. Maybe start with illustrated children’s stories or comics first. Reading Russian is hard when you’re a beginner. If there’s a Russian classic you’ve read in English you might try tackling it in Russian once you’ve made it up to the intermediate level. I read Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” in translation as a teenager and it made quite an impression on me, so I was able to read it in Russian with about a year or so of studying the language, my memories of the plot and characters helping me to follow along (although it still took something like a year for me to finish it).

5) Talking to native speakers
Always the most important thing in learning a language. You can have the grammar rules down pat, but if you’re too shy to step out of your comfort zone and actually talk to Ukrainians and Russians in their language, you won’t become conversational. If you happen to be over in the former USSR a girlfriend who doesn’t speak English is pretty much the greatest way to learn. Think twice before marrying her though (topic for another post). If you’re not over there and you don’t know any native speakers, Preply is a great resource for cheap conversation practice. I’m currently living in Central America and I do conversation practice with native speakers in Ukraine and Russia once or twice a week to maintain my Russian, and it costs me a few dollars a day. Again, here’s the site:

https://preply.com/

Another thing, and this applies to any language, if you do know native speakers who speak English, listen to mistakes they make or quirky things they say that don’t sound just right. That will often give you clues as to how to say things more naturally in Russian. For example, I once assigned an essay on the topic of fast food to my students in Ukraine. I noticed that almost all of them wrote that fast food is not “useful.” Hence I learned that the common way to say that food is not healthy in Russian is to use the Russian word for “useful” (polyezny).

Basically, as with most things of value in life, it’s just going to take a lot of time and hard work and there’s no way around that. Hopefully what I’ve written will give some of you ideas on how to go about it. Remember, commit to at least two hours a day if you’re serious about learning this language. It’s a lot, but it will probably be one of your proudest accomplishments if you manage to learn it. I know it is for me.

Any questions, just ask. Thanks again for all the great advice I’ve gotten on this forum.

[Chavdoctor]

So have u pulled yet?

[_Cicero]

I also learned to speak russian fluently. #1 on this list should be communicating in Russian with a native speaker. 1-on-1 lessons, no English from "privet", is by far the best way to make progress with the least amount of time. #1-4 on your list are neither necessary nor sufficient. They are helpful to the extent that you can listen to Pimsleur at the gym, or hit flashcards while commuting or on the john, but you should spend 0% of your unrestricted study time on any of these things.

[TripleG]

While Bucky offers some great advice the problem with his recommendations are that they are not feasible for those of us who have a full time job and are not in the country for long-term. I am fortunate to speak near-fluent Russian but that is because I lived in Russian speaking countries due to my parents work/travel. However to add most of us only visit places like UA or Russia for weeks or maximum a month or two and have no plan of staying there for years as English teachers. Also to recommend a minimum of 2 hours of practice every day going all the way to 4 is difficult to achieve if one does not have a flexible schedule.

For gaming reasons an intermediate knowledge of any language should be sufficient and to be fluent is not necessary unless one wants to get a job that requires knowledge of that language or they marry/LTR a girl and stay in the Slavic country full time and have to deal with her family, permits, domestic travels, and so on.

What I would recommend instead is to continue doing Pimsleur, Duolingo, or Rosetta...basically all the online programs that one can get their hands on at a leisurely pace...2 hours per day 7x a week is too extreme. An hour per day should be sufficient if one already lives in the foreign country since you're getting immersed in the language already via other methods (media, people on street, colleagues, etc.) Then enroll in a language course at local university or language school (that's something I'm doing here in Austria for German) and pass the equivalent of intermediate language knowledge of the course (here in Austria B1 German knowledge is requirement for permanent residency). In 6 months of this one will not be fluent but will be prepared enough to at least be able to pickup girls in the local cities who speak limited English

[sterling_archer]

Anyone tried Memrise for Russian? Duolingo gets frequently quoted as a good learning tool/website, but I found that Memrise German courses did more for me than months of Duoling German courses.

Repeating of words and phrases for 6 times, timed exercises, mashed up words, voice exercises are for me simply much better than Duolingo's types of exercises.
I figure it would be same for Russian as I plan on doing it next year. Fact I am Slav and can read Cyrillic will probably help me too.

