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Best Slavic Language to Start With?

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
31 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5068 days ago

391 posts - 550 votes 
Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 9 of 31
29 May 2012 at 6:56am | IP Logged 
prz_ wrote:
Kartof wrote:
Although I disagree with the point that he makes about Bulgarian being
"simplified", if cases are your weak point
and if you've had experience with Romance languages, then certainly Bulgarian would be more familiar to you than
the others and thus be simpler to get a grasp on.

Conversationally I find Bulgarian much easier. But it's the declension that makes me much less confident since it's
my Achilles' heel.


Well, maybe I'm just being nit-picky, but in my view, natural languages can be easier or harder for people to
learn
but they are all fundamentally equally "complex" (when you get down to it, they all have nuances and fine
points of grammar even if the structures differ) which is why I took a stab at the "simplified" label although I can
clearly see where the (relatively) "easy" label of Bulgarian comes from if you're an English speaker.

That aside, what did you mean the declension that makes you less confident? In which language? Certainly you
can't mean Bulgarian if you're coming from Polish.
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prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
Joined 4861 days ago

890 posts - 1190 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

 
 Message 10 of 31
29 May 2012 at 7:11am | IP Logged 
Bulgarian is a snap since it has only the vestigial locative. I've thought more about Czech for example. It seems to be even harder than Polish in this case.
And of course the agglutinative languages.
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5058 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 11 of 31
29 May 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged 
Bulgarian is not simplified at all. It has mantained all the pld verbal forms and has
developed many new. And there are still two aspects! And there are articles. For a native
Russian speaker Bulgarian grammar is much more difficult than all the other Slavic
languages.
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prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
Joined 4861 days ago

890 posts - 1190 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

 
 Message 12 of 31
29 May 2012 at 12:20pm | IP Logged 
Интересно. Of course, if you want to master Bulgarian it can be difficult, but... would it be more difficult than Russian? I don't think so :)
I love such languages, where you can achieve the conversational level relatively fast. Persian is kinda similar.

Edited by prz_ on 29 May 2012 at 12:26pm

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Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5068 days ago

391 posts - 550 votes 
Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 13 of 31
29 May 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
prz_ wrote:
Bulgarian is a snap since it has only the vestigial locative.


Locative or vocative? I'm not aware of the existence of a locative in Bulgarian and the vocative in Bulgarian is still in
use which hardly makes it vestigial, per se, though still unusual for not having been removed along with the rest of
the cases.
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prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
Joined 4861 days ago

890 posts - 1190 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

 
 Message 14 of 31
29 May 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged 
oh, sorry, a typo. vocative, of course.
Well, I think it is vestigial because now it's mostly used in the masculine forms (the feminine forms are considered to be rural or even slightly offensive.
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Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5068 days ago

391 posts - 550 votes 
Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 15 of 31
29 May 2012 at 10:47pm | IP Logged 
prz_ wrote:
oh, sorry, a typo. vocative, of course.
Well, I think it is vestigial because now it's mostly used in the masculine forms (the feminine forms are considered
to be rural or even slightly offensive.


Yes, but you'd still use it with close female family members. I apologize to the OP as I fear we've hijacked this
thread from the original topic. If I had to pick a first Slavic language to learn (assuming I could or would start
over), I'd probably pick Serbo-Croatian due to the relatively prevalent language resources available for its number
of speakers as well as the fact that it seems to combine a variety of interesting features in moderation like a more
relaxed use of cases (less in some dialects and yet still understandable), more verb forms than in most Slavic
languages though significantly less than in Bulgarian, and a pitch accent.
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tanya b
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4780 days ago

159 posts - 518 votes 
Speaks: Russian

 
 Message 16 of 31
30 May 2012 at 3:03am | IP Logged 
I, like many on this forum, have a weakness for "obscure" languages, and the Slavic language family has it's fair share or them, but I am so thankful that I went with my head and not my heart and learned Russian, the least "obscure" Slavic language.

Russian is so beautiful, so alien, so non-Western, it just gives me goosebumps when I hear and speak it.

What I love about Russian is that it is just as "exotic" as the languages of the countries that surround it, be it Mongolian or Lithuanian, but the quality of Russian language resources is vastly superior.

There is also a certain "wow" factor here in the West when people learn that you are fluent in Russian. Fair or not, being fluent in Slovenian just doesn't carry the same weight. Wherever you live, it's doubtful that your nation will ever desperately need speakers of Macedonian, but with Russian, there is always that possibilty.

But if Russian were not as important as it is, Slovak would be my first choice. Beautiful language, gorgeous country. (lots of Hungarian speakers, too)

Edited by tanya b on 30 May 2012 at 3:08am



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