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Is Polish really that hard? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| michi Nonaglot Newbie Austria Joined 5302 days ago 33 posts - 57 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Arabic (Written), Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, Japanese | Message 121 of 125 04 March 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | ||
Dear Richardson I think that if you are interested in learning languages, it is a splendid idea to learn a Slavic language. And it is not a bad idea to learn two of them, as they are quite similar and you won’t need twice the time to learn them. I have learned Russian for one year at the university and attended a language course in Charkov for two weeks. I still have problems reading novels in Russian, but I was able to speak Russian quite well when I was in Russia and the Ukraine. Moreover I have learned some Croatian and Polish and attended a language course in Zadar, so I know a little bit about these languages too. With regard to the choice which language(s) to learn, all of them have their pros and cons. I wouldn’t care so much about the differences in difficulty. I would say all have quite a complicated grammar, with Bulgarian being probably a little bit easier. Russian: Without doubt Russian is the most important Slavic language. It has most speakers (145 Mio) and also with regard to political and economic importance it is the clear number one – even if the times when the Soviet Union was a world power belong to the past. Moreover Russia has one of the richest literatures in the world. It is also by far the largest country in the world with enormous contrasts. Moscow and even more Saint Petersburg are fascinating cities to visit. A negative point however is the low quality of life and I couldn’t really imagine living there. Polish: For its number of speakers (50 Mio), its literature and political and economic importance Polish would be number two within the family of Slavic languages. In comparison to Russia Poland is a much more western country and has a better quality of life. I made only short visits to Warsaw and didn’t like it so much, but I think the old capital Cracow is a wonderful place to stay. Czech: The number of speakers of Czech (12 Mio) is much lower than Russian or Polish, but the Czech literature is quite interesting. Moreover I think the Czech capital Prague is really a wonderful city and it would probably be the only Slavic city where I could imagine to live permanently. (Serbo-)Croatian: Forget what Croatian and Serbian nationalist tell: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montegrin are simply variations of one single language. You only have to learn one to understand all and be able to talk to 18 million people. It is more or less like Portuguese in Portugal and in Brazil. I think former Yugoslavia is a very interesting part of Europe with wonderful landscapes and beautiful cities like Split, Dubrovnik or Sarajevo. However I think Zagreb and Belgrade are just provincial towns turned into capitals. Bulgarian: I have never learned Bulgarian and have never been to Bulgaria, so I really can’t say much about it. In contrast to other Slavic languages Bulgarian has reduced its noun cases, which probably makes it a bit easier to learn. However like Russian it is written in the Cyrillic script and the verbs seem to be as complicated as in the other Slavic language. The disadvantage is that Bulgarian is spoken by 9 million people only. The Bulgarian landscape might be nice, but its capital Sofia seems to be rather boring. At least in comparison to cities like Prague or Saint Petersburg. Of course there are more Slavic languages like Slovak, Slovene and Ukrainian, but I don't think they would be a good choice as long as you don’t have a special reason to learn them. Ukrainian has 47 million speakers but nearly all of them speak Russian as well and when you know Russian it is not so difficult to understand Ukrainian. Even the Ukrainian president speaks Russian only. Edited by michi on 04 March 2012 at 2:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 122 of 125 04 March 2012 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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the verbs seem to be as complicated as in the other Slavic language.
There are much more verbal forms in Bulgarian than in other Slavic languages. For example, Perfect, Pluperfect, Aorist, Imperfect in both aspects instead of single past tense in Russian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 123 of 125 05 March 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Serbian also has a number of these tenses and they are used by more educated people or in more rural/isolated areas, such as Bosnia and the border with Bulgaria. In particular, I'm thinking of the aorist and imperfect. I've never heard the plupurfect being used, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 124 of 125 05 March 2012 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've never
heard the plupurfect being used, though. Jа сам био радио нешта 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5067 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 125 of 125 05 March 2012 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Sofia is currently the only city (along with Varna on the Black Sea Coast) that's increasing in population in Bulgaria, despite mass emigration out of the country. While the city may be a bit dull as of now, as the population increases, more of the city is renovated, and Bulgaria's economy improves, the city can only improve. Sofia is a contemporary to Athens so it's not as if the city lacks in culture or architectural legacy in itself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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