You'll better understand the diverse Russian culture. In fact, language and culture influence each other! The only way to truly understand another culture is to learn the language of its people. As such, another great reason to study Russian is that it will allow you to discover the rich culture and history of Russia.
With Russian, you can communicate with people in Eastern European countries like Moldova, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Likewise, you'll have the opportunity to use plenty of Russian in Caucasus nations like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia as well as countries in Central Asia, like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Russian Is One Of The World's Most Spoken Languages
On the list of the most widely spoken languages globally, Russian comes eighth. Believe it or not, it's the most spoken language in Europe.
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.
Ukrainians often know Russian, but Russians don't often know Ukrainian. So while Ukrainian and Russian are distinct linguistically, there is an important asymmetry to be aware of: even though most Russians don't know or understand Ukrainian because it's a different language, most Ukrainians know and understand Russian.
In terms of practicality, it depends where you're going to work. If you want to work in Africa or western Europe, then you should learn French or German. If you want to work in Eastern Europe, the Baltics or in Central Asia, then Russian might be more suited for you.
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.
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.
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.
However, it depends on what you want to do with your language skills as to which one is more useful for you. If you want to work in a German-speaking country or travel in Germany, then German would be the better choice. If you are interested in Russia or the former Soviet Union, then Russian would be a better option.
Greek is a relatively difficult language to master, even more so for English speakers. But it's still easier to learn than Russian or Arabic. The reason many English speakers find Greek to be so difficult is that it's not closely related to the English language.
From the point of view of spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn, the other three languages in the East Slavic branch.
Russia ranked just below China on the EPI at 38th, but with 5.48 percent of its population speaking English — not to mention a foreign alphabet you won't be able to easily read — this definitely counts as a challenging travel destination.
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.
Does Duolingo teach Russian well? 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.
In their language difficulty ranking, the Foreign Service Institute puts French in the top ten easiest languages to learn for English-speakers, alongside notoriously easy languages such as Spanish and Italian.
Polish uses Latin letters, just like English. So, when you're learning the Polish alphabet, all you have to pay attention to are the special accents and the pronunciation. This makes Polish a much much easier language to learn than Russian.
While there are similarities in the grammar, Ukrainian tends to closer to that of Russian than Polish.
The Foreign Service Institute has determined it takes around 1100 hours for native English speakers to reach fluency in Russian. If you spend 60 minutes per day studying Russian, it will take you 3 years. If you spend 6 hours per day, you will reach an upper intermediate level in half a year.
Many historic documents prove that the Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian state, appeared earlier than the Russian ones. Russian comes from the Old Slavonic language, which was introduced by Kyivan colonizers to Muscovites, who were essentially Finno-Ugric.
How do you say “No!” in Russian? No! = Нет! The word "нет" is pronounced like "nyet" in English or /njet/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).