Thread: Frustrated with Russian cases...

Still kinda confused. I think my problems are:

1. I don't know enough about English grammar in the first place because why should I have really cared about ever learning it?
2. Whoever created Russian seriously overdid themselves when it comes to grammar. Why does everything have to agree with everything else?
3. I have no idea how I would study this without boring repetition.
4. I hate grammar vocabulary. Logical dative? Present perfect participle? (All I know is present, past, future, and conjugation.) There's too many P's.

If you guys can't form a simple phrase in a sentence without kind of arguing about it, how am I supposed to? How do L2 Russian speakers do this without thinking about it? There's no possible way I can just look at a bunch of sentences in Russian and have it start to form subconsciously in my mind over time.

This is too hard for me to handle. There are too many rules needed in one simple sentence.

Sure, I can do "Samantha likes ice cream." Samantha is nominative, the verb will be in present tense and agree with it, and ice cream will be in accusative. No problemo.

It's sentences like (let's take one from this message) "If you guys can't form a simple phrase in a sentence without kind of arguing about it, how am I supposed to?" that are stumping me, and probably need every single Russian grammar rule ever created in the sentence in order for me to make sense.

What did I get myself into?

Nichole,
I have no help for you in Russian. I am learning Russian and also hated English grammar as a kid. I am actually learning more about English now then in school. From your note maybe take the language in smaller steps then you are? Your example sentence is a complicated one, no?

Scott

Originally Posted by Nichole.

Still kinda confused. I think my problems are:

1. I don't know enough about English grammar in the first place because why should I have really cared about ever learning it?
2. Whoever created Russian seriously overdid themselves when it comes to grammar. Why does everything have to agree with everything else?
3. I have no idea how I would study this without boring repetition.
4. I hate grammar vocabulary. Logical dative? Present perfect participle? (All I know is present, past, future, and conjugation.) There's too many P's.

If you guys can't form a simple phrase in a sentence without kind of arguing about it, how am I supposed to? How do L2 Russian speakers do this without thinking about it? There's no possible way I can just look at a bunch of sentences in Russian and have it start to form subconsciously in my mind over time.

This is too hard for me to handle. There are too many rules needed in one simple sentence.

Sure, I can do "Samantha likes ice cream." Samantha is nominative, the verb will be in present tense and agree with it, and ice cream will be in accusative. No problemo.

It's sentences like (let's take one from this message) "If you guys can't form a simple phrase in a sentence without kind of arguing about it, how am I supposed to?" that are stumping me, and probably need every single Russian grammar rule ever created in the sentence in order for me to make sense.

What did I get myself into?

Originally Posted by fortheether

Nichole,
I have no help for you in Russian. I am learning Russian and also hated English grammar as a kid. I am actually learning more about English now then in school. From your note maybe take the language in smaller steps then you are? Your example sentence is a complicated one, no?

My ego is really preventing me from doing things. Sure, I know I need to start with smaller sentences, but I'm so used to being praised in school for my supposedly "wonderful and mature speech", that when I don't know how do translate a simple sentence from my own language into my target language, it bumps me down a peg.

It's also extremely frustrating when I know exactly what each case does, and I can translate something from Russian to English, but I can't figure out how to translate something from my own language into my target language because I never cared for grammar, so now, I'm confused about so many things, and I can't keep track of them all at once, which sends me into a bit of a tizzy.

There's too much consternation.

Originally Posted by Nichole.

My ego is really preventing me from doing things.

Learning languages is great for humility, as soon as you think you know a lot you realize you don't know much at all.