[bucky]

(10-22-2017 04:58 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  

I also learned to speak russian fluently. #1 on this list should be communicating in Russian with a native speaker. 1-on-1 lessons, no English from "privet", is by far the best way to make progress with the least amount of time. #1-4 on your list are neither necessary nor sufficient. They are helpful to the extent that you can listen to Pimsleur at the gym, or hit flashcards while commuting or on the john, but you should spend 0% of your unrestricted study time on any of these things.

My post was long, so you probably just skimmed, but I did say that talking to native speakers is the most important thing.

As far as the rest of my suggestions not being necessary, everyone is different, but I found all of them very helpful. Especially "Roots of the Russian Language." I struggled a lot with Russian vocabulary, especially with getting to the point where I could use "big words" and sound intelligent, something I want in any language I learn. That book was the main thing that helped me overcome that hurdle.

Also, if you don't have any native speakers around to talk to, preply.com is an excellent and inexpensive substitue.

[bucky]

(10-22-2017 05:59 AM)TripleG Wrote:  

...2 hours per day 7x a week is too extreme. An hour per day should be sufficient if one already lives in the foreign country since you're getting immersed in the language already via other methods (media, people on street, colleagues, etc.)

I understand that at least two hours a day sounds like a lot, but I found studying at least that much every day with no days off necessary, and I'm considered "good at languages." I rarely took a day off from formal studying, in addition to interacting with native speakers daily, and I still went through long, frustrating periods of feeling like I wasn't making any progress and wondering if I'd ever get this language down. It sounds hard, but think of all the time that most people waste with video games and television most days. You could even cut down on gym time in a lot of cases (sounds like heresy I know, but you can get in a very efficient workout in less than 30 minutes if you do it right). The time can be found in most cases.

Russian is just very, very hard and learning it takes a lot of time and hard work. I had many coworkers when I was in Ukraine who were conversational in Italian or Spanish, and even Mandarin yet never managed to learn Russian well, but they also gave up in frustration after a few months in country. I think they could have learned it if they had been willing to put in the proper time. I think someone who doesn't live in a Russian-speaking country could still learn it with the resources available today (like preply.com), it just adds another layer of difficulty.

[Gopnik]

Good advice here, you are right about the accents. Ударение is IMO one of the hardest things about Russian, and most learners seem to underestimate it. It's hard to get it right and it can fuck up your speaking and writing.

Reading Dostoyevski and Nabokov in the original is quite impressive. Certainly way harder than "comfortably carrying on a conversation on most common topics with native speakers".

@TripleG beyond the intermediate level I think it's ok for example to watch a 20-25 minute episode of any russian series. I personally like кухня but there's plenty of them on youtube and it takes very little time so it's easy to do every day. It helps to keep things fresh and avoid getting rusty even if you can't actually get any speaking practice with natives.

[edlefou]

(10-22-2017 04:58 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  

I also learned to speak russian fluently. #1 on this list should be communicating in Russian with a native speaker. 1-on-1 lessons, no English from "privet", is by far the best way to make progress with the least amount of time.

I'm a big fan of Pimsleur and Anki flashcards and meeting people for language exchange, but I found my biggest progress came when I started seeing a girl who didn't speak English.

Dating a native speaker and spending a few days at a time holed up in your apartment cooking, fucking, watching movies, reading while it's cold and dark outside is not a bad way to spend winter.

Also, reading children's books where you have both the English and Russian versions is useful. Then you can move on to Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, then get to the Russian Classics.

[bucky]

(10-24-2017 02:13 AM)edlefou Wrote:  

(10-22-2017 04:58 AM)_Cicero Wrote:  

I also learned to speak russian fluently. #1 on this list should be communicating in Russian with a native speaker. 1-on-1 lessons, no English from "privet", is by far the best way to make progress with the least amount of time.

I'm a big fan of Pimsleur and Anki flashcards and meeting people for language exchange, but I found my biggest progress came when I started seeing a girl who didn't speak English.

