How Hard is Russian to Learn? | An Honest Guide for English Speakers
🇷🇺 Are you an English speaker learning Russian? Wondering how difficult the journey ahead will be? Here's a honest breakdown of the good, the bad, and the beautiful!
Special thanks to my friend Anastasia from @RussianwithAnastasia for helping with Russian pronunciation in this video.
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Apples and Oranges
0:16 - Russian: Hard Even for Russians
1:50 - Russian? Rather Speak French
4:20 - A Very Mysterious Alphabet
6:48 - Pronunciation
8:23 - Stranger Things…
9:05 - The Easy Bits
11:01 - Hard? More Like Genius
12:18 - Vocabulary
13:30 - Okay, THIS is Hard
16:46 - Should I Learn Russian?
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS
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BBC: UK struggles with language of Russian diplomacy
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How to Properly Say Ы in Russian
• How to Properly Say Ы ...
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teach russian during the war? I didnt know you support killers. I guess its time to learn how rot you are
Thanks again for talking about Russian! I recently posted a video about Storytelling as the best way to learn it and credited you, Olly 😊
Not exactly. When you change an order of the russian words, shades of your sentence, semantic accents are changing as well. For example. "Я люблю тебя" means 'I love you'. "Я тебя люблю" (I you love) means 'I love you, not him/her'. A semantic stress on the word "you" In other words, it means that possibly a partner has doubts, or there is someone else who can theoretically interfere in the relationships. One of the lovers is jealous, for example, so another one is trying to convince him or her softly: I you love, not him/ her. To me you means more than him / her (another girl / boy is just a friend of mine - that's a subtext). It can be said jokingly, casually, to annoy or provoke jealousy, in that case one of the lovers may begin to doubt (а word order gives the words a frivolous connotation, negligence, this is felt intuitively). If intonation is careless as well, a partner can get furious. It depends on character. It's a very thin matter, so-called deep water, so I can hardly put it more understandable. "Тебя я люблю!" (You I love) means 'I love only you, you are everything for me, and I don't care about the others. Let the world burn! To me only you makes sense'. Usually, it's being said very emotionally, when a couple, for example, is trying to solve their problems or misunderstanding out because of jealousy or something. This situation is different from the previous one. Here we have a serious quarrel. We are yelling at each other. One of the lovers , for Instance, could yell something like: 'you don't love me any longer, you have another girl, younger than I am. So another one is getting anger more and more, he is repeating over and over again: 'you I love (semantic stress on the word "you" ❤)) stop making me crazy. There is no another girl! I'm tired of listening thise nonsense! How many times do I have to say that I love you, only you'. And so on. to put it frankly, the last two options are so semantically similar that in different cases they can replace one another.
@@user-cz1pi6ji2r this is very thorough!! However, sometimes ALL of these very serious examples are no more than "I love you" in regular conversation, in songs, etc. I believe that's what Olly was getting at, but who knows 🤷♀
@@APlusRussian Yes, it's rather a lituratural russian language. What I have said is unknown for many russians. Usually. But. Many native speakers who do not know these rules often use them intuitively. That's interesting)
Никто: Русские: *Смотрят как иностранец объясняет русский язык другим иностранцам* 🗿
я тоже обожаю эти видео и поняла, что я не понимаю как иностранцы учат русский, для них это действительно кошмар 😂🙈
Мне так смешно тому что так объясняют русский только перво-классникам😁Ыыыыыыы был🤣🤣🤣Но им это нормально, так как они его изучают первый раз
@@owtena Я американец, и да, это кошмар, лол. Но я слишком люблю язык, чтобы сдаться
как вы узнали 😨😨?
Ку
As a native Russian speaker, I admire non Russian speakers that try to learn it. I would never dare touch this strange language if I didn't speak it from my childhood
👍👍
I feel the same about English … so much respect for the many people who learn it so well.
@@WayneRossi sadly before encountering people like you, I encountered a lot of dishit people, and accordingly to them every newborn must speak pristine English. Because because.
❤️
Same, man
As a Russian I just wanted to thank you for spreading knowledge and respecting our language. Especially in these hard times for our country and culture.
I like your comment. I just wanted to say, I appreciate Russian culture and language, I've been slowly learning for years now, it is fascinating. One of my favorite Russian words is медсестра (hope I got that right) which means nurse. I love the parts of this word, because "мед" sounds like "med" in English, the first part of medicine, and "сестра" means sister, so the word "медсестра" makes me think of "medicine sister". I know things are crazy in your corner of the world now, and I pray peace comes to you guys soon! Take care 🙂
@@taram9409 you are totally correct here, because медсестра (nurse) is just short for медицинская сестра (medical sister). We also have медбрат as medical brother for male nurses. We also use медик which is adoption of medic. And we have a lot of adopted words from English, German, French and so on.
@@user-vc3dh9jp6v That's so interesting, thank you for sharing! I didn't realize the Russian language had any adopted words from English. I don't know if English borrowed any words from Russian...off the top of my head, I can only think of vodka lol.
@@taram9409 sadly vodka is not Russian, but polish word. We had adopted a lot of their words too, and a lot from Mongolia and turkic people.
@@user-vc3dh9jp6v Oh wow! I never would've guessed. 🤷
Кто то: учит разные языки, знает английский в совершенстве, полиглот в общем. Я: учу английский что бы какой то чел учил меня моему же языку
пхахп реально
А я учу чтоб более понятно было играть в игры на английском где и моего уровня хватит (английский в школе это гг кое как на 3ку вытенул)
Жиза
Кто-то*
🤣🤣🤣
When I was studying Russian in college we had an entire 3 credit course on just verbs of motion. Over the course of the semester we assembled 36 sentences with 36 different verbs of motion, all of which had the English translation of ......... 'go'.
but on the flipside of that, you could very well assemble a whole course on the use of english articles (and i say this as a long time english learner), which in russian would translate to nothing at all 😂
Haha. :p
@@jen_sa Articles? Really? 😂
@@nihil303 i used to have a whole book on just articles, with all of the rules on how to use them and endless lists of expressions. For e.g., you use an article with river names, but not with lakes? Or was it the other way around? But even the simple definite/indefinite distinction can get really confusing. For years it felt like everytime i used an article it was a shot in the dark lol
Зато какой прекрасный мир вы откроете, изучая русский язык! Русский - язык прекрасной литературы. Это уже огромная причина изучать этот язык. Вы не пожалеете ;)
11 лет в школе нам твердили, что Пушкин солнце русской литературы, а о том, что он знал 16 языков, я впервые слышу от англичанина на ютубе 😂
Рассказала трём друзьям, все впервые об этом слышат. Никому не сказали)
"Знал 16 языков" это явное преувеличение :) Во времена Пушкина для знати было нормой изучать 6-8 языков. Пушкин свободно владел только русским и французским, уверенно читал ещё на четырёх языках. Откройте ту же "Войну и мир" - там половина книги на французском. Знание литературы подразумевает, что нечто такое в норме и общеизвестно :)
Да, это очевидное преувеличение.
Это утверждение не выглядит таким уж невероятным, если посмотреть, что это за языки. Там много моментов, когда несколько языков относятся к одной семье и достаточно похожи. И если вы хорошо знаете один, то и второй будете понимать хотя бы в общих чертах. Например, латынь, итальянский и испанский имеют очень много пересечений. Потом, у него там в списке сербский, польский, церковнославянский, украинский... Это все тоже близкородственные. Что интересно, это насколько Пушкин в действительности знал арабский и турецкий. Их наличие в списке довольно любопытно.
That's how russian culture works in russia
I have studied Russian for a few years now. Here’s a few tips for beginners: The alphabet should be the first thing you learn. It makes everything else much easier. You should also try your best to understand the case system and how it affects grammatical meaning. However, I wouldn’t recommend trying to memorize the case endings yet (Although gender ending should be). After, learn common words like “100 most common words” list shown in the video. Next you should learn how to recognize types of words based on their spelling. For example, unconjugated verbs end in ‘еть’ or ‘ать’. From here, you may branch out to best suit the reason you’re learning in the first place. If you read this far, thank you. I hope this helps someone out there.
i wonder how you gonna learn e v e r y language without knowing an alphabet first
@@zdarova4472 you would believe how people try.
