Question by thevand77: How hard is learning Russian compared to Mandarin Chinese?
Taking Chinese was a little too hard for me and I’m thinking about trying Russian.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Buzz B
Russian is a lot of fun, it has an alphabet like us, just some of the letters are different, kinda like learning a new code…
when writing the m is a t, the c is an s, the p is an r…. but many are the same too.
it’s a cool language to learn… I think you will enjoy it…
Give your answer to this question below!
gomald says
They are both very difficult, for very different reasons. With three genders and umpteen cases, Russian grammar is far more complicated than that of English. A particular problem is aspect (verbs differ radically depending on whether an action is started or completed) and the vocabulary is large and not easy to memorize, even if it is IndoEuropean. Pronunciation too is a challenge–many consonants have 'soft' variants that are difficult to distinguish.
Chinese is harder still, though this is mainly due to the vocabulary burden, which is simply enormous. Because of the tone system, which enables one syllable to carry a wide range of meaning, words tend to sound the same. That makes them both difficult to memorize, and difficult to recognise. As for reading, it takes at least five years of daily reading study before you can get through a newspaper article comfortably. It is much harder than reading, say, Italian.The writing system needs no further comment.
To add one more damper: neither language is actually all that useful. There is no money in either of them right now, and the time taken to master them is out of all proportion to their usefulessness. Strictly for language enthusiasts, I'm afraid.
Chinese will never be a lingua franca, it is way too difficult to pronounce (even the words for thank you need a good deal of practice). Of the two, Chinese is probably more promising, though. Sooner or later the world is going to need to understand a little more of what Chinese journalists and analysts are thinking.
les feuilles mortes says
russians easier …the cyrillic alfabet rox! and plus there's alot of words that are like the same in english 🙂
Just Someone says
Well, I don't know much about Russian, but it looks to be quite difficult. But, unlike Chinese, there are no characters, you stick to the alphabet, only some letters change, and some get added. I've heard that pronunciation for beginners can be difficult, but like any language, you'll get better in time. I'm taking Chinese now, and it is very hard.
Also, try to think what kinds of languages will help you when you get older. Unless you plan on being a business person travelling to Russia and such, Chinese may be more useful to you, since I've read somewhere that Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.
Well, I wish you the best of luck in whatever language you decide to take!
Silvia H says
They have different origin. What hard in chinese are the tones and writing. And about russian, what hard are the grammar and words.
federiofellini says
it is hard too…
I am from Poland, so for me not so hard….
but if someone is not Slavic.. or knows no Slaviclanguges it may be hard…