The Foreign Service Institute of the United States has determined that it takes about 1100 hours of study to reach fluency in Russian. If you're willing to study 3 hours every day, it could take you a year to reach that level.
Russian is allegedly one of the most complex languages to learn; its Cyrillic alphabet is enough to scare you away. In fact, the Foreign Service Institute classifies it as a category-four language. But don't let that intimidate you. Learning the Russian language is far from impossible.
Can you learn Russian in two months? Unfortunately, even if you spend 2-3 hours studying daily, two months won't be enough. Especially challenging this process is going to be for those who do not speak any other Slavic language (e.g. Czech or Polish).
A1 (TEU: elementary level). Minimum level of knowledge of the Russian language, enough for a limited number of situations in everyday life. A2 (TBU: basic level). Starting level of knowledge of the Russian language enough to communicate in a limited number of everyday situations.
Duolingo offers a complete Russian course, but that doesn't mean it teaches the language well. If you're looking to pick up some useful words and phrases, it's a great option. If you want to become fluent in Russian though, Duolingo is not the best choice. Apps like Rocket Languages and Babbel are better.
- The Russian language has more verb tenses than the English language does. - The Russian language has a lot of irregular verbs (verbs that don't follow regular rules), which makes learning them harder than learning regular verbs in English.
Noun case is probably the hardest part of Russian for English speakers to fully master. And this of course makes us ask: What exactly is Russian noun case? Simply put, the ending of a Russian noun tells you what it does/what role it has in a sentence.
Many studies have suggested that learning a new language improves brain function, providing better memory, more mental flexibility, and creativity. Learning a language from a different language family from your native language – for example, Russian – is a great way to maximize these benefits.
The grammar rules in Russian are very complex and have numerous exceptions. In addition, many learners struggle with the pronunciation – the stress in words is largely unpredictable and not marked in writing, while there are multiple homonyms.
If, however, you also are exposed to Russian outside of classes, then you can cut down the time needed to learn it. Reading, listening to the radio or eBooks, speaking, watching Russian movies, and traveling to Russia can all help to speed up your learning process.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
After reading through all the differences, Russian probably comes across as the easier language to learn. And it is! For native English speakers, Russian is categorized as taking 44 weeks to learn (or 1,100 hours), while Japanese takes 88 weeks (2,200 hours).
Japanese is another most difficult language for all those who have grown up learning English, Spanish or French but at the same time might be easy for those who are well-versed in East Asian languages.
Slavic Languages and the Similarities Between Them
If you speak Russian, it will be easier for you to understand other Slavic languages, which include Ukrainian, Belorussian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovene.
Russian is considerably easier than Chinese (any dialect) for an English speaker and likely for anyone who speaks a European language. The Russian alphabet takes a couple of days to learn, and once you learn it the spelling and pronunciation are close to 100% regular.
Of all the European languages a native English speaker can learn, Russian is among the most difficult. The Germanic and Romance languages have a lot of the same core because they both have roots in Latin. Russian is from a completely different language branch called the Slavonic branch, which includes Czech and Polish.
As of March 2022, Duolingo's Russian course has a total of 4 units, broken down into a total of 79 skills. That means there are 395 crown levels in Duolingo's Russian course — or 474 if you include the legendary levels. The exercises in the Russian course are basically the same as in all of Duolingo's courses.
FLUENT (C2)
Once you have reached this level, you are free to go in any direction: read Russian news, articles and books, listen to podcasts, watch Russian television and communicate with native speakers comfortably. It is the level of Native, or Bilingual proficiency.
Duolingo is still operating as a completely free app in Russia and Belarus.