@@karshmellow3021 это так иностранцы учат сначала учить правила, а не алфавит?
@@fayevalentine2695 иногда
@@karshmellow3021 жиза
I took Russian for fun in university (and because I had a few Russian-speaking friends back then) and while I loved it, one thing that really brought me to the brink of madness was the present tense conjugation for verbs. The more I learned, the more I came across irregular patterns that I couldn't wrap my head around. My teacher at the time always said "Russian wouldn't be Russian if it weren't so complicated" and she was right.
Наверняка ты очень крутой
Would you recommend it I am scared it will be too hard to learn while studying and I dont want to be extra stressed out. On the other hand I would like to try learning russian
@@asdzxcqwe6195 what is your motivator for learning russian? If you dont have a clear motivator, then dont try lean russian.
@@yesyes3010my motivation is to get russina grilfriend they are atrractive
I agree I am native and have a natural sense of the Russian language but can't claim to be an expert only because it is a super hard language to acquire without making a single mistake. Went trough school system and a college back in Russsia
The whole complexity of the Russian language lies in its flexibility, which actually makes it very simple. Even if you said something wrong, most likely everyone will understand you exactly
Так-то это про любой язык можно сказать, натив спикер по-любому сам догадается, что человек пытается сказать Хотя совсем с новичками конечно сложно
@@shiroyashaz Based
@@shiroyashaz тсс, не мешай людям повторять заученные фразы из школы, восхваляющие язык без видимой на то причины
I don't agree at all. Word order is certainly flexible and you can change the position of words in a sentence much more freely than with English, but pronunciation and syllable stress are NOT flexible and Russians will NOT understand you if you stress the wrong syllable. For example if you pronounce подарок as подарóк instead of подáрок, you will not be understood. This kind of precision is not required in English, or in the vast majority of languages. Add to this the fact that Russians are generally very unaccustomed to hearing Anglophones or basically any non-native speaker speaking Russian, means that they will not be able to decipher poorly spoken Russian in the same way that most English speakers are able to. This is not even mentioning the incredibly complex case system and relatively difficult verb conjugations and inflections.
@@NotmyRealname847 A few days ago, an Irishman told me "dubau budachi", I did not immediately understand what he wanted to say, but still I later realized that he said "zhelau udachi" in English, it means good luck.
Russian is a very simple language: just don’t go anywhere, don’t count anything, and for goodness’ sake, whatever you’re doing, don’t finish it!
haha
Хахаха
So french, got it
Лол
Eeeh... excuse me?
As a russian, I found learning French much more difficult compared to learning English. However, every time I've met an exception in the French language that didn't make any logical sense, I comforted myself by thinking that somehwere right now, there is a poor suffering french soul that tries to te learn Russian.
french and russian are both the pain in the ass (but your native lang is worse haha
@@369tayaholic5you’re right, i had french in school for 4 years and now i can’t even count to 10 hahahaah
@@ne_znmто же самое) Только я ДО СИХ ПОР его изучаю,4 год пойдет уже
Cause French is harder than English
not true btw i know both and more and i struggled with English exceptionally more than French@@nezhinkayash
i think Russian is a beautiful language and thats why i am learning it, hoping to live in Russia after i learn it
Good luck, мой японский друг
@@fear_the_nobodies Спасибо!!
You are well done, learning russian language is a challenge 👍🏼
Только давай дождемся более спокойных времён. Согласен, что наш язык очень интересный, но сейчас лично у меня ощущение, что он воспринимается в мире как немецкий с 1939 по 1945 годы
living in russia is a bad decision, especially now
As a native Russian speaker, I confirm that our language is damn hard even for some Russians - all the more respect to the foreigners, who decide to tackle this challenge! P.S. The word "zapoy" is indeed quite popular among Russians
Don't forget it's often used figuratively; as in binge watching, reading, or even when describing a fascinating work which was taken with great enthusiasm. ;)
I did it myself and I must admit I didn't study part time but rather lived in the language for long years starting with baby books to remodel an early childhood with Russian, now knocking my head over Pushkin. Pray for me!
Oh god yes... The syntax.... the grammar. The punctuation
@@mounacheblak7828 Pushkin is top notch world class literature! A very good choice!
@@mounacheblak7828 That's amazing!! Good luck with your studies! Thanks for learning our language :)
Great video, except for the part where you talk about XIX century. Nobles spoke French instead of Russian not because they thought that Russian sounded bad. A situation where nobles speak different language than the common folk was pretty common in many countries, including, for example, England in medieval times. It's a class thing, makes it easier for the higher classes to exploit lower classes since they can pretend they are different people. And no, A. Pushkin did not singlehandedly turned the things around, although he did play a huge part in popularising Russian language among the nobles. The movement started a few decades earlier, right after the Napoleon's invasion into Russia in 1812. Not only because the invaders spoke French, but also because that war was quite different, it involved lots of guerilla action where nobles had to fight off foreigners alongside common people, like never before. That war melded the russians as a nation, and that's when Russian language started to emerge as a national language - not only for the peasants, but for the elites too.
Thanks for that history lesson.
Полностью согласна. Тоже зацепило перевирание истории. Я бы добавила к неточностям в видео - не нужно учить русскую грамматику про Толстому. ))) Это писатель с грамматически неправильными конструкциями. Лучше читайте Лермонтова или Куприна. Пушкина можно, хотя некоторые обороты у него устарели.
Да да. Хорошо, что написали
I can see how Russian sounds harsh in some instances, but in normal speech it is absolutely soft and warm. This is why Russia had so many poets. It is because Russian sounds so beautiful and passionate.
Есть ещё одна причина, по которой русские дворяне говорили по-французски. Это революция во Франции, после которой много французской элиты стали переезжать в Россию, где их часто нанимали в качестве частных учителей для своих детей богатые люди. И, соответственно, дети с детства учились на французском языке, поэтому говорили на нем почти как на родном.
Sorry for my english (im Belarussian), but im want to tell you thank you for you work. I think its relly impotant to understand each other in this hard time for world. Peace
Я очень удивлена тем, что так много людей увлекаются изучением русского языка. Самый быстрый способ, это изучать язык с носителем) Расскажу небольшой секрет, каждому носителю языка, который не является преподавателем, очень нравится учить) Заметила это по разным людям из разных стран. Нет таких, кто не хотел бы помочь в изучении родному языку) Удачи P.S. the letter X is not KH)) it like HA but without A (Hair) - H = Х
Ukraine will win, Use your brain, you peasant
Russian Х is transliterated as KH in English
@@Igorex888 And what about Ukraine? Everything has already been decided for Ukraine, so that you do not write. And here we are talking about the Russian language and its study. So..
@@GlowingPie I'm talking about sound
@@BlackAngryFox No, you are not right. The russian Х is more tense than the english H
While Pushkin is considered to be a father of modern Russian, he himself has said as much about Nikolai Karamzin, who's most known as a historian, meanwhile he was a writer too. Karamzin was the first who has started to use "low" language in writing, meaning colloquial style and words, and avoided heavy phrasing and synonyms of old church Slavonic, created lots of neologisms, and either invented or started to use the letter ё. He's known as a reformer of Russian language, as the result of Karamzin reform, two clubs were formed - conservative "Conversation of Russian language lovers", and pro-reform "Arzamas" which included many well known Russian writers of the time including Pushkin, who were the second generation of users of new Rususian, they were parodying and laughing at "Converstaion". Pushkin is given higher role because of how popular he was, how strongly he affected public and other writers, and the fact that he continued to change the language - works of other writers of "Arzamas" like Jhukovsky and Vyazemsky while being easily comprehensible, and somewhat heavy.
Для нас Карамзин только "ё" придумал, более мы на него забили.
@@gdgames9585 Ну да потому что и в школе, и в СМИ только про Ё и говорят. А если почитать Карамзина и сравнить с тем как писали до него, сразу становится понятно, что современным языком мы обязаны не Пушкину, а Карамзину и Пушкину
@@nathanliteroy9835 , ни в школе, ни в СМИ ни от кого не слышал, что Карамзин её предложил.
