Thread: What is easy about Russian?

[quote=Орчун]

Originally Posted by "*Krysten*":z2pvns0n

I couldnt understand a thing, half this thread is not understandable (to me ofcourse) because its in russian will I EVER learn!!!!!!. do u HAVE to go to russia to learn russian

To improve Russian,a visit to Russia would be very helpful. [/quote:z2pvns0n]

Originally Posted by basurero

What really irks me is that it takes such a great effort to learn Russian vocabulary. If you are reading and you come across a word you don't know you must do the following:

1. Look up the word to get the meaning (using lingvo)
2. Find out where the stress goes (often requires a different dictionary eg gramota.ru). See if the stress pattern is irregular.
3. See how it conjugates/declines and if it is irregular.
4. If it is a verb, learn the perfective forms and when they are used.
5. Remember all of this information.

In Spanish you look up a verb and instantly know how to pronounce it, conjugate it and everything.

Argh, I guess you could argue that it's not as hard as say Japanese, where you'd have to say learn a whole new character....

Great thing about Russian: Russian has a phonetic alphabet!

I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for about three years. The memorization process is something like this:

1) Write down/ Remember both simplified and Traditional version of character
2) Find the meaning
3) Find the pinyin (Romanized transliteration)
4) Figure out how to say the darn word properly. (Chinese has a tonal system.... one word/syllable can mean four to nine different things, depending on the dialect you're speaking and what "tone" it is. In short, with mandarin, you could end up accidentally calling someone's mother a horse )

Chinese grammar is also rather maddening. Though I think it may be just my instructor, rather than the language itself.

To further that, Japanese is actually easier than Mandarin, because it also has a phonetic alphabet (Two, actually - one for native words, called hiragana and one for foreign words, called Katakana). So they cheat and write hiragana next to the chinese/kanji characters, so you can easily figure out how to say them anyways.

Originally Posted by Basil77

Originally Posted by sperk

что ето золотой теленок? Есть английский перевод?

Не знаю есть ли перевод, но имхо это надо читать в оригинале... Это классика русской сатиры, написано в 20х годах прошлого века. Я в детстве зачитывался.

link from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf - free online translation in progress: http://www.idlewords.com/telenok/

Originally Posted by Basil77

По русски вообще Ревель ))) И Гельсингфорс

I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I've been taught that the Finnish столница is Хельсинки, not Гельсингфорс... Well, I don't know how you guys usually say it over there. Хельсинки derives from the Finnish name "Helsinki", while Гельсингфорс most propably from Swedish: "Helsingfors". (We are a bilingual people, at least to some extent.)

We say "Хельсинки", not "Гельсингфорс". But "Гельсингфорс" is old name, probably in XIX century Russians said so.

Originally Posted by Оля

We say "Хельсинки", not "Гельсингфорс". But "Гельсингфорс" is old name, probably in XIX century Russians said so.

Ok. Swedish had a much more important status in Finland back then.

Originally Posted by *Krysten*

I couldnt understand a thing, half this thread is not understandable (to me ofcourse) because its in russian will I EVER learn!!!!!!. do u HAVE to go to russia to learn russian

a year ago I couldnt read English books without a dict., but now I can (and I have never been in any "English" country)

Originally Posted by Chuvak

Originally Posted by *Krysten*

I couldnt understand a thing, half this thread is not understandable (to me ofcourse) because its in russian will I EVER learn!!!!!!. do u HAVE to go to russia to learn russian

a year ago I couldnt read English books without a dict., but now I can (and I have never been in any "English" country)

The thing it is very easy to access English materials, like books and movies and music in Russia than it is to find Russian stuff in an Anglophone country.

I am impressed though Chuvak that you speak English that well and have never been to an English speaking country!

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by Chuvak

Originally Posted by *Krysten*

I couldnt understand a thing, half this thread is not understandable (to me ofcourse) because its in russian will I EVER learn!!!!!!. do u HAVE to go to russia to learn russian

a year ago I couldnt read English books without a dict., but now I can (and I have never been in any "English" country)

The thing it is very easy to access English materials, like books and movies and music in Russia than it is to find Russian stuff in an Anglophone country.

I am impressed though Chuvak that you speak English that well and have never been to an English speaking country!

I know that my English isn't brilliant but people understand me. It's the main thing )

*Krysten*
The words 'everything and right now' are about some telephone subscribers (it's an advertising slogan of one mobile operator) but not about people who learn foreign languages (especially Russian)).

half this thread is not understandable (to me ofcourse) because its in russian

not because it's in Russian)) because you're not advanced learner (am I right?) or because we use words which can be understood only by native speakers and bla-bla-bla
There is time for everything.

So stop crying and try to remember
what you've already done to learn Russian
which words/phrases you really want to learn in Russia (common phrases etc. the words you can use in your diary or shopping lists)
and
try to read simple texts (there are lots of people in here who will probably help you with this) not this topic ))
I don't know what is your level because you don't write in Russian anything (I found no posts)
so try to speak in Russian or write if you have nobody to speak with. Forget about mistakes. Just try. I've just noticed you've told it before:

Originally Posted by Indra

Не бойся говорить по-русски, даже если ты пока знаешь совсем немного.

I completely agree with Indra.
But I think you have already known what to do and it's unnecessary to continue

If I'm not mistaken I've seen some topics about music. Therefore I don't think it's a big problem to find useful links here.