Learn Russian as your first foreign language?
Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at
9:42 pm
is it sensible for me, an English native speaker, to learn a difficult language like Russian as my first foreign language. I have a a lot of interest in this language, but I feel it may be too much to cope with.
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Tagged with: english native speaker • foreign language
Filed under: Russian Language
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Well, if you feel that your are quite good with learning the rules and structures of languaes I would say go for it. I think it’s really cool that you’d be choosing a langauge so different from the typical choices (Spanish, French, German). With that being said though from what I hear it’s not exactly an easy langauge. To start you would be learning a completely differnt alphabet. Also in comparison to languages like Spanish, French and German, Russian doesn’t share very much in common with English. So you’d be learning a lot of stuff from the ground up.
But don’t let that scare you though. If you really want to learn the language you can do it. If you stay focused and dedicate at least some time to studying and reviewing everyday you’ll do fine. I currently speak Engish, Spanish and Portuguese. English is my mother language, Spanish I learned in school and Portuguese I learned on my own. Overall I thought both Spanish and Portuguese were fairly easy. However, soon I will be starting Japanese, one of the most difficult langauges spoken. They have three different writing systems not including romanji (a type of script that uses the Latin alphabet) plus it has one of the most intricate and complex grammar systems. But I’m not going to let this bother me. A language can be learned just like anything else (Physics, Calculus,etc.) I feel that if I work hard enough, I’ll get it.
Best of luck to you on Russian!
Not if you have an aptitude for languages.
Are you good at learning languages? Some people find it easier than others. Maybe you could start with an easier language than Russian?
Russians have a different alphabet which seems very daunting if you haven’t tried learning a foreign language yet.
Why not start off with Spanish? Then move onto Russian afterwards? Statistically Spanish it is the easiest language to learn and also the second most spoken language in the world.
Russian is like playing piano–anyone can pound out chopsticks, but few become virtuosos.
That said, you’ll never be fluent if you never try, so why not try Russian? The alphabet is phonetic (unlike, say, Chinese), and every letter is pronounced (unlike French and English). Russian doesn’t really use the verbs "to have" or "to be", and doesn’t use any articles (a, the). Hence, "I am an American" is simply "Ya ameriKANka". Easy! Here’s some other quick, easy phrases:
MenYA zaVOOT Jane = My name is Jane.
SpaSEEba = Thank you.
PreevYET! = Hi!
Gde tuaLET? = Where is the bathroom?
It’s a beautiful language, and knowing the language will help you learn about the Russian’s rich culture and complex and interesting history. If you keep at it long enough, it might even help you land a job
Udachi!!