@@gdgames9585 щас окажется, что кровавый совок скрывал ещё и это.
you know much more than this topicstarter) i was about to mention Karamzin, but there's no need after your comment) thanks)
I've been learning Russian for 15 years and the more I learn the less I know but fuck do I love the Russian language
What i noticed learning english: english words like tags. It can change form, but it still static. Russian words really dynamic. You can change it if you need and even construct new words using natural language rules. And it will be legit words understandable by any native. I love it in Russian
that's called a fusional language, if I remember correctly. Latin is also like that. that's the OG Proto-Indo-European way💪
Yes, you can change russian word in different ways and even come up with your own word, just by changing the original version, and any Russian will understand you.
Очень классно смотреть как разбирают русский язык 😂
Look at the foreigners who come here for the comments of Moscow (roSSian) Nazis. They are full of racial theory. Muscovites (roSSians) consider themselves a superior race -- with white hair and blue eyes 🤦 This is Nazism in its purest form. And these Nazis advise you how to speak their Nazi language better🤦 Just translate their comments---that's real nazism.
Polski lepszy 💅
I've been studying the Russian language for 3 years now and I must admit that it is a beautiful language. Thank you for covering this language!! But I do have some things to get off my chest if that's ok. I don't get why we call Russian phonetic. In order to pronounce a word properly you need to know where the stress of the word is. For instance the word Хорошо(Well) is written like Khorosho but only the o in the end is pronounced as an o. And words like Большой(big) Больший(bigger) have the exact same written forms in every other case and gender in both singular and plural. Whether the stress is at the first o or in the second syllable, will determine he words' meaning. There is no visible indication of where the stress falls even though it is the stress that defines a word's proper ponunciation. It is definitely more phonetic than English but still has its peculiarities. 3 years ago, when I started learning the tenses I was kinda relieved that Russian only uses 3 tenses. Maybe we could make the argument that it has 5 if we count the perfective and imperfective versions. Like : Делал (I was doing), делаю (I am doing), буду делать(I will be doing) and сделал (I did), сделаю (I will do). I thought that it was going to be very easy. And then I learned that what we use in English and Greek as "I have/had done" won't necessarily be translated or equal to "Я делал/сделал" accordingly. After learning those tenses I realised that I am used to more tenses and simply settling with less or trying to express myself in less can be very confusing. Especially, in a language that has its own rules. Rules made so that it can express that, which we use those "perfect" tenses. Thus I started using the Past tense in ways I didn't think made much sense. But these "oddities" were what made me love this language even more. I had to study hard and make many mistakes until I was able to use them naturally. And that makes me feel very content with myself.
Consider a more complex twist on that: поделал/поделывал. One is a more pronounced incompleteness, as in "I did a part of it". The other is a whole story - "I used to do it on occasion". And I can bring in even more variations of this verb, even if one may argue they are separate verbs.
Useless skills. You'll never use russian in your life!))))
@@eugeneboichuk same logic applies to French, Polish, Turkish, Japanese etc.
@@yarikyaryi mate, believe me after 24.02.22 you can't compare studying russian language with studying other foreign language!!!
@@eugeneboichuk So now all those studying Russian instead of listening to the facts of higher amount of speakers, a recognition as one of seven official languages etc. Should start learning mova, so that some of the ukranians like you will have a happy ego? Strong logic...
THE SINGLE coolest thing about this video to me is how much love, respect and admiration the author has expressed for the language (at least the way it came across to me). Very accurate and in-depth, not just a few paragraphs from Wikipedia. Ну и отдельный респект, конечно, за то, что снял в ЭТО время. Уверен, многие бы зассали (зачеркнуто) постеснялись. Дай Бог здоровья.
Just watched 3 minutes of this video and almost every piece of information is wrong. He says that the Russian language is difficult even for native speakers, and cites SPELLING as an example, especially given the fact that spelling in Russian is mainly morphological, that is, it obeys a certain logic. And what about the spelling? Writing is not a language. He goes on to say that Russian was considered an "ugly" language and was punished for its use, I can't find this information in any source and as a person who is interested in linguistics I hear about it for the first time. And then he continues this theme, mentioning Pushkin, who was one of the most zealous authors for the Russian language, and in general, why the hell did he and other authors write in Russian if it is an ugly language? Perhaps the remaining 14 minutes of the video really carry accurate information, but throwing in so many fakes in the very first three minutes is no careful handling of information. Edit: so I just watched more and he says what Pushkin is "Father of modern Russian language" which is not true by any means and after talking about alphabet he says what Russian IS PHONETIC LANGUAGE, maybe he wanted to say Belarussian? Because Russian is way too far from being phonetic
Но какашечкой по шву все равно прошёлся. См боруха вспомнил.
@@morgunvad um, Pushkin IS considered the Father of our language. It's the title he holds. The fact HIS BIRTHDAY is an official Russian Language Day now just reinforces the fact. Yes, Russian is difficult for natives too. If we talk about proper grammar and pronunciation here, not just spoken Russian. I mean, they had to change some pronunciation rules because people kept on saying those words WRONG. Plus, we tend to focus of grammar aspects at school (transcription, determining/identifying parts of speech, different rules for infections/spelling (like, specific letters in roots/under stress/unstressed etc), PUNCTUATION that sometimes doesn't make sense. All of that is not easy. Trust me. I've been there, studying all of that for eleven years abd still might have problems here and there because. There are people who'd never gotten a hang of it. Ever. But everyday speaking isn't that hard to improve. Nope. Writing, on the other hand, I've seen it all.
@@527398 у вас нет ни малейшего понимания ни о том, что такое язык, ни о том что такое письменность, ни о личности Пушкина. Не вижу даже смысла что то отдельно разбирать. Прежде чем умничать, разберитесь в вопросе
@@Arwiden да. Тоже заметила.
Читаю комментарии и удивляюсь как много людей учат русский 😯 Вероятно, вы очень терпеливые ребята, ахаха ) Всем успехов! Русский язык очень интересный, структурированный и богатый! От учителя русского языка и литературы ❤ 🇷🇺
🤡🤡💩
I have always found Russian people, culture and language fascinating. As an ignorant Tamil speaking Indian who by genetics is seasoned at learning new languages, I find that the originality of the Russian alphabet is evidence of a culture that has its roots in antiquity. I am always more at home when in the company of my slavic brothers. They may look and sound different to me but they have the same principles and outlook on life. The ability to control emotion is evidence of a balanced being who has mastery over his mind. This is not magic but people who are able to do this easily recognize others who do this too and find peace in diversity as all is not lost for humanity. The ancient Slav-Indo connection is conversation for another day as that history has been erased... except... we never forgot. There are levels of antiquity in Hinduism but perhaps the most intriguing fact is that SVAROG, the ancient Slavic fire God and ruler of the Heavens is non other than Indra, the vedic fire God, God of the Gods and Ruler of SVARGA. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva came much later and there are slavic equivalents for them as well. The history lesson is not important but India regard Russia as the Saviours of the modern world. India cannot intervene as we understand our duty. Through the cyclical birth and annihilation of Mankind in the God's pursuit of the ultimate slave, India remained Humanities sanctuary through the ages. The principle of the Enlightened Human Being on Earth is actually a far more refined and powerful entity than any Demigod. This created Being is the AI of the Gods...
Русский язык не структурированный и не логичный.
I admire foreigners who teach or speak Russian. Even I, a native speaker, take a long time to understand some rules. I am ready to applaud everyone who decided to learn this language.
All the foreigners learning Russian, you are amazing 😘🥰
So glad my native language is a Slavic one, so I was already familiar with most of these things. I never thought about how hard Russian might be for a non-Slavic speaker to learn.
Any Slavic language but Russian is worth learning. Screw Russian.
No kurde tak jest, słowiański języki kurde bardzo ciężki są,ale na przykład polski mi się wydaje że jest trudniejszy od ruskiego, mówię ci to jak rosjanin który mieszka w Polsce
Obviously not Bulgarian.
@@Warriorcats64 I honestly think Bulgarian might be the best first Slavic language to learn, for a native English speaker.
@@user-ko1vj2tx6q залік та кудо за твій нік.
I'd submit that the main thing that makes a language "hard" is its level of inconsistency. It's the "exceptions to the rule" that are, for me, the most frustrating and make language-learning the most challenging. No matter how strange or unintuitive something may be, if it's consistent you can learn it and it's always that way. But if there are dozens of exceptions to the general rule, and especially if getting it wrong could mean a serious, dangerous or even embarrassing mis-communication, it's HARD.
