Thread: Hello! Привет!

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

What exactly do you love on learning russian? Because I can tell you 1000 reasons to hate them.

Haha, Antonio, don't discourage him/her, the total number of the Russian learners is small enough already, we don't want to reduce it even more

Originally Posted by iCake

Haha, Antonio, don't discourage him/her, the total number of the Russian learners is small enough already, we don't want to reduce it even more

Absolutely right.
So my advice will be: Study as much as possible dude and learn to enjoy your studing.

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Absolutely right.
So my advice will be: Study as much as possible dude and learn to enjoy your studing.

To Antonio, I love it because I've always wanted to learn a foreign language. I realised a little while ago I now have enough time to do it, and one of my best friends is russian and she's very encouraging of it. Talking to her, with what little I can just now, is fantastic and makes me feel like I'm finally getting a useful life skill, along with opening new doors to things I couldn't understand before. It's challenging, having to remember so many words and rules, but the feeling that my brain is melting from effort is a great one. I definitely agree with your advice, and I'm trying to study as much as I can and enjoy it. Hopefully I can keep it up and finally get another language under my belt.

Also, if you truly have a 1000 reasons, or even just 100, I'd like to hear them so I know what to watch out for

And iCake, from what I've seen your written english is very good and clear (can't tell for your speaking but your probably not as bad as you think). And true, you didn't ask for any recompense, but still it's nice to give back when you're given help

Originally Posted by Evanskii

Also, if you truly have a 1000 reasons, or even just 100, I'd like to hear them so I know what to watch out for

1. unpredictable word stress
2. grammatical gender
3. 215 variants of the noun declension (!!!)
4. 107 variants of the verb conjugation (!!!)
5. unpredictable perfective/imperfective pairs
6. -а/-я vs -ы/-и in plural nominative: глазa vs глазы, срока vs сроки, выходa vs выходы, инженера vs инженеры, тополя vs тополи, сектора vs секторы. It is totaly unpredictable which form is correct for each particular word. Sometimes both are correct. Sometimes it depends on style. Sometimes even native speakers have no idea.
7. кто-то vs кое-кто vs кто-либо vs кто-нибудь vs кто бы то ни было vs кто угодно
8. direct object: genitive vs accusative. Я вижу дерево vs я не вижу дерева. Никакие письма мы не получали vs Никаких писем мы не получали.
9. partitive: выпить воду vs выпить воды
10. prepositional case vs locative: в лесу - о лесе, в снегу - о снеге.
11. Verbs with -ся can be reflexive ("умываться"), reciprocal ("целоваться"), passive ("строиться"), or middle ("кусаться"). Furthermore, the meaning can be fully random ("нравиться", "бороться"). You never know.
12. какой vs каков
13. ничего vs нечего, никто/никого vs некого, никуда vs некуда, нигде vs негде...
14. категория состояния (мне холодно, на душе спокойно, ему не страшно...).

And so on...
A terrible language.

Originally Posted by RedFox

1. unpredictable word stress
2. grammatical gender
3. 215 variants of the noun declension (!!!)
4. 107 variants of the verb conjugation (!!!)
5. unpredictable perfective/imperfective pairs
6. -а/-я vs -ы/-и in plural nominative: глазa vs глазы, срока vs сроки, выходa vs выходы, инженера vs инженеры, тополя vs тополи, сектора vs секторы. It is totaly unpredictable which form is correct for each particular word. Sometimes both are correct. Sometimes it depends on style. Sometimes even native speakers have no idea.
7. кто-то vs кое-кто vs кто-либо vs кто-нибудь vs кто бы то ни было vs кто угодно
8. direct object: genitive vs accusative. Я вижу дерево vs я не вижу дерева. Никакие письма мы не получали vs Никаких писем мы не получали.
9. partitive: выпить воду vs выпить воды
10. prepositional case vs locative: в лесу - о лесе, в снегу - о снеге.
11. Verbs with -ся can be reflexive ("умываться"), reciprocal ("целоваться"), passive ("строиться"), or middle ("кусаться"). Furthermore, the meaning can be fully random ("нравиться", "бороться"). You never know.
12. какой vs каков
13. ничего vs нечего, никто/никого vs некого, никуда vs некуда, нигде vs негде...
14. категория состояния (мне холодно, на душе спокойно, ему не страшно...).

And so on...
A terrible language.

Haha, well thanks for the list there. That gives me an idea what to keep an eye out for, but, more times than id like to admit, I manage to screw up what im saying or writing in my native language. The points communication, and if people can generally understand what youre trying to communicate, be it perfectly contained within the rules of a language or not, its all good

Originally Posted by Evanskii

Also, if you truly have a 1000 reasons, or even just 100, I'd like to hear them so I know what to watch out for

And iCake, from what I've seen your written english is very good and clear (can't tell for your speaking but your probably not as bad as you think). And true, you didn't ask for any recompense, but still it's nice to give back when you're given help

Let's start with a totally different advice.
Don't learn Russian for a girl.