Thread: Who's afraid of Russian Nouns...? [me!] Русские существительные........

Originally Posted by Ramil

Instead, let your mind learn the way it likes more - like accumulation of experience. I mean reading. Just master some basic vocabulary (some 500-1000 words)...[]

Yes, the method of learning the very basics and then start reading is the plan I am going to follow. It is the nicest and most pleasant way to learn too.

But I also agree with Marcus. It IS necessary to read a little bit of grammar to explain the bits that are so tricky that it would take forever for the brain to find the pattern unless it has some clues about what's going on.

The other European languages are much more similar to each other than the Slavic languages and one thing that is new to me is the situation where you absolutely couldn't even guess what something might mean. Even accumulating a basic vocabular takes time!

And I feel that I am too old and (normally, not this exact period) too busy to want to spend my free time doing something really boring, like reading a grammar book.

I am doing everything I can to keep the Russian studies fun and interesting and absolutely not painful, irritating or boring. The idea is that I know how easy I bore with things and I don't want to get bored with Russian until I have a decent mastery of it. I have never had enough motivation or will power to get good at any other foreign language other than English, which was a necessity.

And PS Marcus, you CAN say "I can give you it tomorrow" It's not wrong but it sounds a little bit unusual. In Northern England it would be a normal way to speak. They have some slightly Northern European speech patterns there, and I think this is an example of that. I say things like that sometimes and it's not wrong. But you are so right that English is a totally illogical language.

The other European languages are much more similar to each other than the Slavic languages and one thing that is new to me is the situation where you absolutely couldn't even guess what something might mean. Even accumulating a basic vocabular takes time!

That's a piece of news. Of course, Germanic languages are similar, but Basque, for example, is completely different. You know, I'm studying a Western European language (Irish) and it is not closer to English than Russian. Well, there are three big groups of Indo-European languages in Europe: Germanic, Romance and Slavic. There are also Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithvanian), which are close to Slavic, Greek, Albanian, Brythonic languages (Breton and Welsh) and Goidelic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic). These are all Indo-European. There are also Finno-Ugric languages (Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish) and Basque, which is an isolate. I-E languages of different groups differ approximately as Russian and English. Languages of different families (Hungarian and Basque) are completely different. You always need to study basic vocabulary, if you study a language from another group. When you studied French, didn't you have to learn basic vocabulary? There are much more similarities between English and Russian than you think. For example, Passive voice in both languages is formed with the verb "to be" and past passive participle.
Sorry, Hanna, that I'm always arguing with you.

Originally Posted by Marcus

That's a piece of news. (...)
Sorry, Hanna, that I'm always arguing with you.

(I think the expression is "that's news to me" - it's a US like expression though)

Anyway, no, no it's not problem to argue with me and you are right --- there are plenty of languages where I couldn't guess the meaning of a word either. Finnish, Hungarian, Greek...

I was talking about the big languages that people tend to study as a foreign language in school.
These language (for Europe) are (other than English) German, French, Spanish and Russian.

Out of these, French and English have a million words in common, and French grammar is only marginally harder than English, and more regular. German to me at least, is often very easy to guess because it is not very far removed from Swedish. Spanish has lots of words in common with French.... So it all goes round in a circle.

When I was in Romania, a lot of words were familiar from Spanish words that I knew. In the Netherlands a lot of words are similar to German and English, so even if I don't know a word of Dutch I can often understand signs etc anyway.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about, but it doesn't work for me yet, in Russian.

I am sure a Russian speaker would be able to use this method in Poland, Bulgaria etc.

This also means that if you can sometimes make up words in another language and the other person will be able to figure out what you mean.

I am sure a Russian speaker would be able to use this method in Poland, Bulgaria etc.

I understand articles in Bulgarian Wikipedia, although I don't know Bulgarian, because there are very common words and it is obvious because the alphabet is the same.
Bulgarian grammar, however, is completely different: there is no declension, thereis a postpositive article and there are many tenses (Aorist, Imperfect, Perfect, Pluperfect) and moods. Verbs of both aspects have all the forms!
When I was In Montenegro, I used to speak some pidjin Serbian (grammar is closer to Russian: there is declension, no articles and many tenses are not used much in spoken language, but there are fewer common words and phonology is farther). Slavic languages are more similar to each other than Germanic and Romance.

I am sure a Russian speaker would be able to use this method in Poland, Bulgaria etc.

I understand articles in Bulgarian Wikipedia, although I don't know Bulgarian, because there are very common words and it is obvious because the alphabet is the same.
Bulgarian grammar, however, is completely different: there is no declension, thereis a postpositive article and there are many tenses (Aorist, Imperfect, Perfect, Pluperfect) and moods. Verbs of both aspects have all the forms!
When I was In Montenegro, I used to speak some pidjin Serbian (grammar is closer to Russian: there is declension, no articles and many tenses are not used much in spoken language, but there are fewer common words and phonology is farther). Slavic languages are more similar to each other than Germanic and Romance.