Dating a native speaker and spending a few days at a time holed up in your apartment cooking, fucking, watching movies, reading while it's cold and dark outside is not a bad way to spend winter.

Also, reading children's books where you have both the English and Russian versions is useful. Then you can move on to Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, then get to the Russian Classics.

Absolutely. I probably should have specified that the things I listed weren't in order of importance. Obviously, talking to native speakers is the most important. I used the girlfriend method myself and it was great, although sometimes I noticed that my "girlfriend Russian" was better than my general Russian. That is, I spoke better with her because I wasn't nervous, although that also goes back to shyness being one of the biggest barriers to learning. Second to not putting in sufficient effort, in my opinion.

[Constitution45]

I am at a B1 level in Russian. Living over there did not help at all apart from learning the alphabet and basic conversation, for requests. The sort of stuff that you need to buy groceries etc or order drinks. However one on one lessons, memrize and going through the grammar text book helped a lot.

I have needed to take a break from Russian but I am planning on enrolling in an intensive course towards the end of this year. It is a fantastic language and will be one of the top languages to learn in the future along with Arabic, Mandarin just due to how the world is changing. Moscow is the centre point for a lot of business deals with the BRIC economies and elsewhere, people need to get switched on to this.

Of course in terms of game, having Russian is a big bonus, you'll get respect from most people if you can converse with them in their own language. A lot of Brits are falling short in this department.

[Suits]

(10-22-2017 07:35 AM)bucky Wrote:  

I had many coworkers when I was in Ukraine who were conversational in Italian or Spanish, and even Mandarin yet never managed to learn Russian well, but they also gave up in frustration after a few months in country.

[JimBobsCooters]

Russian is unquestionably the most difficult language I've ever tried learning.

Spanish is an easy language to learn to a conversational/survival range.

German is slightly harder but it's so rule based that it hits a point where you can do most things as long as you know the words and the sounds are particularly easy for an English speaker to master.

Russian has moungrel grammar rules with just enough exceptions to make it difficult to rely on, incredibly difficult sounds to try and replicate for English speakers, it's own alphabet to learn before even starting with the language that looks just enough like English to create issues without really helping at all and just some seriously long and difficult words that nailing the accent placement means everything. The lack of accents in books is another kick in the butt when you get to that point as well. It's also riddled with slang as an added bonus.

It's basically Frankenstein's monster of languages picking the hardest parts of every language I've encountered and putting them together into one beast of a language.

Agree entirely that the sense of pride as you progress is one of the biggest you will find in life, I reckon I was further advanced in Spanish within 2 weeks of learning it than I am in a year in Russian!

The native speaker angle is a difficult one. Russians speak really fast, really loudly and with a lot of slang, I personally think that you need the Pimsleur and some decent grammar lessons before immersion will help you. I spent my first few weeks thinking that immersion would get me a foundation and I didn't pick up more than a couple of words, after I got through Pimsleur and a grammar book I think the immersion factor really starts to kick in and make a massive difference.

[icrus]

Sorry that's just downright misleading.

Yes some Russians speak louder but in the metro no one speaks a damn word. I wouldn't say Russians are particularly loud unless they're hammered.

Really fast...again not true. Seems to you like this now because you're level is too low but compared to Spanish or friggin Cork English it's nothing. I literally never heard anyone complain about speed of language.

Slang is partially true but some people will even look down on you if you start abbreviating words and speak too colloquial. You seem provincial. Russian is less slangy than say French.

Yes Spanish is much easier but then again, Spanish seems like a language that was created for dummies. In my half-assed attempts to get at it it seemed even easier than English.

Cyrillic isn't a problem really, you learn it within a day. Written language can be a damn pain, this is true.

Accents are a pain in the arse as well, I'll also give you that. It still bugs me after a long time of speaking it.

Sounds are difficult for English natives but then I can just reply try harder. I had a friend who spoke damn near accent-free and he was from the States. I agree that it's annoying to make the effort. I didn't bother with it for French, I just don't want to unroll my R. But you're either in this or you're not. If you don't wanna sound like the funny foreigner you better work your butt off.

Grammar has its pluses and minuses. Italian has a fuckload of past and future form and conditionals, Russian has almost none of that. Now you make the call which is harder.


