Thread: Confused about soft vowels

I should add that some of the students in my first-year Russian class had no previous foreign-language study at all, and many had only studied Spanish or French, with their inflections that are overall much simpler than in Russian. (I had an advantage because in high school I'd studied Latin, which is even more heavily inflected than Russian -- so I was already painfully familiar with the concept of case-declension, for example.)

I'm not sure that French and Spanish have fewer inflections than Russian. how many forms does a spanish verb have? Don't forget that obligatory, inseperable unstressed pronouns are a part of the verb, in fact.
Latin verbs have more forms have more forms, but the noun declension is much more regular than in Russian.

Originally Posted by Marcus

I'm not sure that French and Spanish have fewer inflections than Russian. how many forms does a spanish verb have? Don't forget that obligatory, inseperable unstressed pronouns are a part of the verb, in fact.
Latin verbs have more forms have more forms, but the noun declension is much more regular than in Russian.

That's a good point, Marcus -- French and Spanish have simpler noun inflection than Russian, but a more complex system of verb conjugation than either Russian or English.

As to Latin, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that its noun declension is "more regular" than in Russian. Overall I would say that Latin and Russian nouns are roughly similar in their complexity, from the perspective of a native English speaker, while Latin verbs have much more complicated inflections than Russian.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

That's a good point, Marcus -- French and Spanish have simpler noun inflection than Russian, but a more complex system of verb conjugation than either Russian or English.

As to Latin, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that its noun declension is "more regular" than in Russian. Overall I would say that Latin and Russian nouns are roughly similar in their complexity, from the perspective of a native English speaker, while Latin verbs have much more complicated inflections than Russian.

It is more regular because it is fully predictable from the nom and gen sing. There are very few exceptions. While Russian nouns are declined in unpredictable ways especially if we regard the stress.
For example, first declension end stressed nouns can have a stress shift in acc. sing.
водА - вОду
but
грозА - грозУ
in nom. pl. the stress usually falls on the stem
травА - трАвы
but there are several exceptions
мечтА - мечтЫ
the stress in other cases can be both on the stem and on the ending
травА - трАвы - трАвам
головА - гОловы - головАм
And that's just the top of the iceberg.