I love the Russian language. I’m learning Russian and can’t wait to visit this beautiful country. ❤🙏🇷🇺
disgusting
I've been learning Russian for about 6 months now, and it started off extremely difficult, but then I got to the point where the normal conversations are fairly straightforward and, I believe, easier than many of the other languages I've tried. That said, once you get out of the realm of a daily conversation, it gets into the deep weeds fast again! Also, in the session I had with my tutor this morning, we actually talked about Pushkin for a bit too. Just an interesting coincidence. I haven't heard anything about him for years, and now twice in the same day :-D
I strongly recommend you read Pushkin. His poems in particular are wonderful! There is actually a recording of Evgeniy Onegin, in English here on KZhead, read by Stephen Fry. it's quite good and does translate the humour of the poem. Pushkin wrote extensively for children too. He's just a very easy read, imho. Also, I recommend "Woe from Wit" by Alexandr Griboedov, who was a Russian writer and diplomat: one of the best satirical poem, mocking the high society. It's fantastic! AG was sadly killed in his prime, and this is his only famous poem.
I think you will be loved by Russians only if you interpret Pushkin as the bolsheviks want, not as you want. Maybe in your love for the criminals you will finish into a gulag if you interpret the things freely enough. I know a case of a person who loved China and spent 8 years in jail (he was professor of English teaching in China and did not take care what he does).
@@kitty6720 in 1987, when I was studying Russian in preparation for going with a group to the USSR, I bought six books (paperback) of fairy tales as told by Pushkin (in Russian), with illustrations by Bilibin ❤️. I made the mistake of letting these books be passed around among the other people who were going on the tour, and somehow they never made it back to me. It was a great loss!
@@dancinggiraffe6058 Oh, I feel your pain. I would've hate to have lost those books as well. Maybe you can find them on eBay (unless they'll be expensive now)? Pushkin was a literary genius: he was great both at writing poems and prose. His "Fairytale about a fisherman & a fish" is actually a very good lesson in life about appreciating what you have now because you can lose it any time.
Mate, start from 24.02.22 russian is useless language!!! Start forgetting it! Otherwise you'll waste your time!
Polish verbs of motion, plurals and seven cases cause the same difficulties. I suppose all Slavic languages do. But for some reason, everybody thinks it is the Cyrillic alphabet which is hard, when the alphabet is very easy.
Steven Carr For someone who studied Physics and Math, using Greek characters, (Engineering), Kiryllic alphabet is easy.
I never thought it was difficult at all. Chodzić do szkoły or Chodzę do szkoły means to go or I go to school (walking) or I frequent school. Idę do szkoły means I'm going to school. Jeżdżę do szkoły means I drive or ride to school. Idę do szkoły means I am walking to school. Jadę do szkoły means I am driving or riding to school. Russian works in a very similar way.
Bulgarian is the odd one out. It has no grammatical cases.
Not all Slavic languages - Bulgarian (and Macedonian which is basically Bulgarian) don't. But Bulgarian has an equivalent to definitive articles ("the" in English) that other Slavic languages don't. So Bulgarian can be easier to learn for English natively speakers. The verbs are pretty hard though and there are more tenses than Russian
The hard part with the Cyrillic alphabet is that half of the letters look like Roman ones, but they make a different sound. So compared to learning Japanese Hiragana, which is 100% different from Roman alphabet, I'm finding that Cyrillic needs more reinforcement so I don't start using some of the letters with the Roman sound.
It’s so interesting: we learn English and someone tries to learn Russian ☀️ cool! I wish success to all who learn Russian
I have been studying Russian every day for over 2 years, and I lived in Russia for 8 months. I still have so much to learn. I am a B1/B2 level if I am honest with myself. I can easily have a conversation with a Russian, and I can comfortably travel in Russia & chat with the natives. But it is still VERY difficult to understand Russian tv shows or movies. Also reading Russian books (made for Russians) is very difficult.
I completely understand. I've been speaking Russian for 19 years and I still come across many things I can't grasp
This so cool to realize that someone learns your native language I like all foreigners learning russian
@@chahailus That's the same with me and Spanish. I learn so many things I didn't know and I start using them little by little.
Mate, you don't need russian anymore!!! Don't waste your time!)
@@eugeneboichuk I'm moving back to Russia in September) Of course I will need it.
Hey, I’m a Russian native speaker. Let me tell you this: I just loved watching this video and learning some things about my own native language from a new perspective! It’s just so interesting, it always is!!! I love your channel, THANK YOU 😊 P. S. I’m sorry but talking about all those stress syllables… It’s Nabókov. I just couldn’t not mention that :)
Thank you! I’ve always wondered which syllable to stress in Nabokov … as well as in many other Russian surnames. When I watched a video that featured, among other dancers, ballerina Tatiana Terekhova, I was very surprised to learn that the stress was on the first syllable of her surname. It seemed unlikely to me, because that left three unstressed syllables grouped together, which sounded strange to me.
@@dancinggiraffe6058 it’s a bit weird with Russian surnames, yeah For example, there is a surname Ivanova, which can be stressed in two different ways (second or third syllable). I mean it isn’t optional it’s more like two different surnames :) Terekhova is usually stressed on the first syllable, yes (huh there is also a Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkóva) And there is this thing in Russian phonetics where if we have three unstressed syllables, we should make an additional stress which is weaker than the usual stress (native speakers aren’t doing it intentionally but it actually makes the word easier to pronounce so we do it) So the last syllable in Terekhova is actually a little bit stressed too :) It’s more like a weird rule: three syllables - ok, four and the stress mark is above the first vowel - we need an additional stress!!! So funny when I’m writing it down It’s ok not to be sure where to put stress in some Russian surnames (teachers and professors do it all the time while marking absent) but usually some way we know or at least have two possible options in mind reading a new name So… I hope it was interesting :) Thank you for responding to my comment! If you have any other questions I’d be happy to write about them too
@@user-dt9gy2ij3c Какой прекрасный английский у тебя) Я уже его подзабыл немного, потому что было лень его тренировать) Да а че там тренировать, у меня обычный Intermediate)
@@user-gp9jt4yn3p спасибо) Мой на самом деле не сильно выше, не Advanced точно) Но за счёт фильмов, сериалов в оригинале, англоязычного Ютуба… Получается вот производить хорошее впечатление иногда)
@@user-dt9gy2ij3c У тебя получается просто не лениться) Вот и результат)
Brilliant job! Thank you!
Thanks for video. And good luck with future content :)
I am Russian and the things you've said in this video are new facts for me 😅 Russian is extremely hard, I always struggle with it when I write something
Thanks for your comment 🙏🏻
You need to read more
@@Olymus I usually read things in English or just use audio books. And it's not about how much you read in Russian, it's about simply knowing the rules and many language facts
@@vlad_and_english большое количество часовъ чтенія на русскомъ и на любомъ языкѣ упрощаетъ запоминаніе особенностей правописанія. Вотъ о чёмъ-о чёмъ, а объ этомъ спорить не надо. Симъ образомъ я научился писать даже въ дореволюціонной орѳографіи, чего ужъ тамъ учить въ современной?
@@Olymus the appearance of 'і' in 'chtyeniya' in the first sentence makes me believe that your paragraph is Ukrainian. Slava Ukrainy!
Also I'm very intrigued by your way of thinking about russian language and in russian language, that's precious for me as a specialist, thank you for that video!
Great video! Everyone who learns Russian - you are great already to start doing this!
