Thread: Help with Russian

Originally Posted by adoc

Surprizingly, it's true. French people speak Russian with a very good accent, much better than the English or German anyway.

В это я верю. Я просто не верю, что француз может говорить вообще без акцента. Ведь тот грек, мой знакомый, говорил ВООБЩЕ без акцента! И до своего приезда в Россию он не учил русский. Я именно это имела в виду.

Russian is a very simple language, actually.

No more than anyone else. English is much simplier cos of lack of cases, declensions, very simplified word formation etc.. I'd compare Russian to Old English and a bit of Middle English.

True Vincent, Russian is a pretty hard language.

Yeah Im finding it very hard, I just encounted my first difficult concept which is where the o is pronounced as an a somtimes, and the d is somtimes pronounced like an english j. The good thing is though me knowing both English and Greek, all the sounds of the Russian alphabet I can master easy as both my languages uses all these sounds. Somone who knew just English or just Greek would have to learn new sounds where as I dont. But Im going to find the grammer exstremly difficult.

Русский язык чуть-чуть труднее других языков, но это не значит, что невозможно учить его. Только надо учить МНОГО правил.... Я думаю, что люди, которые говорят что русский один из самых трудных языков в мире только пытаются пугать тебя. По сравнению с японским, русский язык - кусок торта (лол, есть ли такое русское выражение?) :P

Is Russian a doddle you wish to say?

Yeh, or a "peice of cake"

Originally Posted by basurero

Yeh, or a "peice of cake"

По сравнению с японским русский язык - раз плюнуть. :P

Да просто чепуха! Безделица! Ничего серьёзного!

ЧТО???

Idioms for all.

Originally Posted by adoc

Surprizingly, it's true. French people speak Russian with a very good accent, much better than the English or German anyway.

Speak for yourself, adoc.

I ain't French...just a small, insignificant american...but by friends' and strangers' comments, my accent is very good, close to native.

I just wish the rest of my Russian skills were as good.

Originally Posted by Vincent Tailors

Russian is a very simple language, actually.

No more than anyone else. English is much simplier cos of lack of cases, declensions, very simplified word formation etc.. I'd compare Russian to Old English and a bit of Middle English.

Huh? Much simpler???

2 words... phrasal verbs

Especially when, say, a phrasal verb can have 5 different meanings based purely on context, and can possess the ability to easily mutate in colloquial usage.

As a teacher of English, in my opinion phrasals are the hardest obstacle for non-natives to overcome, even fluent non-natives who've lived in an English-speaking country for years...but still cannot manage to sound natural!

<English teacher feeling frustration>

Phrasal verbs are intuitively obvious. I assure you, look at lingua latina, there're no exceptions in the rules, but it's hard to learn. At least many people in Russia (native speakers) after graduating from school make numerous mistakes in writing

At least for me it was much harder to learn Russian, English was just plain and easy.

Какой у тебя родной язык?

Ни русский ни английский.

What is your native language then?


BTW: when I said какой　was that implying that I was just talking about Russian and English? What I meant was "what is your native language?" (out of any language) Maybe there is a better way to say this?

Byelorussian Altough I rarely speak in it. Only Russian, English and a bit of German.

basurero your question was pretty fair! But you should have said "Какой твой родной язык?".

Тебе удавалось учить английский язык легко, а русский был труден?

Я думал, что русский очень похож на белорусский. Это действительно не помогало в изучении русского?

Интересно....

Originally Posted by Leof

basurero your question was pretty fair! But you should have said/it would have been better to say "Какой твой родной язык?".

Thanks!