Is Russian hard to learn?

Question

My native tongue is German and I want to learn a third language. I heard that German is a difficult language to learn, so would it be hard for me to learn Russian too? Is the Russian gramatic somewhat similar in German? Are there any similarities between those two languages? Russian people are so hard to get to know, so I don't think anybody will be teaching me.

Answer 1

I heard Russian was a second hardest language to learn after Chinese. I heard Russian was not hard to learn at all.. I heard...

Well, I am Russian and know one thing - even though I don't speak German, I had a lot of friends learning German at school and doing a very good job at it very quickly, so I would say there must be some similarities, but don't expect them to be like those between English and German.

Russian has 6 cases, three genders (and yes, unliving things in Russian also have genders), which have endings not only in the nouns, but also in verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc. There are 2 kinds of verbs that affect the way a verb is conjugated. Our sounds are not always similar to those of European languages and some of them foreigners have troubles with. BUT...

If you want to just learn a language to speak for yourself (not as a profession) then there is not really many languages out there that are hard enough to learn for you not to try to learn them... ;-) You can try and then quit if you can't do it. Plus, there are a lot of sites to help you - masterrussian.com, translate.ru, and almost every dating site with Russian women on it will have some vocabulary on it (yes, maybe a little too concentrated on a particular topic, but hey, it's still words, right? ;-))

Plus, if you do master Russian well enough to read books and watch movies you'll find a whole culture COMPLETELY different from anything you are used to - there are much more similarities between European nations than between them and Russians.

And, as a bonus, I am always here to help you with explanation of a difficult rule or a translation of a word or phrase you didn't understand... ;-);-);-)

The hardest thing to do, as someone great said, is the first step. Then it will be like a snowball - you know, it's hard to get it to stick together when it's little, but when it starts growing, it grows really fast...

Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!

P.S... At least with me, no vodka drinking is required - I hate the stuff! ;-) lol But it is true that in general it is one of the few stereotypes that actually works! ;-)

Answer 2

Russian and German have some similarities, yes. They have similar case systems and tense systems.

As an English native speaker, I found aspect hardest to learn in Russian. I'm not sure if you have perfective and imperfective aspect in German but that was hard. Surprisingly, the alphabet is very simple to learn and pronunciation is very phonetic.

You should do well at learning Russian. It's a great language and a great country. Having lived in Russia, I think Russians are very warm and open. The best way to get a Russian to open up to you is to drink a few vodkas with them. It might sound stereotyped but it's one of the few stereotypes that is actually true.

Answer 3

No! I loved learning Russian and honestly never met a mean one except when I didn't buy from them at the market. I don't know German at all but I learned to speak Russian almost fluently in two months but just only being around people that spoke Russian and learned how to say "what's this" and pointing then I wrote it down in a notebook and practiced at night. I got it done great. If you already know a language then it shouldn't be that hard to learn a third. Good luck!!! Rosetta Stone Language guide I heard is really good and they have Russian etc.

Answer 4

The most useful skill that you will transfer from Latin, is your acceptance of grammatical structures, as both Latin and Russian are much richer in verb endings and so on, than English is. Learning Latin will give you a feel for the logic of grammar, and if you are doing well at it, then you obviously have the kind of mind that is happy to slot the third person plural present subjunctive of an irregular verb into the place where it should go. Your main, in fact only, problem at the start is getting used to the Cyrillic alphabet - but honestly, if you spend say a week, practising writing out the alphabet and words with English cognates to begin with, you'll become used to it very quickly. NB I DO mean writing out, with a pen in your hand, so that you are accustomed to Cyrillic cursive as well as the printed alphabet [NB also, give yourself a Cyrillic virtual keyboard , in Control Panel, Keyboard, Language options]. Russian IS Indo-European of course [what was that person up there thinking of, of course Slavic languages are IE!!] - but when it comes to ease of learning a language descended from Latin, I found Spanish easier than French. It's almost comic, the very tiny changes in, say, first conjugation verbs. Have a look at a basic Spanish grammar and you'll see.

Answer 5

Privet!(means "HI" pronounced Preevet)Russian is not hard. If you really put your time into it you'll catch on to it very quick.Most of the people are pretty nice unless they're really snobby. Some think they're better than anyone in the world. I don`t know German so I can`t tell if it`s alike. But if you learned a second language you shouldn't have problem with third. good luck.

Answer 6

Maybe u can try phrasebase.com :) goodluck.