Russian was the first foreign language that I studied - sort of. This was in 1961, in San Francisco, and a friend of our family, who taught French and Italian in high school, had just completed an intensive, immersive course in Russian. To keep his skills up before starting to teach it in his school that fall, he offered free beginning Russian classes (immersion method) on Saturdays throughout the summer. My mother and older brother wanted to attend the course, and because there was no money for a babysitter (I was 10), I had to tag along. I had taken the precaution of warning our friend that I was not really there to take the class, and so he was not to call on me. He agreed, but in the first class, I discovered that I was actually interested in learning Russian, and before long I was waving my hand in the air every time he wanted someone to volunteer to read or to answer a question. I didn’t get around to really studying Russian until I was 37 and was planning to go to the USSR with a group. I enrolled in the beginning class, but was surprised at how much I remembered from my early classes, mainly vocabulary and present tense conjugation. I also remembered how to say “genitive case”. I think it was because it sounded like something that would be good to say if you were very angry. 😀 I agree with your assessment of what is and isn’t difficult in Russian. Certainly, the easiest part was learning a new alphabet. While I was studying as an adult, one of my Russian friends insisted on drilling me in case endings by choosing an adjective and noun and running through the case endings in order. He said they did a lot of that when he was in school in Russia.
Indeed, genitive or "birthing/parenting" case
"Angry genetive case" has certainly made my day.
I'm only a beginner, but I fell in love with Russian! I feel exactly as you say: it's challenging, but fascinating. It has an element of surprise due to its unfamiliarity
Yeah, but maybe it is better to learn. A language of a country which isn't brutally killing their neighbors
@@fm0363 Почти во всём с вами согласен - русский язык не имеет отношения к политике государства, как и любой другой язык. Вот только насчет бомбежки Донбасса кое в чем могу дополнить ваши сведенья. Войну на Донбассе спровоцировала Россия в 2014 году, сперва отобрав полуостров Крым, а потом введя на территорию Донецкой и Луганской областей своих военных. Конкретно это был Игорь Гиркин - бывший сотрудник российских спецслужб. Вы можете сами посмотреть его интервью, где он рассказывает, как начал эту войну. После этого Россия поставляла донецким сепаратистам оружие и специалистов, а также добровольцев, которые непосредственно и воевали. Да, снаряды могли прилетать и с украинской стороны, но они воевали за свою землю. В то время как Россия и тогда и сейчас вторглась на чужую. Я очень сочувствую вашему другу, но нет вины Украины в том, что в его городе шла война I agree with you on almost everything - Russian has nothing to do with state policy, just like any other language. But just about the bombing of Donbass in some ways I can supplement your information. The war in the Donbass was provoked by Russia in 2014, first taking away the Crimean peninsula, and then entering its military into the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Specifically, it was Igor Girkin, a former employee of the Russian special services. You can watch his interview yourself, where he tells how he started this war. After that, Russia supplied Donetsk separatists with weapons and specialists, as well as volunteers who fought directly. Yes, the shells could have come from the Ukrainian side, but they were fighting for their land. While Russia both then and now invaded someone else's. I am very sorry for your friend, but it is not Ukraine's fault that there was a war in his city
@@fm0363 not everyone who kills someone is a terrorist. There are concepts of a righteous war and an unrighteous one. Ukraine is defending itself - it is not a terrorist. Russia is attacking - it is a terrorist. But it has nothing to do with language and culture, you're right
@@RupertDonovan I don't know how attacking my friend who was not even a separatist comes out as a defending itself. You may say that it's just a casualty which happens during a war but I will never see that this way. Ukrainian and Russian armies and governments are equally bad for me and I doubt your words could change that. War is a war. There is no good and bad in it. Still I agree about language and culture. Have a nice day and take care.
@@fm0363 I understand you don't want to continue this conversation. And yet I feel I have to answer. Although I don't expect you to read it or answer it. Ukrainian and Russian armies and governments are not equally bad. At least because in Ukraine the government was democratically elected, whereas in Russia the power is seized by thieves and murderers, they absolutely do not care about their own people or someone else's. They are guided only by their personal ambitions and thirst for power. They're just criminals. At least for this reason, they cannot be equated with the Ukrainian government. We have people being arrested here for saying "no to war." In addition, the Russian army largely copies the army of Nazi Germany - from leaflets with calls to surrender (a copy of the German ones) to filtration camps for Ukrainians, from open calls to destroy civilians if someone witnessed war crimes, to phrases like "the final solution to the Ukrainian question" (the same thing Hitler said about Jews) from the mouth of the head of the country. It just shocks me that people in Europe still don't fully understand who Mr. Putin is
Wow I’m Russian and I’m so amazed by how well you understand our language structure. And also the amount of love you have for our language brings me so much joy! Haha thank you!🙏🧡
Удивительно, насколько полезное видео. Мой русский неимоверно улучшился за это короткое время 😊
Спасибо за видео! Интересно было послушать. :)
I’m enjoying learning Russian 😍
good luck to you😋
Good luck ❤️ Удачи вам ! Вы огромная молодец 👍🏻👍🏻
Так как прошел год, на каком языке ты сейчас учишься?
That was such an interesting video that, even though it's the first one I saw from this channel, I already subscribed!
You forgot to mention that even after years of learning, you still won't be sure whether an O should be pronounced as O, or as A, and therefore where to stress the word :) Fun.
Russian has been the most difficult language I have learned so far, but it is a lot of fun when you get to finally speak and have conversations 😄🇷🇺
Хорош
Молодец, что сказать.
@@wordmap8247 what's the reason?
@@wordmap8247 Обижаешь чел...
@@wordmap8247 so what? Did english become inapplicable and irrelevant after the US invaded Iraq or after bombings of Libya and Serbia?
Thanks, Olly, for the video, great presentation and great content and also if I may, a promo for my Russian language teacher. Thanks Anastasia, you are an incredibly good teacher, one of the best :)
Крутое видео! Спасибо!
I studied Russian in college. In my experience, it was less difficult than Spanish or French, and definitely easier than English (had it not been my native language). The Russian alphabet contains more letters to convey sounds that English uses the same letter for. Sounds that "s" can make in English are represented by different letters in Russian (ж, с, з); that makes it easier to read. There are also fewer exceptions to Russian's grammatical rules than there are those in English. Unlike English, many of the irregularities follow the same pattern, too. One thing I can say is that English tends to use prepositions and other additional words to modify verbs to convey a different meaning A LOT. The English statements, "to be used to [verb]" or "to be used to [something]" were often confusing to the Russian speakers that I tutored in English. Russian has a specific verb construction for conveying having repeatedly done something in the past but not doing it anymore, and another verb for "to be accustomed to." The biggest difficulty as a native Enlish speaker learning Russian is moving away from the "subject-verb-object" sentence structure that is ingrained in me. After reading an essay aloud to my tutor (from St. Petersburg), she said, "The grammar is all correct, but a Russian wouldn't say it like this," and cited the unconventional (for a native Russian speaker) word order choices I made. This is something that, 10 years later, I still can't get quite right.
С порядком слов все очень непросто. При изменении обычного порядка слов общий смысл обычно не меняется (при правильном изменении), но часто меняются какие то смысловые оттенки, причем важно, чтобы эти оттенки правильно соотносились с контекстом иначе фраза будет звучать странно. Впрочем многие построения в любом контексте будут звучать странно и неестественно, носитель языка их использовать никогда не будет. На самом деле это важный инструмент, очень существенно повышающий выразительность речи, дающий возможность краткой фразой передать смысловые оттенки, на которые в ином случае потребовалось бы несколько предложений (что будет очень занудно), но это сложный инструмент и далеко не все носители русского языка в полной мере идеально им владеют, обычно только частично, хотя понимают конечно все.
Чего? The Russian alphabet contains more letters to convey sounds that English uses the same letter for. Это полный бред, это я тебе как носитель языка говорю. "s" издает в английском те же звуки, что и "з","ж","с"? Чувак, ну нам то не пиЗди, поЖалуйста. "S" это тоже самое, что "С", но не как не то же самое, что "З" и "Ж". "З"="Z", аналога звука, который издает "ж" нет в английском алфавите, это как "Zh". Это абсолютно разные звуки и буквы и используются они по разному. Если ты в хорошем русском слове "жопа" вместо "ж" скажешь "з", все подумают, что ты идиот. Или, например, слова "роЖа" и "роЗа" это абсолютно разные и по значению и по произношению слова.
@@wefgpoit8043 Росзжа же . А так он и правда говна влупил так нехило .))
Sounds surprising that French is more difficult for an English-speaking person. I thought they've got so much in common
@@wefgpoit8043 человек так и сказал, что для каждого звука в русском свои буквы, в отличие от английского, где s может быть читаться и как с, и з, и ш(sh)
Wow! Thank you Olly! That’s both fun and interesting!!!
