How hard is the Russian language?

3 Comments

1. GPB says:

   August 25, 2009 at 7:22 am

   Here’s what the National Language Service Corps has to say about Russian:

   "Russian is classified by the Defense Language Institute as a “category three” (out of four) language in regards to difficulty of mastery by native English speakers, and requires learners to devote an estimated 780 hours to highly-concentrated instruction to reach an intermediate fluency. On the Foreign Service Institute language difficulty scale, Russian is classified as a ”category two” (out of three), language, with significant linguistic and cultural differences from English."

   So it’s not easy, but it is doable. I’ve done it, and so have some other people who post answers on this site.

   For me, some of the hard things were:

   1) learning the grammatical case endings – and, in particular, learning to be quick enough with them to use them in speech;

   2) when I was first starting, learning the conjugations of verbs, and then later learning to use their perfective and imperfective aspects;

   3) learning which prepositions to use in certain circumstances (for example, there are 3 different prepositions which all translate as "from");

   4) using verbs of motion properly with their different aspects and all of their prefixes.

   You can master these things, though – don’t give up!
2. Mike-A says:

   August 25, 2009 at 7:22 am

   I think the main problem for you (as for all the foreigners) will be to learn all the patterns of changing words and word stress.
3. Kris says:

   August 25, 2009 at 7:22 am

   If lucky A few years, unless marry some Natasha ,then after 6 months you should be fine… Or else go there, hang out with Russians and drink with them as much vodka as you can.

   It is annoying hearing US people speak Russian and messing up the R sound..