I'm not saying it's easy but it's not as hard as it's made out to be. Language is a function of effort with a slight talent multiplier. I worked my butt off to learn Russian and now I'm pretty fucking good at it. Motivation is key.

[Beirut]

My advice is forget pimsleur and Duolingo and Rosetta stone. They're shit for Russian.

If you want a pimsleur type go for Michel Thomas it's better. But even that is just to get used to the sounds.

I think best is:
1- lessons with teacher
2- practice with native speaker
3- memorise/Anki for vocabulary
4- introductory grammar book then a more advanced one
5- videos with subtitles.

The grammar book if ur studying alone will help a lot understanding all of the shit and variants you'll be hearing in all your audio and video shit.

[bucky]

(10-25-2017 06:02 PM)Beirut Wrote:  

My advice is forget pimsleur and Duolingo and Rosetta stone. They're shit for Russian.

I implore any beginners following along to ignore this terrible advice, at least as far as Pimsleur goes. I'm a "language guy" who's conversational in four modern languages and has a decent knowledge of Latin, and Pimsleur is the greatest tool for getting started in a language I've encountered. I started the three-month Pimsleur course almost exactly three months before arriving in Ukraine and could communicate with Ukrainians in Russian on the day I arrived. On day one I knew more Russian than many of my coworkers eventually learned in two years in country. It was pretty much the entire foundation for my eventually becoming highly conversational in the language.

Many of my coworkers in Ukraine had purchased Pimsleur and thought it was garbage too, but they had without exception not followed the instructions, which say very clearly that it will not work if you skip days.

[bucky]

(10-25-2017 09:16 AM)Suits Wrote:  

(10-22-2017 07:35 AM)bucky Wrote:  

I had many coworkers when I was in Ukraine who were conversational in Italian or Spanish, and even Mandarin yet never managed to learn Russian well, but they also gave up in frustration after a few months in country.

[Beirut]

Bucky have you done Michel Thomas?

It's the same format. It's better. For example it uses both formal and informal you. It has past tense (which is very easy and could've easily been incorporated). It has more usable phrases in every day life. Iy doesn't have the awkward phrases of pimsleur that will raise the eyebrow of every native speaker.

But both are not the ideal use of the students time and I stand by it.

Of course pimsleur is better than nothing. It's still shit for Russian though.


They get you a few usable phrases at best.

Meanwhile I'm having dates in Russian just using my memorise vocabulary (admittedly I'm using shit unconjugated verbs and phrases)

[bucky]

(10-26-2017 03:54 AM)Beirut Wrote:  

Bucky have you done Michel Thomas?

It's the same format. It's better. For example it uses both formal and informal you. It has past tense (which is very easy and could've easily been incorporated). It has more usable phrases in every day life. Iy doesn't have the awkward phrases of pimsleur that will raise the eyebrow of every native speaker.

But both are not the ideal use of the students time and I stand by it.

Of course pimsleur is better than nothing. It's still shit for Russian though.


They get you a few usable phrases at best.

Meanwhile I'm having dates in Russian just using my memorise vocabulary (admittedly I'm using shit unconjugated verbs and phrases)

No, I haven't tried Michael Thomas. Haven't tried Rosetta Stone either. I imagine either would be helpful if you stuck with them. In weight training I've heard it said that a bad program you stick with is vastly better than a great program you don't (not to say that the program you mentioned is bad, but even if it were).

I just can't have you saying that Pimsleur is "shit for Russian" though. It's a three month program so obviously it's not going to have you reading Tolstoy in the original and carrying on complex, nuanced conversations about politics and philosophy or understanding slang in that short amount of time but it's excellent for getting an absolute beginner to a basic conversational level, which is really the hardest part in learning a language. I've never seen anything even close to as good for that as Pimsleur, to be honest. However, it says in the instructions that it will not work if you skip days. Everyone I've talked to who says Pimsleur didn't work skipped days. It's like running instead of lifting weights to increase you max at bench press and then claiming that lifting weights doesn't work to make you stronger.

