Knowledge of Russian language, literature and culture opens the door to many exciting opportunities. Russian is spoken by over 250 Million people: it's the fifth most spoken language in the world. Russia occupies a sixth of the earth's landmass, and it has played a critical role in the modern history of the world.
Since Russian is a global language with so many speakers, learning the language could be a great step for anyone's career. With many Russian-speaking nations experiencing economic upswings, knowing the language could be the key to striking the ideal business deal.
So by learning the Russian language, you'll open up a whole new world of people, traditions, music and more, from all over the Russian-speaking world! So why should you learn Russian? It's a beautiful, often misunderstood language. It can offer you a bit of culture and history as well as potential job opportunities.
It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations and remains the unofficial lingua franca of the former Soviet republics, an indispensable communication tool across all of the Caucasus and Central Asia and most of Eastern Europe as well as Israel.
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.
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.
Russian is widely believed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. This is mostly true, if you have no knowledge of other Slavic languages (e.g. Bulgarian or Czech). The grammar rules in Russian are very complex and have numerous exceptions.
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.
Unfortunately, learning Russian can be a real challenge for native English speakers. This is because the two languages are not at all similar. As a Slavic language, Russian has very specific pronunciation, grammar, and syntax rules that you'll need time to get used to.
Russian culture is shaped by an authoritarian way of thinking, so the relationship between generations is also shaped by respect and appreciation. Russian parents are mostly very protective of their kids. They usually make important decisions regarding their children themselves without discussion.
Because of a strong literary tradition and a deep commitment to education, Russia had a highly educated population by the end of the 20th century. Today, nearly two-thirds of 25 to 34 year olds have completed post-secondary studies, along with just over half of 55 to 64-year-olds, well above the OECD averages.
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).
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.
- 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.
However, the best place to learn Russian does not stop at Russia itself. Russian is not only an official language in Russia, but also in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, and is widely used in many countries in Eastern Europe like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine.
Russian may be known by some as a very difficult language to learn. For some reason, it seems more difficult for native-English speakers to learn. However, Russian is still an easier language to learn than Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic.
The Ukrainian language is easier to learn than Russian, as Russian has more complex grammar. Learning Ukrainian also makes it easier to learn other Eastern European languages, as it is closer to Czech, Slovak, and Polish. Whereas, if you learn Russian, you can understand fewer languages naturally.