Glad you liked the vid
I've been learning Russian for over 2 and a half years and still struggle with cases and verbs of motion. In my view one of the important things which I neglected early on is to really pay attention to what gender the nouns are in order to build up that intuition early. If you don't have a good feel for the gender, then you will mess up verbs and cases and have a harder time learning them.
What'up my friend! If you want I can help you with russian. I'm learning english and I know how convinient it could be to have somebody who can explain you some things!
At least, apart from that, the past is the easiest grammatical subject of the language. Could you tell me if you have a book? I'd like to see it for my tutoring needs.
The gender of nouns is probably one of the very few things that is relatively straightforward in Russian grammar. You judge by the ending of a noun. -а -я are feminine (with the most common exceptions being when the word is clearly describing a male person: юноша, дедушка, etc.), -о / -е are always neutral, -ь can be feminine or masculine and there's no way for a non-native speaker to tell except to learn all of them, everything else is masculine. The hardest thing about Russian is that the Russian grammar, the way it is taught for the native speakers, consists of a set of rules that are derived as descriptions of how people speak and cannot be traced back. I.e. a Russian native speaker would simply run a noun through all cases to understand its gender based on how he knows the word changes. A non-native speaker cannot do the exercise because they don't have this knowledge from the onset! This means, non-natives have to learn a lot of things in Russian grammar by memorising it without any way of getting a decent feeling of how it works. Native speakers, in absentia of that kind of first-hand experience, often cannot recognise the phenomenon and have troubles in explaining the grammar to the non-natives. Without special training and methodology, a native Russian speaker cannot make a good teacher of Russian, and the situation is so complex that Russian-As-A-Foreign-Language is a whole self-standing specialism in which a Russian linguist can obtain a degree!
А почему вы сейчас не снимаете видео для ютуба? Было бы интересно.
I'm going on like 2 years in and yeah it's rough haha. I don't know that identifying the genders of words is so much my issue but yeah those case endings are _tough_. Also just holding in to all the vocabulary in general. Getting decent coverage of review without having 1000s of items to review seems almost impossible. That's probably completely separate from Russian in general though. But yeah even just getting to the point that sentences can be formed from even basic arbitrary thoughts about things, where a reasonable amount of practice can be possible, seems like a cliff. It does seem that when people can get to some level of knowledge and knowing enough words, that they have an easier time progressing but that hump is rough, and it's not just grammar (although that is a lot of it).
As native russian I appreciate you explanations. In school I was struggling with grammar, also I had no problems with communicating, we even had a lot of fun to speak incorrectly and invent tons of "new worlds". Russian language in fact so elastic, that you will never have so much fun and joy speaking in any other languages. For russians for example english is so crazy restricted, so feel like in top security prison and afraid to say something incorrectly. And so on.... Thanks!
Отличное видео! Great video!
i just started russian so this video is perfect thank you!!!! literally yesterday
Good luck with Russian language 🍀
Удачи!
Ни пуха ни пера!
wonderful video! I'm a Russian native and one thing that was always unclear for me is why my friends (russians too) who are learning English are always complaning about its difficulty? I never considered English as a hard language! Once you understand how a sentence is built everything becomes very easy and learning starts to bring you fun! That's what I love most about English and if you're learning Russian I really wanna wish you good luck and honestly I admire those foreigners who learn my mother tongue❤
Every single language is extremely hard. English is not an exception. The only difference is that the basic level of English or Spanish is far easier to grasp compared to Chinese or Russian. A deep and profound knowledge, however, requires a lot of effort to put in studying (or at least living in a country where English is widespread)
They're dumb idiots Saying this as Russian
Английский не сложный, он просто.. другой. Незнакомый и далеко не всегда похожий на родной язык. Но как было сказано в видео: незнакомый - не значит сложный. /// English is not hard, it's just.. different. Unfamiliar and not always being similar to your native language. But as it was said in the video - unfamiliar doesn't mean hard
For many people, English is easier to learn because it is so ubiquitous. It is simply everywhere, and English-language content (TV and movies) are well-known around the globe. Russian content has not achieved that same global cultural penetration, so it is a very strange beast to all us westerners
@@pozloadescobar True enough, but English is also much easier in an absolute sense.
Love this!
Очень милое видео, большое спасибо!
Olly, your "X" sounded more like "Қ" in Kazakh, whereas Russian X is like Ch in Loch Ness
Loch Ness sounds like Lok ness. Hospital , health, house ect.
@@olgay.d279 In English it sounds like k, but in Scots it's like Russian X. Russian [X] is too heavy for hospital and hotel
@@natalya3134 No way. It is pronounced like Kh, not Ch. Lo(kh) Ness.
@@Vagodroch3rz I didn't mean that it sounds like Russian [Ч], you are right -it sounds like [Kh]-a heavier version of H, which is velar voiceless fricative and is phonetically depicted as [X] (Phonetics and Phonology by M. Davenport). The combination of letters Ch in Scots sounds like Russian [Х]
As a Russian speaker I never understood why everyone transliterates Russian "х" as "kh". A regular English "h" sounds much closer to the Russian "x" to my ears
Olly, I've read War & Peace twice out of my own accord (even though it was a part of the literature curriculum), and I loved it. The footnotes for translations in French though were quite exhausting sometimes, because I'd have to look up & down, up & down throughout the text (this is particularly frequent in the scenes with aristocracy, the ball scenes, etc.), to read the translation, since I don't know French. Also, the nature and war battle descriptions: OMG! They last for a few pages at a time 🤦♀️. It's a great novel, but it can get exhausting reading it (as well as most Russian classics that are worldwide famous and are all part of our secondary school education: your equivalent of middle school through high school). Russian is a very expressive & emotional language. My Russian & Literature teacher (usually it'd be one & the same teacher, teaching 2 subjects), used to tell me that I love commas a bit too much, haha.
Sometimes it seems to be that foreigners read Tolstoy much more than Russians themselves. I certainly am too lazy to read it, unfortunately, so I ignored it at school as most students did.
@@vladislavbalakirev5826 Maybe, I don't know. I loved reading (still do), so it wasn't an issue for me. It was more about the story: if I enjoyed the story, I would read the book with gusto. If not, I'd force myself through even If I'd be unable to understand a lot of the context. Our teacher would usually give us a long list (around 10-15 or more) of the books to read the next year's class, during the summer vacation, but of course, most of us would usually procrastinate and only read it when we absolutely had to 😂.
How many volumes of War and Peace have you read? I am asking, cuz I am russian, and I had it at school program as an obligatory topic, however never read it in fact lol.
@@Vagodroch3rz How many volumes? Well, I've read all of it twice. Some prints have the book published in 4 parts, others in 2. It doesn't matter though. It's still the same book.
I read it twice too, when I was 11 and when I was 17, I need to read it again, I am sure I will discover something new I read in Russian, it's my second language
I think the hardest of languages in the world can be learnt and spoken fluently given that it's being taught effortlessly and so passionately. All we need is very good teacher like yourself Olly :)
The thing you said about being able to express yourself in another language, because your own kinda failed you, that's what I love about English language, I could express myself differently, I even feel that I am a slightly different person when I speak it. I love it. This so empowering. I think that the reason to learn any language you like.
Good that Russian is my native. Hello from Odessa.
I didn’t even start watching the video: THE ANSWER IS YES!!!! 🤣🤣😤😭. I’m still gonna watch your video of course. I’m 3 years into self-studying Russian
Thanks for sticking with it 😅
Молодец! :D
I live in Australia, in Adelaide specifically. I found your books at the bookstore. Bought Italian and once I've finished it, I'll get another one :)
Ahaha same, I got his Brazilian Portuguese book at Dymocks at the Rundle Mall, Also a South Aussie as well
@@kendrickhua2473 Yeah got it from Dymocks at Rundle Mall too. :p Damn small world
I miss Australia! Might go back at Christmas.
