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Choosing a Slavic language | ||
Tags: Slavic Languages | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 32 28 July 2014 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi guys.
I'm planning to start a Slavic language in the 2014 (that will depend on my progresses on French). I thought about that and about what I read in the past on this subject. In the end, it was easy to eliminate from the choice Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Slovenian: I don't have a particular reason to learn them and there are few resources to learn them. But then the problems: I have still - Russian - Polish - Czech - Croatian Said that I feel like I can avoid starting from Croatian without feeling bad about myself (it is not culturally important as the other three), the remaining have so much to say culture wise that the choice is quite tough. Also they are all of three remarkably complicated to learn. I can add in favour of Russian that it has the most speaker and a wider literature (though seems Polish and Czech literatures can defend themselves very well in quality), and that Polish seem to have a major expat presence in the Dutch city where I live. So Czech is in disadvantage but I cannot decide between the other two. There are pragmatic aspect in learning one instead of the other (or before) in a hypothetical situation where I will learn in any case both, but starting with one, that I'm not considering or I'm not aware? Talking about career, I'm a software engineer and therefore the two can be equally useless or very important just in case I will move there in the future. There is one more adapt to be learned before?... other consideration that I'm losing? Thank you very much! (I would like to decide before the next year to have a really languid and slow paced vocabulary bootstrap, that is why I'm asking now) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 32 28 July 2014 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems that you've narrowed the choice between Polish and Russian.
I would suggest looking at the following threads: -The age old question – Polish or Russian? -Polish or Russian? -Russian and Polish For practical purposes, considerations about the dispersion of native speakers and size of literary output aren't that important with these languages for a prospective learner. Polish is well-endowed and Russian is embarrassingly well-endowed. Even though you've taken Slovak out of the running, please humour me and allow me to make a plea for reconsideration. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 32 28 July 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was faced with a similar choice twice before, and came to two different conclusions. In the 90ies, I wanted to
learn a Slavic language, and at that point in time I chose Polish over Russian. I had already learned a litte Polish when I was 15, and I figured I could do all the sounds. I had Polish friends, and I strongly sympathized with Poland as a country with its history of suffering. I felt Russan was too difficult for me with the strange alphabet, so I took Polish. That was the right choice then, and I do not regret it, as Polish is easy to learn to read, and you can accomplish a lot in a reasonable amount of time. When I again needed a Slavic language a few years ago, I opted for Russan however. Which was the right choice now. Russia is a powerful player in many international organizations, it is still a lingua Franca in many former Sovet states, and the richness of its literature, music and film industry is mind boggling. Plus Russians have turned out to be the nicest people ever (like the Poles by the way:-) If I had a very short time frame in which to learn it, I would have gone for Polish, but if I had no time restrictions, I would take Russian. It is worth it in the long run. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 4 of 32 28 July 2014 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've seen Italians speaking great Croatian but I've
never seen/heard Italians speaking good Russian. Italians may find Macedonian easiest to pronounce since it's relatively vowel-friendly. Slovenia and Croatia are nearest to Italy so it will be easier to practice them with native speakers than Russian or Polish. Edited by Medulin on 28 July 2014 at 11:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 32 29 July 2014 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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There is one more reason to narrow the choice to just Polish or Russian. The amount of sources foŕ learners.
Czech is laging behind in this aspect for sure. And, knowing how demotivating it can be to find the things you need for your learning, I'd recommend Russian as its presence both in bookshops and on the internet is much larger. Or go for the simplest method. Listen to something in the language on youtube. A vlog, some songs, whatev you want. And choose the one you like more. ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 32 29 July 2014 at 11:54am | IP Logged | ||
I know Italians who speak/write great Russian and Polish :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 32 29 July 2014 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Have you listened to Luca Lampariello? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 32 29 July 2014 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi guys! Thank you for the answers.
@Chung, thank you for the links. Now it is even more difficult to choose :-D About Slovak, unfortunately I know myself enough that if I start with Slovak I will start studying also Russian. And Polish. Then I would abandon Russian and Slovak to focus myself on Polish but after a couple of months I would start Bulgarian. LOL. Leaving jokes aside, I prefer going through mainstream languages where I don't have the problem of too few learning resources and lack of native ones, since I'm beginner and till now I learned how to not learn a language :) @Cristin, thank you for sharing your comment. I'm intrigued now: the two languages are considered to be the same difficulty, with Polish considered by many even more difficult than Russian. If I understood correctly you dropped Polish at a certain time. How far did you go with it? And what are the main reasons you consider Russian more time consuming? That can be a strong argument in favour of Polish. @Medulin, I live in the Netherlands since almost two years now. I see, in the city where I live, a major cardinality of Poles and Russians than Croats and Slovens. If I was in Italy, by the way, I guess I would have given a try to Romanian before to study Slavic languages (and I wouldn't study Dutch but German instead). @Cavesa: eh, indeed. I got into frustration with Icelandic for this reason. Difficult language + few resources = not good for a noob like me. The listening method can bring me to study 8735 languages, so better avoid it :D But I consider it like the desperation method if I cannot make my mind :) @Serpent: I hope to become like one of them :-) @Cristin again: Luca is an example for all the Italians (but also people less well known, like Emanuele Marini). Would be nice to have a chat with him once. Maybe in the future if I become a polyglot, who knows :) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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