Learning Russian

I would like to know the experiences of any non-Slavic-language speakers who have tried to learn Russian. I would really like to start studying on my own, but am intimidated by the grammar. (Not to mention the pronunciation, and the vast differences in vocabulary.) Am I just being a wimp, or is it as difficult an undertaking as I imagine?

James,

The difficulties of learning Russian have been exaggerated however an English speaker still has a problem in that he's dealing with a lot of vocabulary that he is unfamiliar with unlike French, Spanish and German where there are a lot of words that are similar to English words.

As with any other language though, exposure to it and lots of practice with native speakers will help.

Below are a couple examples which show how much Russian syntax and vocabulary differ from English compared to the major western European languages::

English: Domestic violence
French: La violence domestique
Spanish: La violencia doméstica

But Russian: Nasiliye v sem'ye (or perhaps domashneye nasiliye)

English: A winter sports paradise
Dutch: Een paradijs van de wintersporten
German: Ein Wintersportsparadies

But Russian: Raiskii uglok dla liubitelei zimnik vidov
sporta.

However, regardless of the strangeness of the language, if you become really emersed in it long enough and have plenty of opportunity to practice it , you will eventually be able to speak it well.

The good thing abou Slavic languages is that on the whole (except cases sometimes) are logical and words are often self-explanatory. And if you learn Russian, you'd be able to understand all Slavic languages to an extent.

Frances,

Re: " And if you learn Russian, you'd be able to understand all Slavic languages to an extent."

I think you are right. All of the Slavic languages are very similar to each other except the Polabian of north-central Germany which has been extinct since about 1750. The Polabians were isolated from their Slavic relatives further east and lived under German and Swedish rule for a long time. This resulted in their language being heavily impacted by Low German and Scandinavian as seen in forms like zlatene smed "goldsmith" cf. German Goldschmidt; Norwegian gullsmed and klora vedrü cf. "Clear weather" German klares Wetter; Norwegian Vær klar.

as a native speaker of Russian I must say that, to my mind, European languages like English, Spanish, Dutch etc. are easier than my own language. Yeah, especially due to grammar where there are many rules which even the native speakers can not memorize. Besides, Russian has a huge vocabulary, there are lots of synonims to many words.
Here I also should mention that without knowing our foul language, you will not be able to understand the speech of an average Russian person!")))
There are really lots of abusive words in Russian which are never studied "officially", nor published in most books and newspapers, but which are very common in speech. We call it "the second Russian language".

We don't pronounce his name like that : "Tolstoy".

Connaissez-vous un bon dictionnaire français/russe ou allemand/russe en ligne ?

>>Connaissez-vous un bon dictionnaire français/russe ou allemand/russe en ligne ?

http://lingvo.yandex.ru/fr
http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?&L1=2&L2=4&sendcookielangs=1

ce sont les meilleurs dictionnaires dans un Internet russe

« Guest » : merci pour ta remarque légèrement narcissique et mégalomane, mais tu n'es pas concerné par le remerciement que j'adressais à Linguist.


Linguist : « >>Connaissez-vous un bon dictionnaire français/russe ou allemand/russe en ligne ?

http://lingvo.yandex.ru/fr
http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?&L1=2&L2=4&sendcookielangs=1

ce sont les meilleurs dictionnaires dans un Internet russe »

3e « Guest » de la page 8 : ma remarque était destinée au 2e « Guest » de la page 7.

Ich will nicht auf Englisch schreiben, denn icj stimme nicht dazu, daß dieses Forum so abtgeteilt ist (einsprachige Sektion vs mehrsprachige Sektion)

http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?a=default1&SHL=1&HL=1