I've been teaching Russian for three years now, and now I really understand how difficult it's , and my friends who have no idea about russian grammar were trying to prove me that English is hard up untill the moment when I asked them to explain the difference between идти ,ходить, ехать и ездить. So nobody could tell anything about the difference😂 Then I started to explain it, so they ended up in a state of shock that in English it's just simple GO😂
But why? If you think that идти it’s just present continuous and ходить present simple, and шёл is past continuous, пришёл is present (or past) perfect- you can find simple explanation
@@GrGrb100 дай пять машка
I see your point, but I think in English we don't just say go. We can say to drive in a car, or to ride on a train. You can take a seat in a bus, or ride on the bus. But you cannot ride on a car, and it gets quickly complicated, doesn't it. I don't know. I could afford someone thinking I travelled on foot, when I actually took a vehicle, but we never get that far. All I get is I didn't understand a word you said, and it's just random noise,
@@d4qatoa that was for people who speak some Russian, if you didn't understand a word , no wonder
Спасибо, всё по-делу сказал! И, как ни прискорбно, в очень нужное время!
Another one of the main points about the Russian language that absolutely must be mentioned is the extensive use of various suffixes and especially prefixes. While the former may change the flavour of the meaning (e.g. add a 'pet' or 'giant' meaning etc. - дом/домик/домище), the latter do change the meaning drastically, sometimes 180 degrees from one to another (шёл/вошёл/ушёл).
But in English they use prepositions instead : came out , came in , came by , came through
Great video as always. Your mom must be proud of how you keep your room super tidy. Imagine being a native Polish speaker trying to learn Russian. Common Slavic vocabulary, similar principles as far as grammar goes but it's so easy to make a mistake. You use the same word but put the accent like you would in Polish and Russians have problems understanding you. Sometimes you just use a Polish word pronouncing the way you think a Russian would and you don't even realize that the word doesn't exist in Russian. Being Slavic give me a certain advantage but also plays tricks with my mind when learning Russian.
Why would a polish guy learn russian? I know both languages and they are very similar actually.
@@aleksandra8579 For the same reason why we would learn Korean or Mandarin, there is a big chunk of culture behind any language. And for me it helps to learn a lot about the Polish language too - it's like you are not selfaware until you start learning other language from the same family. They are similar and this is a problem - because for me Polish always comes first, maybe if I didn't live in Poland but in a country in witch I would need to use Russian 24 / 7 it would be easier? As a Pole learning Russian, I agree with Opinion Pole. It takes me 5 times more to learn a new verb in Russian, than learning in any other non-Slavic language because of all prefixes. The stem is often the same, but when the verb with prefix apears it's not. Polish has 15 verbal prefixes (and some are very rarely used like u- or wz-), Russian has a lot more; not to mention they use 'się' for a new meaning a lot more than we. Comp. the most basic and the easiest verb (because prefixes are the most obvious use of prepositions) 'to go': Polish - en.wiktionary.org/wiki/i%C5%9B%C4%87 and Russian - en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%82%D0%B8#Russian We would understand what приходить/прийти mean 'przy' [near] + 'iść' [to go on foot] = [to come on foot], but we would never understand without just accepting the word how they came up with the form with 'się' here: приходиться/прийтись and what it even should mean. In Polish you can use 'się' for: - the structure a'la the pseudo passive voice: 'Nie przychodzi się po północy' [People shouldn't come after midnight.] - in the structures like 'dać się' + verb (e.g. 'dać się zajść' [to allow smb to came from behind], 'dać się podejść' [to let smb get close, to be fooled]) - with the prefix na- and imperfective verb to state that we are satisfied with activity or don't have more strengtht for it, so 'nachodzić się' [to do a lot of walking until...] (and obviously 'naiść się' doesn't exist ;) ). The Russian находиться doesn't exist in Polish. - with the prefix prze- and imperfective verb to state: [to go for (e.g. a ride, a walk)] From all verbs build from chodzić/iść + się we have only: - 'obchodzić się z' [to handle smb/smth'] || 'obejść się bez' [to live without - no need for] -- Russians use обходиться also for other structures - 'rozchodzić się' -- 'rozejść się' is used mostly like разойтись, 'rozchodzić' works exactly the same like расходить - 'schodzić się' [to come together; to converge; to get back together as a couple after the break up] -- Russians use сходиться also for other structures I'm never sure if I've learned a new word or just russified the Polish word (it happens when I hear/see a new word and just don't think what that word really means, because my brain just wants to know what the author "wanted" to say) - so it takes a lot of searching of that word in some contexts to find what the verb really means (and unlearning is time consuming). Not to mention if you want to learn a new form of the Polish word you just can open Wikipedia or any online page and read any text (I'm not saying that Polish sound alternations are easier only that you see it right away). When you want to learn Russian you also need to open Wiktionary to look how the stress pattern works. The plus of Russian is that it has a lot more online materials than e.g. Serbian, Slovak or Bulgarian. There are also a lot of videos for Russian speakers that want to learn Polish (so I watch them to learn new vocabulary in context that some young people that lived in Poland already translated for me - so I can learn living Russian translations and not bookish bulshit ;) ) EDIT: 16 verbal prefixes: I forgot about PO-
@@aleksandra8579 I can speak Russian and I can understand it. I just want to learn it much, much better. You know how easy it is for us to understand and communicate in simple Russias after we learn the basics. I come across many Russian speakers at work. I like surprising them.
@@wordmap8247 Someone enters the vid they don't need just to express an opinion no one asked for.
@@wordmap8247 yep it’s absolutely normal to spam comments under a video that you aren’t interested in lol.
I'm a native russian speaker and wow it's so interesting to watch these videos. Few notes about the multiple ways of saying 'to go'. Идти and ходить it's not entirely about 'to go/to go and come back'. Ходить in general means ABILITY to walk, like children learning to walk (ребёнок учится ходить, but not идти). And идти also means 'to go somewhere on PURPOSE'. That's true, we have a hundred ways to express all this walking stuff with tiny nuances in every case :)
Thank you Olly! I studied in the Uk. Loved it! Great time of my life
Dedicated to Olly and all my teachers. Only great people I've ever met in my life Have been able to lead me the way I should go. Only thanks to them my life is running so rife. And no matter we think we reap just what they sow.
I didn't know that we had such a difficult grammar point as verbs of motion. We just speak the language and know how to say it right. By the way, my second language - Latvian - that belongs to Baltic languages has the same way to express verb to go: идти - iet, ходить - staigāt, ехать - braukt... 🙂 Very interesting facts, thanks.
Baltic and Slavic languages are particularly conservative in their morphology all the way to Proto-Indo-European, their grammar today shares similarities with classical languages such as Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit
Больше спасибо!
Wow, it's really interesting to look at your native language from the perspective of outsider. Thank you!
I've been learning for over a year now. I'm loving it. Russian is hard, and I've got a long way to go, but you just have to keep your focus on your first few steps at all times. До свидания друзья!
You are good. But there is need to say друзЬЯ instead of друзЕЙ. You said «Till the friends meeting" but i'm sure that you want to say "Farewell my friends!". Endings are really rulez in russian, just Olly said
@@user-fh4le1pn8o Спасибо! I still have such a long way to go, but I'm gettin there!
@@Handle4511 гуд лак энд бест вишес! 🤘🔥🔥🔥 Как говорится 😉
@@user-fh4le1pn8o файналли сам рашин дат из изи ту эндерстанд! молодец
Thank you very much for a new perspective. I'm studying to be a teacher of Russian as a foreign language and it helps a lot to understand deeper common problems and struggles of people who decided to learn it
For me, verb “to go” is also about tenses. “Ехать” - temporary action, “ездить” - action, that is regularly repeated (present simple). Examples: «Он поехал в магазин» - He’s gone to shop (now he isn’t here, but he’ll be back). «Он ездит на работу» - he goes to job (like every day). “Он едет на работу» - He is going to work (right now, at the moment)
the motion verbs probably are an advanced topic for many languages. I believe the difference is in something else: verbs "ехать" (to ride/to drive), "идти" (to go) are related to intention rather then process and contrary verbs "ездить" (also to ride/to drive), "ходить" (to walk) are related to a process, they have no meaning related to intention in the English: to go -- about intention, while to walk -- rather about the process in the English the verb "to get" is often used to express such a meaning, which have no an equivalent in the Russian In the English the verb "to go" serves also as a kind of modal verb for future tenses (the same in the French). Funny, in the Russian any motion word can be used for that, literally ANY, but the "идти" is preferred very interesting linguistic part
So interesting and much fun!!! Huge fan here!!!
