How difficult would it be to learn Russian?
How difficult would it be to learn Russian by comparison with Arabic?
So far, I've always wanted to ask you (non-Russian & non-Arabic speakers) a question about how difficult would it be for Chinese beginners to learn Russian by comparison with Arabic? And I really hope those friends, who've learned both, can explain their respective difficulties between Russian and Arabic in detail. (Russian belongs in Slavic group, & Arabic in Semitic group). Actually I love both Arabic and Russian, but it'll be impossible to learn these 2 extremely difficult languages at the same time or one by one. In this case, perhaps I'll have to make a decision between Arabic & Russian. If you were me, which one would you like to learn by yourselves?
Thank you for your kind reply!
Russian is much easier than damn Arabic......
I have some friends, who've learned either of them.
As they told me, Russian has a very complicated system of inflections, and Arabic has a very complicated writing system.
In comparison to Chinese, either Russian or Arabic should be a piece of cake.
Nothing is ever as difficult as people make it out to be (this is true with everything, not just languages). If you wan't to learn a language, just do it, and don't worry about how "difficult" or "easy" its supposed to be; people's opinions are worthless.
Maybe that's also because many people in my country still don't speak English, so I'm proud of the fact that I can speak it, even though I make mistakes occasionally. I used to feel intimidated when I first started chatting with native English speakers, because I assumed that their English skills are perfect, but later I realised that even native speakers make a lot of mistakes in their language (although not the same type of mistakes that foreigners make), so I learnt to accept that we're all human and can make mistakes and that's not a big deal. Besides, I'm sure most people are glad to see that someone can speak their language, and native speakers don't expect a foreigner to be perfect at it.
Well, Russian and Arabic are both facinating!
Are you going to learn it by yourself?? Or do you want to study in language school???
Don't learn it. I've been learning it for more than 7 years and I can't understand conversations or start conversations. I even went to Eastern Russia for 1 year. I would recommend anyone to not learn if you want to learn a language quick. This one takes time. What kills me the most is the inexistent sounds and the drilled 'r'.
<<Don't learn it. I've been learning it for more than 7 years and I can't understand conversations or start conversations. I even went to Eastern Russia for 1 year. I would recommend anyone to not learn if you want to learn a language quick. This one takes time. What kills me the most is the inexistent sounds and the drilled 'r'. >>
If you still can't understand or start conversations after learning a language for 7 years, you're a complete idiot. No questions asked. Even an average learner should be able to communicate in a difficult language like Japanese after a couple of years.
Then again, I just think you're lying about the whole thing and are just trolling. Seriously, how dumb can you be.
（Anastasia：
Well, Russian and Arabic are both facinating!
Are you going to learn it by yourself?? Or do you want to study in language school???）
But I just want to learn either of them, only one, not both. Headache......
And I'm not going to study it at school, just learning it by myself at home.
<<Don't learn it. I've been learning it for more than 7 years and I can't understand conversations or start conversations. I even went to Eastern Russia for 1 year. I would recommend anyone to not learn if you want to learn a language quick. This one takes time. What kills me the most is the inexistent sounds and the drilled 'r'. >>
Wow! 7 Years! 1 year actually IN Russia! For comparison, 8 years ago I was monolingual. Now I speak 4 languages fluently, and 2 more at an intermediate level.
to Biohazard
well. I am native Russian speaker. and I do understand that it is extremely hard to learn it - ecpecially alone at home!
so i wish you gooood luck! if you need any help - just let me know))
We should choose the battles small enough to win and big enough to make a difference.
I think Marie was completley honest by saying she wasn't able to learn it, but it seems it was a wrong decision on choosing Russian.
May I ask what's your native language Marie?
I've choose German as my 4 language on learning, besides the fact that I love the way it sounds, for a native Romance language speaker and an English speaker, as myself German is hard but not hard enough for me not to learn it.
I want to list you here important parts of every language has like grammar, prononciation etc and their '-' and '+'. and then you can decide what to learn. as i learned both of these languages Russian and Arabic...
1)pronunciation
-Arabic-difficult, there are such unusual sounds like 'h' of some kinds and glotal stops that are difficult.
-Russian- easier, you can come across difficulties pronouncing Russian 'r'
2)writing system
-Arabic- rather difficult, as every letter can be written in 3 or even 4 ways according to the place of the letter and every certain letter after what you write this letter
-Russian- all the letters one writes also the same way without changing, but there can be doubts about orphography, it's not that easy
3)dialects
-Arabic- has different dialects according to countries like Marocco, Egypt etc... and in each case you have to learn their dialect, 'coz they hardly understand each others' dialects...as for standard Arabic, it's much more difficult then spoken version of it...
-Russian- all over Russia one language is spoken, there is no spoken and official language it is the same.
4)grammar
-Arabic-has less word ends when building a sentence and structure of the sentence is not difficult. a real difficulty is to remember that every certain verb conjugates with every pronoun and depends on gender...so sentences like ....i do (man) and i do (woman) sound different.
not saying about past tenses... conjugation of each certain Arabic verb can have up to 16!!! form in past tenses. there are 5 rules of conjugation but they are difficult to be estimated when you have a new verb. so that is one of the most difficult things in Arabic-conjugations of the verbs. so one verb conjugated in present, past and future tenses can have up to 30 variations. and if one needs at least 80 verbs for every day talk. you must remember about 2400!!! variations out of just VERBS....and as you know in other European languages knowing 2400 words totally including nouns, adverbs etc one can speak language very well.
-Russian- has more difficult structure in sentence 'coz there are 6 cases and you have to learn end of the words according to cases. verbs have to be conjugated with every pronoun. but Russian has much easier system of Tenses.
so, the most difficult point in Arabic is all kind of verb conjugations up to 2000 variations of verbs that you have to memorize.Thus Arabic will take you memory 2 times as more than any other language due to verb variations.
and in Russian there will be difficulties with word ends according to cases, but you will need less words in Russian than in Arabic to make you understand.... so compare all this and make your choice
"all over Russia one language is spoken, there is no spoken and official language it is the same."
Right! Even people from Ukraine or Belarus are understand Russian speakers well and wholly. But as native Russian speaker I can say certain that Russian grammar is a big headache for us - especially vowel gradation and punctuation marks in sentence.