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French or Russian? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6083 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 9 of 60 01 December 2008 at 3:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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Seems like Russian is the favourite here. To clarify, I am not going to drop Italian, my level is nowhere near good enough, I will continue to study that language alongside another. So how long would Russian take to get to basic fluency?
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| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6095 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 60 01 December 2008 at 10:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Hmm...tough question. I've studied it pretty seriously for about 15 months. (I started a university course last year, about a month into it I started simultaneously studying using the Penguin course and Schaum's grammar. Over the summer I began watching Russian TV and movies regularly, using the Princeton course, reading dual-language books, and trying all sorts of techniques for improving my vocabulary.) I'm at the point where I'm comfortable with most of the grammar, and right now I'm working on expanding my vocabulary. I'm not at basic fluency yet, but I'd say I'm probably approaching the advanced level. I think that vocab will be the biggest determining factor, because most Russian words don't have anything to do with Germanic or Romantic roots, so you have to learn a lot of stuff "from scratch", so to speak. The good news is that the declination system works beautifully, and once you understand the cases and the general syntax of the language, you won't really have to worry about learning grammar rules anymore. Good luck. I highly recommend downloading the Princeton Course. It has everything you need and then some...tons of useful vocabulary, clear, detailed grammar explanations, and audio files for everything. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6673 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 11 of 60 01 December 2008 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Of all the languages I've studied, French has surprised me most by its wealth of great literature, music, movies, etc.
I don't agree at all that studying French would be boring just because you won't see many new grammatical features or because the vocabulary will be familiar. There are so many things to discover. For example, I had never heard of Boris Vian before and now he's my favorite writer. Sure, Russian is a very interesting language as well, I don't know enough about it to comment.. On a side note (and I know that many people will disagree): I think that every educated (Western) European should know French, it's kind of a "semi-classical" language and has had an immense influence on the rest of Europe, both language- and culture-wise. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6117 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 12 of 60 01 December 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
While Russian is my number one language now, and as every good Italian I feel the duty to hate the "transalpines", I wholeheartedly agree with Marc. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6083 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 13 of 60 02 December 2008 at 3:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh dear! Now I really can't decide!
It's a pain that I really wouldn't have time to do both, because I have to continue with my Italian, otherwise I would take them both on. Marc does indeed present a good case for French too. I don't have a clue what to do, might flip a coin. On a serious note though, what materials are available for Russian, in structered lessons? Doing them day by day and following a "manual" is the only way that I can work. Looking at some of the books and cds that are availablke for each language might help me make my ultimate decision. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6117 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 14 of 60 02 December 2008 at 6:53am | IP Logged | |||||
Start Russian: you need to explore other language families! There is always time to start French as well, later. There are plenty of commercial materials available. The usual forum suspects are available (Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Rosetta Stone, in order from "may be of some help" to "forget it!"). Assimil Russian is available in Italian and, perhaps, in Spanish. No need to tell about Assimil's good reputation in HTLAL. Then there are the usual Colloquial, Teach Yourself, etc., all widely available. There also are free resources. Many swear by the Princeton course. It is two complete course years, freely available at Free language courses (1.5 Gb). Plenty of audio. Be sure to extract it with the original folders! And don't make my mistake of starting from lesson 1, finding it peculiarly difficult and only later understanding that I started the second year course... Another complete course for free, without downloadable audio, is S AZOV (Russian from Scratch), but I lost the download links. For Russian, audio and a good understanding of pronunciation rules are essential, as is learning the cyrillic script. All the courses above devote time to these, but there also exist How to pronounce Russian correctly courses. Be sure to notice how most consonants come in two forms, "soft" and "hard", how unstressed vowels change their quality, how voiced consonants become voiceless and viceversa. There is a good forum at Masterrussian to ask questions. At least check their Getting started subforum. Edited by Leopejo on 02 December 2008 at 7:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6454 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 15 of 60 02 December 2008 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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S Azov (Russian from Scratch) is available here, for those who are interested.
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| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6042 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 16 of 60 02 December 2008 at 7:39am | IP Logged | |||||
Sure it won't be plain and dull, because of the cultural aspect. However, going through all the conjugations, tenses etc.... Only to catch the differences... At least I would not enjoy doing it.
In Eastern europe it has something of an elitist image. The de facto "classical" languages are German and Russian :). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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