As an aside, for some reason I've known a lot of people who've purchased Rosetta Stone but I've never met anyone who has actually used it. It's strange.

[TripleG]

One of the posters earlier mentioned that just because you've "immersed yourself in a language" by living in that country doesnt mean youll get very far if you dont step out and actually get into social circles. Online apps and memorizations will only go so far... Just wanted to share a short story of mine...(Not really related to Russian although i speak it well). I relocated from USA to Austria and been studying German for 3 months now almost every day.

I thought i had small talk mastered but low and behold today while walking on the street a chick asked me for directions and I froze. Then i rambled in broken German directions and realised I got the turns wrong...she realized i was not making sense and said something like "nevermind". I tried to stop her and switch to English but she walked away. Although i was upset with my lack of language skills i went home that night and continued memorizing words and directions. Moral of the story is that no matter what foreign language you pickup you need to learn mistakes from your daily interactions, write them down and as part of your "mental homework" correct them. Then rinse and repeat. Im pretty sure now next cute chick that asks me for directions will not only get them but will also get my number

[AManLikePutin]

I've been in Russian speaking countries for a total of one month in my life (Russia 2 years ago, and Central Asia/Belarus this spring), and now I would say I am at decent conversational level. Granted, I'll freeze if the other person talks too fast, but I can communicate, understand and get my point across if conversation is at a normal level.

I've basically self-taught myself the language over the past 18 months....I've tried many programs. Some were good, some were a waste of time and money. Here is my 2 cents.

Pimsleur- I am a big Pimsleur fan....I love their approach, however I believe the Russian course isn't as interesting as they could have made it. Polish Pimsleur for example is much better, in my opinion. Still, if someone is starting any language from the very scratch, Pimsleur will be the to-go program for it. I'm now doing 2nd level pimsleur (got a discounted deal and wanted to focus heavily on quicker speaking).

DuoLingo- I just finished DuoLingo Russian last week (all categories in gold now, and I play everyday to make sure all stay in gold). I think it's been a worthy time investment. The repetition alone gives you a very good idea of sentence structure, and words. There's been cases where I've been unsure of how to put everything together, and I'd recall a DuoLingo sentence and just replace the words and go with it. Also, in some Russian sessions with other aspiring learners I've attended, I've realized how much the pure repetition of DuoLingo has helped me in recognizing certain patterns and being able to put my thoughts together easier.

Tiny Cards- It's a sister app for DuoLingo, focusing on the vocabulary you learn in DuoLingo lessons. I'm nearly halfway done, you are shown the word, then asked to type it out, and then it's spaced memory repetition practice. My DuoLingo word retention has significantly improved since playing Tiny Cards (I usually do 10-15 minutes either at the start of the day, or late night).

Babbel- I tried this app, I finished most of the lessons, but I don't recommend it. First of all it's subscription based, and once your subscription runs out, you don't even get access to what you have already accomplished to review. Also, it's as they are trying to teach a baby. Was way too slow for me, I don't need to spell a phrase 10 times to learn it.

iTalki- $8 lessons every week with a native Russian speaking girl. We discuss the theme of the week, and we just converse about it. She fixes my mistakes as we talk.

https://www.italki.com


YouTube- These are the 2 channels I mostly watch to get exposure to Russian media/voice. Inessa S & StarMediaEn

Sample videos:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In regards to Grammar, I've never had a practice book. I attended a very short and casual summer class where I was first introduced to the cases. Because of my DuoLingo practice, I immediately realized how things work and DuoLingo sentences and word all of a sudden made sense.

Last week, I took official Russian training TORFL test ТРКИ (the elementary level)...(of course listening and speaking practice wasn't available) , but scored 53/70 on grammar and 28/30 on Reading comprehension (the only two sections I could take and objectively mark b/c the answer sheet). Looking forward to doing the basic level test in the next few weeks.

http://russian-test.com/eng/tests/training_tests.html

My personal challenge is improving my listening and speaking skills in quicker conversations, and being able to reply quicker, without having to go through the (translate in my head in English, think of what I want to say in English, translate and say it). I need to start thinking in Russian to most effectively solve this.....easier said that done. It'll take time, but it'll come.

