Languages similar to Russian

Russian is the most natural gateway into the world of slavic languages. Not all slavic languages are closely related to Russian. Bulgarian and Ukrainian are the closest, with Polish and Serbo-Croatian having a largely similar vocabulary. Czech is more distant.

Table of languages significantly similar to Russian
Similarity Statistics
Vocabulary Grammar Speakers Countries GDP
Russian 100% – 167 M 8 $548 bn
Ukrainian 90% 41 M 2 $50 bn
Bulgarian 90% 8 M 1 $20 bn
Serbo-Croatian 65% 17 M 5 $54 bn
Polish 60% 38 M 1 $209 bn
Czech 40% 12 M 2 $85 bn
Total 283 M 19 $966 bn

EXPLANATION

Similarity
VOCABULARY: Percentage of vocabulary that isvery similar in both languages.
GRAMMATICAL: Cactuses () indicate the relative difficulty of learning this language if you already speak Russian. The fewer cactuses/cacti, the easier.

Speakers
NUMBER: total number of native speakers of each language.
SHARE: number of speakers times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of people you can reach indirectly by learning Russian.

Countries
NUMBER: Total number of countries where the language is an official language or widely spoken.
SHARE: The number of countries times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of countries you can reach indirectly by learning Russian.

GDP
NUMBER: Combined total nominal GDP in US dollars for each language.
SHARE: Combined GDP times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the economic importance of the language group you enter by learning Russian.

The purpose of this table is to list the most important languages similar to Russian and see how closely related they are. It helps you select the language you want to learn by appraising you on what significant other languages you could learn more easily on the basis of your future knowledge of Russian.

If you feel the figures listed in this table are not correct and you have learned one of the languages listed above, please feel free to contact me and let me know how this should be improved and why.