Linguistic Difficulties When Learning Russian

Linguistic Difficulties When Learning Russian Why is Russian Difficult to Learn? ChaptersThe First Difficulty of the Russian Language: the Cyrillic AlphabetThe Second Difficulty of the Russian Language: An Often Complex PronunciationThe Third Difficulty of the Russian Language: The DeclensionsThe Fourth Difficulty of the Russian Language: Grammar and ConjugationRigor is Important if You Would Like to Speak Russian!Are you soon visiting the Moscow capital of Russia? Are you soon going on a several month language stay in Saint Petersburg? Are you looking to have a change of scenery and to discover more deeply what the Russian culture has to offer?In any case, knowing how to speak Russian can be an advantage and create a link with Russian locals.When attempting to learn a language, one must be aware of the language's main difficulties. Learning Russian presents some difficulties, as we will see, but arming yourself with willpower and motivation will remain your best weapon if you are looking to succeed!The Mosalingua platform, recognized among other things for its l anguage learning methods, classifies Dostoevsky's language as the third most complex language to learn after the difficult Mandarin and Arabic.According to the LA Times:There are aspects of Chinese that make it hard for foreigners to learn, and there are aspects that make it difficult for native Chinese. I think the one that gets the most press â€" and is in some sense the most controversial â€" is the Chinese characters. For alphabetic languages, there’s what they call a virtuous loop between the writing, speaking and listening â€" those three categories constitute one composite skill. But the problem with Chinese, and to some degree Japanese, is it breaks that loop. Speaking does not necessarily help your reading. Reading doesn’t necessarily help your writing. These become three different skills that have to be mastered in parallel, and separately.But though learning Russian will not be as difficult as learning to speak Mandarin Chinese, learning to speak Russian will not be a s easy as learning Spanish or French. However, this ranking remains totally subjective and will vary from one person to another.To cheer you up a bit, Ioannis Ikonomou, a European official in the Brussels Parliament and a man who is fluent in more than forty different languages, considers that the most complex language is Hungarian, before Mandarin Chinese or Russian...Rigor is Important if You Would Like to Speak Russian!Russian is far from the Latin alphabet. So don't forget to study up on that.We will never stop repeating it, but learning a foreign language cannot be improvised. Rigor, regular work, and motivation are the main ingredients for success. This is especially true in the case of learning Russian.To gain fluency in oral expression, why not decide to learn the Russian declensions via a worksheet and repeat this over several days. This will ultimately help you to gain a real handle on the Russian language and its particularities.As suggested by the Mosalingua method, lear ning a language requires an almost daily investment  if you want to perfect the assets your learned yesterday and incorporate the novelties you learned today. It is a long-term job, which will have to be repeated, day after day, to validate your skills, deepen certain notions, and progress in Russian quickly!If you are going to live in Russia, knowing more about the local culture will definitely come in handy.And don't forget: some of the greatest writers who’ve ever lived wrote only in Russian.  If you learn Russian, you’ll be able to read the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Chekhov, Gogol, Pushkin, and many more, all in the original.In short:This article is not intended to discourage the learner in his quest for mastery of Pushkin's language. Nevertheless, it is a fair  warning about the difficulties of the Russian language and a reminder  that you will probably encounter them on your learning adventure.However, the picture is far from dreary. There are many aspects wh ere the Russian language is much simpler than others. For example, verb conjugation means that it is not necessary to use a pronoun, because the verbal forms are distinct and indirectly imply the said pronoun. Similarly, there is no hesitation between a definite or indefinite article. Many second language learners (for whom Russian is not a mother tongue) testify to the pleasure of speaking this language, which some truly consider to be a great work of art.Moreso than for any other language, it will not be possible to learn to speak Russian properly if one is not really motivated. It requires a well-defined learning objective and some real motivation (a long trip to Russia, working in Russia, a year of study in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, etc...).