[Gopnik]

(10-25-2017 01:37 PM)icrus Wrote:  

Yes Spanish is much easier but then again, Spanish seems like a language that was created for dummies. In my half-assed attempts to get at it it seemed even easier than English.

Not at all. Spanish has a few traits that make it quite complex:

-Misleading gender :

e.g. words that end in an "a" but are masculine and words that end in a consonant but are feminine: El pijama, el mapa, la pronunciación, la constitución...etc. (in comparison, gender is super straight-forward in Russian and English doesn't even have gender)

-A fuckload of tenses:

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Russian has only a handful of them (present, past, future and conditional). Obviously verbal aspect makes slavic languages more complex but even then, verb tenses are quite easy. Spanish on the other hand has 17 tenses. These are all the different forms of the verb "Cantar" (to sing):

https://spanish.stackexchange.com/questi...el-español

-Dozens of dialects and accents:

The Spanish that is spoken in Argentina is different to the Castilian version or to the Spanish that Colombians speak. They all use different slang (although there is always some overlap) and the grammar is even slightly different e.g. In most areas of Spain we use "vosotros" whereas in most latin american countries they use "ustedes". Similarly in Argentina and Uruguay they use "vos" instead of "tú". For each of these pronouns you have different verb forms too. The use of the past tense is also slightly different in Latin America.

On the other hand, Russian has much less dialectical variation. I do find that southern Russians and Ukrainians pronounce the "г" sort of like the "h" in "hello":

e.g. Город is pronounced sort of like "хород" with a really soft "х".


-English speakers that learn Spanish tend to overestimate their habilities: This one is a bit tricky and subjective.

Most young people outside of the Anglosphere are expected to learn English to a very high standard (to the point where you're comfortable using it in a professional environment - at least B2/C1 level).

On the other hand, native English speakers are not subjected to the same standard since they already speak the most useful language in the world.

Because of this, when they learn a foreign language they seem content with being able to string a couple of coherent phrases together and think that counts as speaking "fluently".

They also tend to lack the motivation to reach a high level (C1 or above) since English is basically the lingua franca of the world. Learning foreign languages for them is a bit more "niche" so to speak.

Anyways, going back to Russian, it is 100% doable and it's difficulty should not discourage those that are serious about learning.

(10-25-2017 11:23 AM)JimBobsCooters Wrote:  

Russian has moungrel grammar rules with just enough exceptions to make it difficult to rely on, incredibly difficult sounds to try and replicate for English speakers, it's own alphabet to learn before even starting with the language that looks just enough like English to create issues without really helping at all and just some seriously long and difficult words that nailing the accent placement means everything. The lack of accents in books is another kick in the butt when you get to that point as well. It's also riddled with slang as an added bonus.

The native speaker angle is a difficult one. Russians speak really fast, really loudly and with a lot of slang.

What exceptions do you mean here? I personally find the grammar rules very coherent and straight forward. Granted, there's a lot of them but once you get case and verb endings right, say 70% of the time that's already most of the pain gone.

Russians don't speak fast, you just need to improve your language skills and get more exposure.

The alphabet is easy. This has been covered many times. I imagine learning to read Arabic, Hebrew or Chinese must be way harder than the cyrillic alphabet.

I do agree that slang is a tricky area. On one hand, you need to learn it if you want to understand film dialogues and informal speech but on the other hand, if you use it too often you'll be perceived as being vulgar and low class. Obviously learning something without using it often in conversation is quite hard, so it's a bit of a paradox really.

Here's some of the most common slang words and expressions I've encountered in Russian:

Бухать/Бухнуть: To get pissed, to drink (ты бухой! = you're a drunkard!) - This one is a bit vulgar

Дофига (чего-то), Куча (чего-то): A lot of something. They are followed by the genitive. (Pro-tip: the word "of" in English usually translates as some form of the genitive in Russian)

Нифига, нихрена: sort of like not at all e.g. "мне это нифига не нужно" "Я нихрена не понял"

Офигеть!, Ни фига себе!: Wow!, Cool! (the less slangy version is: ничего себе!)

Круто!: cool!