Thank you, Olly! I've really enjoyed this video ❤😊
Спасибо за видео, пойду учить свой язык!)
Вы молодец! 👍
I am a native russian native speaker and I get pleasure listening about my language with your wonderful English pronunciation ❤️ Thanks!
Not only the nouns have gender and cases, so do the adjectives. Also, adjectives also have plural and singular. The difficulty of the word order or lack there of cannot be overstated for native English speakers. English grammar is but a simple Pop song, Slavic grammar is Betthoven’s 5th symphony.
YUP! And then remnants of Dual forms show up in places that seem utterly random to English speakers. But word order grammar. I use English pronouns and simple sentences: Ex. the English sentence "I saw her". You can put those words in any order in English and there's still only ONE possible meaning, right? All my students say "Yes." I follow up with "THAT applies to every noun in Russian, Polish, etc. Therefore you can put 'knigu' anywhere in a sentence in Russian and it'll always be the direct object, right? Then my students get it.
@@ak5659 and it takes full immersion to get it to the subconscious. I know or know of thousands of native Slavic speakers who have near native fluency in English and yet have never left their native Slavic speaking country. I have never met or know of a native English speaker who learned Slavic as an adult (no Slavic parents or is already a polyglot) and speaks it near native fluency. They exist but they are mostly unicorns. Nouns cases is a concept that is not hard to understand but extremely difficult to put in practice. A disciplined word order without cases is not so difficult. It just like computer code, very logical.
What if I tell you the verbs in Russian have single and plural forms as well yet the past tense have gender?
@@3axapvlad also they have aspect: perfective and imperfective. I do know that the Polish language has over 75 separate conjugations for each verb pair (perfective/imperfective) for gender, past, future, conditional and imperative. Unfortunately, there is not a single conjugation pattern that applies to all verbs. I believe there at least 4 and maybe more. English only has 4 conjugations for each verb, no gender or aspect. Could it be even simpler?
@@ak5659 as it was told in the video, Russian language is emotional. Grammatically there are no word order requirements and any order could be correct. But if someone wants to express the correct emotion then he should choose the correct word order. For example if you want to say that you love someone you can just say я тебя люблю. But this is a neutral form used just to deliver information. If you're saying я люблю тебя then you give an accent on word тебя telling your partner plays a particular role in your life. If you're saying тебя я люблю then you want to express the idea your partner is the only one for you. If you're saying тебя люблю я then you give an accent on word я meaning you're not so ordinary as many others. Each form is grammatically correct but each one express slightly difficult meaning.
I found the book Russian Alphabet in 33 Moves by Olga Nather really helpful to learn the Cyrillic letters. I still struggle with ы though! Glad you pointed that out 😅
Me, too. That letter is kind of difficult.
One of the best way to get familiar with the letter Ы I've picked from one of such videos is to imagine you're being punched in the gut. I still remember one of the jokes in the comments: "Russian people love fist-fighting so much they incorporated it into their language"
@@ziziorens348 haha! That's awesome! Or should I say ы-ы-ы!
BTW English has its version of Ы. The word "English" itself contains a sound similar to Ы (И-ngl-Ы-sh) but it's so short and quiet so English speakers don't notice all the Ы-ity of it. So sometimes И being unconsciously replaced by English I sounds more like Ы than that Ы that was put a lot of effort into.
Move your lower jaw so that your lower teeth are in front of your upper teeth and say "e".
Молодец!!! Отлично объяснил :) браво!
Russian is quite a complex language at many aspects but what makes it stand out and tougher and more complex than many languages is that it relies on word stress and russian has HIGHLY IRREGULAR STRESS and they're unexpectable on every word even though it has some patterns, and the word stresses can even MOVE back and forth on syllables among declensions and conjugations, which is tiring and takes long time to master.
yeah. tbh, i think it's almost impossible and even impractical to try to LEARN all the forms and stresses. much better to try to feel them (by listening a metric fuckton of content)
English also has an unpredictable stress. But in Russian it’s even more difficult.
Great video, Olly! I bought your Russian beginner's story book a while ago - an invaluable resource!
I have been learning Russia for 3 years and planning to do B1 next year. The grammar is hard but I do find it an enjoyable language to learn!
Удачи!
Удачи!!!
One element of verbs that makes Russian difficult is mastering aspect. Verbs can be imperfective (an act that isn't/wasn't/won't be complete when spoken of), versus perfective (an act that is or will be complete when spoken of). And some common verbs lack one or the other, which makes things interesting. And because aspect is NOT a tense, it means that Russian "verbal ideas" can have (at least) two past tenses depending on whether the verb is imperfective or perfective in form.
I'm interested in languages in general. I don't learn Russian in particular, I just want to learn about the language itself. This video is exactly what I needed and it would be the one to refer to whenever I need to refresh my knowledge. Thank you sincerely.
Привет, я из России, ищу американцев для общения. Могу помогать с русским и отвечать на ваши вопросы 😊✨ всем удачи в изучении нашего, довольно сложного языка
Great post! I’ll check out your materials. I’m at the intermediate level and the tent aren’t many good sources. Most stories have overwhelming vocabulary, which bogs me down too much…
I really love the Russian language and culture but it's so insanely difficult that I get discouraged a lot
У тебя всё получится!
Желаю удачи)))
Do not give up! You'll succeed! )
Russian is most difficult at the beginning because there is a high amount of complexity informing all but the absolute simplest statements. So before you can do anything you first have to absorb a lot of knowledge. However the good part of this is the rules in Russian or extremely consistent and once you have learn how to use the various pieces it becomes much easier and all you have to do after that is just keep polishing your syntax and adding vocabulary. So it’s a very difficult beginning but once you make it to intermediate it gets a lot easier.
выучите алфавит, далее выучите рода, потом падежи. с этого будет просто начать
Wow, I'm surprised to come across such an insightful video about Russian by a foreigner! 🥰
Спасибо за видео.
I always liked to learn new languages, it gives me a better understanding of the people that are using it. I'm learning Japanese now and I find some things (like kanji) frightening, but the feeling of understanding it, solving this mystery bit by bit is always pushing me forward. Yet, it's also quite interesting to see people teaching your native language to foreigners, since you can notice some nuances that you've never noticed before. I like to see people learn Russian and I've got respect for their courage and interest in different cultures.
i am learning Russian on Duolingo. i really like how much faster you can say some things. and i recognize way more than i expected from German, Dutch and English.
Stop learning russian! You just wasting your time for language that you'll never use in your life!
In case you do not know: Desktop version of Duolingo requires typing mod for every(or almost every) task, which mobile Duolingo does not require. So what I want to say is that learning with writing words by yourself is better for learning words and language in total, rather than just picking already full finished words to make a sentence
@@vladnikolsky1234 ah okay, thanks! In mobile i get typing tasks too when learning german. I think they push them when you've got a lil further.
Beautiful video, man. As a russian i've found some new things about russian especially about it's history. Then i got myself on amusing thought that i'm as a native speaker watching "An Honest Guide for English Speakers" video and it's motivates me to finally learn spanish which i was delaying for a years because of this such inspiring speech at the end. I think it is so charming Also for people who wants to learn russian. Tbh it is really very hard, especially to master it and be as fluent as experienced orators But the basics that is enough to understand most of russian texts is not that hard to learn. Moreover you don't have to remember all of noun cases and conjugations to be understood by a native russian
Ребята, только помните, что у нас гибкий язык. Он не только для передачи информации, но и для выражения чувств. Мы можем произнести одно и то же матерное слово, чтобы в одном случае восхититься чем-то, в другом выразить всю глубину нашего разочарования или глубину задницы, в которой мы оказались. Здесь очень важны интонация и контекст. В предложениях слова могут меняться местами, но смысл не обязательно будет меняться - может меняться только передаваемая эмоция. Если кратко и образно: русский - это больше язык сердца, чувств. Я пишу это в надежде, что будет меньше недопонимания в нашем общении.
Это в любом языке есть. Если уж на то пошло в английском почти каждое слово имеет кучу абсолютно разных обозначений. Которая так же меняется от контекста или интонации. Хватит уже выёбываться своей исключительностью.