Thread: What is the most difficult aspect of learning Russian?

Just a poll but open for discussion.

Trying to understand native speakers talk. That will get you everytime.

I clicked "other" because for me it is remembering new words and building vocabulary that is hard.
Oh! I have an idea.....a shock collar for forgetfulness.

Other: building vocabulary.

bah. Vocabulary isn't that hard.

Try watching a russian movie. You'll forget all about vocabulary and be like. "aasdf why can't i understand anything"

Maybe you can't understand anything because your vocabulary is too small?

Remember though, in my case I'm married to a native Russian who has loads of native Russian friends, and the only TV and radio broadcasts ever heard in our house are Russian channels, so I probably hear their language as often as I hear English these days, and the only time I have any trouble understanding their speech is when they use words that I simply haven't learned yet.

Of course, I tend to just sit there mute while they are chatting, because however small my passive vocab may be, my active vocab is much, much smaller.

No. My vocab is fine.


Last week at work a russian girl i knew came in and she knew that i went to germany and she asked me

"ты куда-то уезжал?"

and i was like

What?

And she had to repeat herself like 4 times untill i understood her.
It's not that i dont know the words, its just hard to understand spoken russian.

Actually, I can believe that. I find it much easier to understand a conversation when I am not actually taking part in it. I don't know why, but as soon as a comment or question is directed at me (especially if it's unexepced) my brain freezes and I am back to having to play back entire sentences in my head before I can understand them.

I suppose it might just be a form of stage fright

Should have added vocabulary Since all seemed to make "other" a vocabulary, I'll go ahead and change "other" to "vocabulary" and then add another "other"

and then spoken russian ?

I'd have to say pronounciation, at least at the point i'm at, there are some sounds I just can't make at all, like the rolled r sound

Grammar seems like a no-brainer. Compare it with other commonly learnt languages.
But I wouldn't mention "word order" under that heading ... unlikely to be one of the bigger issues unless your native lingo is Turkic or something.

Perhaps what I mean is the application of grammar rules in real time (productive skill of speaking).

By the way, vocabulary will always be a big issue for anyone learning any language in a non-immersion environment.

Dogboy, you know both Russian, and Swedish (more or less ) Don't you find Swedish Grammar hell!? There are hardly any regularities!
No, thank god for more logical systems.....like Russian i suppose

Well we all know that Indo-Europeean languages are "variations on a theme by" the Indo origin

I've got to have to agree with Dogboy. I dont speak enough russian, but I do speak a pretty fair amount of spanish. Pretty much the only time that I can understand spanish is when its being spoken directly at me. Any other time, I pretty much cant decipher a thing.

Originally Posted by waxwing

Grammar seems like a no-brainer. Compare it with other commonly learnt languages.
But I wouldn't mention "word order" under that heading ... unlikely to be one of the bigger issues unless your native lingo is Turkic or something.

Perhaps what I mean is the application of grammar rules in real time (productive skill of speaking).

By the way, vocabulary will always be a big issue for anyone learning any language in a non-immersion environment.

Grammar a no-brainer? It may be OK to learn the six cases and so on, but getting the word order to sound natural and contextually correct is very difficult in Russian. As well as picking which aspect to use and so on. I picked grammar, but really, my biggest gripe in Russian is writing things stylistically correct. Something may be grammatically correct but the Russians always tell me that it doesn't sound right this way and must be written that way.

Hehe
What I meant was that grammar was the no-brainer best choice for the poll
lol .. pretty idiotic choice of phrase there by me.
As for stylistic problems ... we all dream of having your 'problems' Pravit.

Ah, my mistake.

I think, that what's hard for me is constructing certain sentences. I will know all the words, but I won't know how to construct the sentence because I don't hear Russian spoken as often as I used to. For me, pronouncing and understanding is not hard. When I hear Russian my brain switches to "Russian mode" and I can understand what is being spoken. But then, when I hear English it sounds like Gibberish or I think they're talking Russian. Has that happened to anyone else?

Lol. Zhenya, i don't speak swedish. I know like 6 (or maybe 8 ) words. L0ol. Sorry for confuse.