Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post
If my native language were a Slavic one, like Polish, I might also find Russian spelling difficult. But my native language is English, which as we all know is a Germanic language with a lot of Romance words from French and Latin. So for me, learning the unfamiliar Slavic roots has always been the most difficult part of studying Russian, and by comparison the spelling is very easy.
If you had to write what hear, you will immediately understand the complexity of Russian spelling. Unlike English in Russian there are rules which you cannot avoid, and they are very sophisticated. I don't mention punctuation which is hardly possible to learn completely.