# Forum General General Discussion  What is the most difficult aspect of learning Russian?

## MasterAdmin

Just a poll but open for discussion.

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## Dogboy182

Trying to understand native speakers talk. That will get you everytime.

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## DDT

I clicked "other" because for me it is remembering new words and building vocabulary that is hard. 
 Oh! I have an idea.....a shock collar for forgetfulness.  ::

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## scotcher

Other: building vocabulary.

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## Dogboy182

bah. Vocabulary isn't _that_ hard. 
Try watching a russian movie. You'll forget all about vocabulary and be like. "aasdf why can't i understand anything"

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## scotcher

Maybe you can't understand anything because your vocabulary is too small?  ::  
Remember though, in my case I'm married to a native Russian who has loads of native Russian friends, and the only TV and radio broadcasts ever heard in our house are Russian channels, so I probably hear their language as often as I hear English these days, and the *only* time I have any trouble understanding their speech is when they use words that I simply haven't learned yet. 
Of course, I tend to just sit there mute while they are chatting, because however small my passive vocab may be, my active vocab is much, much smaller.

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## Dogboy182

No. My vocab is fine.  
Last week at work a russian girl i knew came in and she knew that i went to germany and she asked me 
"ты куда-то уезжал?" 
and i was like 
What? 
And she had to repeat herself like 4 times untill i understood her.
It's not that i dont know the words, its just hard to understand spoken russian.

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## scotcher

Actually, I can believe that. I find it much easier to understand a conversation when I am not actually taking part in it. I don't know why, but as soon as a comment or question is directed at _me_ (especially if it's unexepced) my brain freezes and I am back to having to play back entire sentences in my head before I can understand them. 
I suppose it might just be a form of stage fright  ::

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## MasterAdmin

Should have added vocabulary  ::  Since all seemed to make "other" a vocabulary, I'll go ahead and change "other" to "vocabulary" and then add another "other"   ::

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## Dogboy182

and then spoken russian ?

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## TheCardinal

I'd have to say pronounciation, at least at the point i'm at, there are some sounds I just can't make at all, like the rolled r sound  ::

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## waxwing

Grammar seems like a no-brainer. Compare it with other commonly learnt languages.
But I wouldn't mention "word order" under that heading ... unlikely to be one of the bigger issues unless your native lingo is Turkic or something. 
Perhaps what I mean is the application of grammar rules in real time (productive skill of speaking). 
By the way, vocabulary will always be a _big_ issue for anyone learning any language in a non-immersion environment.

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## Zhenya

Dogboy, you know both Russian, and Swedish (more or less  ::  ) Don't you find Swedish Grammar hell!? There are hardly any regularities!   ::  
No, thank god for more logical systems.....like Russian i suppose

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## Zhenya

Well we all know that Indo-Europeean languages are "variations on a theme by" the Indo origin  ::

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## krs240

I've got to have to agree with Dogboy.  I dont speak enough russian, but I do speak a pretty fair amount of spanish.  Pretty much the only time that I can understand spanish is when its being spoken directly at me.  Any other time, I pretty much cant decipher a thing.

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## Pravit

> Grammar seems like a no-brainer. Compare it with other commonly learnt languages.
> But I wouldn't mention "word order" under that heading ... unlikely to be one of the bigger issues unless your native lingo is Turkic or something. 
> Perhaps what I mean is the application of grammar rules in real time (productive skill of speaking). 
> By the way, vocabulary will always be a _big_ issue for anyone learning any language in a non-immersion environment.

 Grammar a no-brainer? It may be OK to learn the six cases and so on, but getting the word order to sound natural and contextually correct is very difficult in Russian. As well as picking which aspect to use and so on. I picked grammar, but really, my biggest gripe in Russian is writing things stylistically correct. Something may be grammatically correct but the Russians always tell me that it doesn't sound right this way and must be written that way.

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## waxwing

Hehe  :: 
What I meant was that grammar was the no-brainer best choice for the poll 
lol .. pretty idiotic choice of phrase there by me.
As for stylistic problems ... we all dream of having your 'problems' Pravit.  ::

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## Pravit

Ah, my mistake.

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## Евгения Белякова

I think, that what's hard for me is constructing certain sentences. I will know all the words, but I won't know how to construct the sentence because I don't hear Russian spoken as often as I used to. For me, pronouncing and understanding is not hard. When I hear Russian my brain switches to "Russian mode" and I can understand what is being spoken. But then, when I hear English it sounds like Gibberish or I think they're talking Russian. Has that happened to anyone else?

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## Dogboy182

Lol. Zhenya, i don't speak swedish. I know like 6 (or maybe 8 ) words. L0ol. Sorry for confuse.

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## Zhenya

> Lol. Zhenya, i don't speak swedish. I know like 6 (or maybe 8 ) words. L0ol. Sorry for confuse.

   ::  sorry!

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## brett

Swedish grammar is fine, I think. Maybe the pluralizing for the different genders is a bother. But I find its iregularities to be minor in that they don't effect one's ability to be understood. 
French grammar?   ::  ---Sacre bleu!  I have no idea what the French linguists think they're doing. You almost need a seperate grammar book per each seperate word of the dictionary!  ::

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## Zhenya

I think french grammar is quite ok  ::

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## Pravit

Me too. Except for the blasted subjonctif.

