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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
41 messages over 6 pages: 13 4 5 6  Next >>
aquablue
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6193 days ago

150 posts - 172 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 9 of 41
06 February 2010 at 7:01pm | IP Logged 
Is Russian easier to learn than Arabic for an English native?

1 person has voted this message useful



Genevra
Bilingual Tetraglot
Newbie
Sweden
Joined 5225 days ago

13 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: Russian*, Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 10 of 41
06 February 2010 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
I cannot speak all three of those languages mentioned above, but as a person that has Russian as a native language and is speaking English fluently I can say that you will probably find the Russian language as a much easier one, if comparing to Arabic.

Why? A lot of Russian words are borrowed from French, the same goes for English. I constantly find lots of common words in English as in Russian. It especially appears if one is speaking a bit French, which I also do.

I am definitely not saying that Russian is an easy language, not at all. But it is an opinion of many (both native speakers and all the others) that it's not that hard to learn Russian, rather than Arabic.

Also, I think it'll be easier to learn when one often needs to have two texts in both languages and compare, word for word. As soon as you learn the Russian letters (trust me - not hard at all), you will be able to compare and understand texts much sooner and easier.
2 persons have voted this message useful



aquablue
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6193 days ago

150 posts - 172 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 11 of 41
07 February 2010 at 12:34am | IP Logged 
Which is more fascinating to learn...Arabic seems very exotic, but how useful is it given the dialects, etc...
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Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5233 days ago

616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 12 of 41
07 February 2010 at 4:38am | IP Logged 
datsunking1 wrote:
Johntm wrote:
German would be my guess, they are the world's largest exporter. I'm not sure if Russia is on track to be an economic leader, but my advice would be to learn both. That's what I plan on doing :D


I'm right there with you.

German Russian and Spanish are my highest priority languages. German seems to be easier than Spanish... (for me at least) I'm picking up on it much quicker :D

I can't wait to start with Russian, but I need to put German under my belt first :)
Yeah those two are down the road for me. I'm working on Spanish, plan on starting Mandarin, then I plan to learn Korean, German, then probably Russian. Maybe throw Arabic and some Italian in that mix.

The only reason I wanna learn Russian is because I think the Cyrillic alphabet looks awesome :D
афываДДДвафы авываыфваоуо уввашф
I have no clue what the means I just typed random letters
1 person has voted this message useful



datsunking1
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5396 days ago

1014 posts - 1533 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French

 
 Message 13 of 41
07 February 2010 at 4:49am | IP Logged 
aquablue wrote:
datsunking1 wrote:
Johntm wrote:
German would be my guess, they are the world's largest exporter. I'm not sure if Russia is on track to be an economic leader, but my advice would be to learn both. That's what I plan on doing :D


I'm right there with you.

German Russian and Spanish are my highest priority languages. German seems to be easier than Spanish... (for me at least) I'm picking up on it much quicker :D

I can't wait to start with Russian, but I need to put German under my belt first :)


Are you really learning 4 language together...must be difficult, no?


I haven't started Russian yet, I plan on starting Italian when Assimil gets here :P and my Spanish is pretty fluent so I don't work on it much. I review grammar a lot and look up words when I don't know them, or certain idioms.

It's really not difficult at all, If I can do it ANYONE can. German is fairly different from romance languages, so I guess that's why it doesn't give me much trouble. I dedicate (at least) 30 minutes a day each to Spanish and German, and probably another 30 when Assimil Italian gets here. You'll be surprised how much free time you have lying around. :D

I love Assimil programs, I definitely recommend them!


It's so hard to pick one language and study JUST that one language. There are so many that I would love to study. UGH!

I jump around from language to language. I need to buckle down and focus on a couple at a time. :)

-Jordan
1 person has voted this message useful



TixhiiDon
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5275 days ago

772 posts - 1474 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian
Studies: Georgian

 
 Message 14 of 41
07 February 2010 at 6:50am | IP Logged 
Johntm wrote:
The only reason I wanna learn Russian is because I think the Cyrillic alphabet looks awesome :D
афываДДДвафы авываыфваоуо уввашф
I have no clue what the means I just typed random letters


Just to let you know, Johntm, you typed something like:

afyvaDDDvafy abyvayfvaouo uvvashf

which, sadly, is not a particularly useful phrase in everyday Russian conversation :)
2 persons have voted this message useful



chucknorrisman
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5259 days ago

321 posts - 435 votes 
Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French

 
 Message 15 of 41
07 February 2010 at 11:41pm | IP Logged 
Genevra wrote:
Also, I think it'll be easier to learn when one often needs to have two texts in both languages and compare, word for word. As soon as you learn the Russian letters (trust me - not hard at all), you will be able to compare and understand texts much sooner and easier.


Just wondering, why is Arabic generally considered harder than Russian, other than the vocabulary which Russian has a bit more common with than Arabic? What are some grammatical stuff that makes it much harder?
1 person has voted this message useful



Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5233 days ago

616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 16 of 41
08 February 2010 at 4:19am | IP Logged 
TixhiiDon wrote:
Johntm wrote:
The only reason I wanna learn Russian is because I think the Cyrillic alphabet looks awesome :D
афываДДДвафы авываыфваоуо уввашф
I have no clue what the means I just typed random letters


Just to let you know, Johntm, you typed something like:

afyvaDDDvafy abyvayfvaouo uvvashf

which, sadly, is not a particularly useful phrase in everyday Russian conversation :)
Yeah I figured it wasn't too good a phrase. I need to learn the Cyrillic alphabet...Д Is my favorite letter for some reason


1 person has voted this message useful



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