Что за фигня?: What is this nonesense/bs?

Офигённый: cool, "охуенный" would be the stronger, more vulgar version, sort of like "fucking cool".

Хуёвый: shit, bad quality, stupid etc.

Урод: freak, retard etc. They are used as an insult but it's not super strong.

Это меня бесит: It drives me mad

*Фига is a tricky one. It can be used with a lot of prefixes to mean different things and can also be substituted with the more vulgar "хуя" which comes from the word "хуй" which means "dick".

Чувак: man, dude, guy. It comes from the word "человек" which means "person", "human".

Погнали!/Поехали!/Пошли!: Let's go! This one originally was super weird to me, cause Russians use the past tense to describe a present/future action. This one is not vulgar and is just part of colloquial speech.

Ботаник: nerd (задрот is a bit stronger and more offensive I think).

Подкаблучник: whipped, a guy that is controled by his gf/wife

Трахать: to fuck, to have sex (vulgar)

баран, козёл: literally "goat". It is used to call someone stupid.

Что ты творишь?: What the hell are you doing? (Here they use the verb творить, literally "to create")

Бомж (без определённого места жительства): homeless (slightly pejorative).

Алкаш, Быдло: Alcoholic, drug addict who usually live in the streets.

There's obviously a lot more but these ones are used somewhat frequently. I find the dozens of combinations of хуй /фига to be a bit puzzling and then you also have the verb ебать (to fuck), which gives you words like ебанутый (fucked up, crazy) etc.

[icrus]

Ya but even for those exceptions you have rules in Spnish. Nouns on -cion are masuline, like those on -zione in Italian. Iirc the rule for those on -ma is that they're masculine if they're from another language or smth like that. Either way, Spanish really seems easy in comparison to Italian and French. And my native tongue is German.

Good collection of slang btw haha. Made me realize that I use those way too often. It's ofigenniy btw, without jo.

Dolbojob (mofo) is another great one, can't be bothered to switch my keyboard hehe. And pizdato (fuckin cool) is also a must-know if you're in these circles.

Anyway dirty talk in Russian is just really great. Gets me off like nothing if you have it down to the T.

[RatInTheWoods]

I think I would prefer to get a blonde haired dictionary to teach me a word after each bang.

[Gopnik]

(10-26-2017 04:34 PM)icrus Wrote:  

Ya but even for those exceptions you have rules in Spnish. Nouns on -cion are masuline, like those on -zione in Italian. Iirc the rule for those on -ma is that they're masculine if they're from another language or smth like that. Either way, Spanish really seems easy in comparison to Italian and French. And my native tongue is German.

Good collection of slang btw haha. Made me realize that I use those way too often. It's ofigenniy btw, without jo.

Dolbojob (mofo) is another great one, can't be bothered to switch my keyboard hehe. And pizdato (fuckin cool) is also a must-know if you're in these circles.

Anyway dirty talk in Russian is just really great. Gets me off like nothing if you have it down to the T.

You're totally right - пиздец is another one that is common and has dozens of variations and yeah, also Долбоёб, where you also have Долбанутый, Долбанный and I think a few more.

Another prefix that can be used with "хуя" or "фига" is -на": нафига/нахйя which sort of means "why" or "what for" sort of like the word зачем.

Нафига мне это надо? (what the hell do I need this for?)

Нахуя готовишь мне бананы? (this is from a leningrad song)

I also forgot to add that in informal/vulgar speach, many Russians pronounce "что" as "чё", which is ok to use everynow and then, but will make you sound uncultured if you use too often, which I've been called out for a few times.

E.g. Чё тебе надо??

Also in certain contexts, the verb хотеть can be omitted.

This way, Russians sometimes say:

"Ты чего??" meaning "Ты что/чего хочешь?" (what do you want)

This verb btw can take both the genitive (чего) and the accusative (что). In theory the genitive version is more "literary" but I actually see it more often in vulgar/everyday speech:

https://rg.ru/2016/10/06/marina-koroleva...zhdat.html

It's little details like these that I find the hardest with Russian. Little stuff that is not super intuitive and doesn't usually get taught in the classroom.