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## brett

Oh, in the early to mid-stages, I totally agree. I've had no trouble making it to intermediate level. But once you leave the confines of formal education level, they abreviate every phrase from a five-word sentence into a bloody five letter sentence, and a bundle of appostrophes into the mix. (exageration  ::  . But they have infinite two-letter abreviations for word combinations). French is a two-tier process, I think. Some languages are hard to begin, others are hard to master. I think French is easy to begin, and hard to master. But, I acknowledge that everyone has different elements of language that they're good at, so my view may not be entirely universal. But, it is common though. I know a few people who've become fluent in Spanish, Hebrew and a couple others. They went all the way with those, but got discouraged and annoyed with French, so didn't persist. But of course, that could merely mean they weren't as passionate about French as their other languages. My French friend advised me "don't try and make sense of French, you'll be wasting your time". But everyone says "I feel sorry for people who learn ..(my language)" when you're learning their language. So everyone can legitimately say that about their own language. Lord knows I say that about mine.  ::  In fairness, French is the only language I'm near fluency in. So, maybe in evry language there's a similar road-block toward the end. The most notable progressions in life are always at the beginning, aren't they? Then it's subtle improvement from then on. Like suddenly doing exercise after a year on the couch. You feel like superman after two weeks, before your ongoing improvement tapers into a gradual one.

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## Pravit

> abreviate every phrase from a five-word sentence into a bloody five letter sentence,

 Could you provide us an example? As for apostrophes, there are set rules for this.

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## Николай

I have no problem with anything but pronunciation and taking part in a converstation. The rote memorization is no problem for me.

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## Кристовер

I chose vocabulary because I'm stuck here in the USA.  As a college student I work and go to school for a living.  I don't know if I'll every have enough money or time to be able to travel over to Russia.   To me, I think that vocabulary is the hardest as I'm not in an area where I get to use the Russian that I'm learning very much.  Grammar wasn't/isn't too terribly dificult for me.  My teacher focused almost entirely on grammer in my 101 class.  So now that I'm in 102, we're beginning to move on with sentances and vocabulary and stuff.  Only problem is that I had a six month break between my 101 and now my 102 courses.  So I'm hurting to remember all that I learned before.

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## Pravit

> abreviate every phrase from a five-word sentence into a bloody five letter sentence,
> 			
> 		  Could you provide us an example? As for apostrophes, there are set rules for this.

 Come on, Brett, I know you read every thread around here(including the old ones  ::  )

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## russkayalove

I also put vocabulary because it is hard to remember if you don't use the words regularaly.  Christopher...I think I read that right, you should study abroad.

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## Dogboy182

everyone that put anything besides trying to talk to native speakers has obviously never _tried_  to speak russian.

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## Pravit

Dog, I noticed it gets easier the more you do it(that is, listening to spoken Russian), but you're right, there's no denying it's one of the hardest parts of learning Russian. But listening to people speak is passive; you can figure out what someone is trying to say even if you didn't catch every word. It's another thing to actually speak with proper grammar and sound natural - IMO this can only be achieved by people correcting you, how would you guess on your own that there's some secret rule in Russian that things need to be this way or that way?

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## Линдзи

I can't spell for beans in English, let alone Russian.  Stoopid fonicks.

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## waxwing

> everyone that put anything besides trying to talk to native speakers has obviously never _tried_  to speak russian.

 If you'll indulge me for a moment, .. "duh".
It's not on the list. And the reason it's _especially_ difficult for Russian is the _grammar_.

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## brett

> But listening to people speak is passive; you can figure out what someone is trying to say even if you didn't catch every word.

 I wish I was better at doing this. I find it hard to just step back and let the language meet me half way. I keep intercepting the process with effortfulness. I've got to let the language show me _its_ stripes, rather than _me tell it_ what its stripes are, or are not.

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## Zhenya

Watch movies, and listen to radio - it's all about exponation!

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## дано

I voted grammar/agreement but particularly aspect threw me a good bit of a loop.

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## Кристовер

> I also put vocabulary because it is hard to remember if you don't use the words regularaly.  Christopher...I think I read that right, you should study abroad.

 Russkayalove... yes you read my name right.  Though I think I might have spelled it wrong.  Кристовер is how I thought it would sound if a native tried to pronounce my name.  However, after further studies, I believe that the correct spelling would be Христофер.  I would like to study abroad, but I'm afraid that I just do not have the money while I'm going to college here in the States.  I have to provide for myself, and I have a girlfriend that I enjoy spending time with. 
After hitting the books pretty hard last weekend, my russian is beginning to come back to me and I can continue with my course of study.  Soon, I should be able to converse a little more freely with the rest of you here!  ::

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## g2gcya

Grammar, vocab.

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## Marcus

> Dog, I noticed it gets easier the more you do it(that is, listening to spoken Russian), but you're right, there's no denying it's one of the hardest parts of learning Russian. But listening to people speak is passive; you can figure out what someone is trying to say even if you didn't catch every word. It's another thing to actually speak with proper grammar and sound natural - IMO this can only be achieved by people correcting you, how would you guess on your own that there's some secret rule in Russian that things need to be this way or that way?

 That is true with any foreign language and it is mostly due to the pronunciation. We are not used to the native pronunciation.

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