I'm so lucky that I already spoke Bosnian/Croatian in the home with my Bosnian immigrant mother because it made learning other Slavic languages smooth for me!
Russian isn't only a language of Russia and isn't limited to only Russian culture. It's a global language, like English, French or Spanish. It's spoken in many post-Soviet states like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova or Estonia. Therefore you don't even have to go to Russia and wait for some regime change to find Russian speaking people.
Hahaha. It's a regional language, not a global one. You can SEE it mainly on the internacional reach of soft power (music, series etc). English, spanish cultural products are global. Russians are not clearly
I tries to learn Japanese and i took 1 test hour by an teacher and i stopped to leatn japanese. 1. Japanese language Partners are interests only in manga and anime. 2. Outside of Japan, few people speaks Japanene and Japanese people only want to communicate English with foreigners. 3. Too complicated writing System. 4. Totaly diffrent grammar from my native (German) language. 5. Btw. The hole Languafe its so diffrent from German. I decided too focused more on Russian because 1. Easier writing System as Japanese (and even Greek). 2.Quite similar grammar structure as German. 3. I consume over 10 years of Russian Media (UA-cam Music etc.). And my favorite Singer is Russian. And last but not least. I have more motivation to learn Russian instead Japanese.
If so I think you should just join different language learning groups, for example those with more Native Russian speakers than those with foreigners. These spaces would be much less sеxualised
I decided not to study Turkish because of the grammar and hiw unmotivated I was at the time. I want to pick it up eventually. Send me the goid bibes for Russian tho!! Im going to need them!!
My main motivation for studying languages is that I want to experience grammars radically different from that of English. Therefore, the more difficult a language is, the more enticing it is to me.
You're adorable. I gave up on learning Hebrew. I took 4 college classes before moving to Israel, I took 4 ulpanim in Israel, and I livedin Israel for 5 years. I can't hold even a simple conversation in Hebrew. I blame the lack of vowels. They don't write vowels even in books made for language learners, so there are no texts for beginners to read, so there is no way to practice the language. I found Russian much easier by comparison. (Though I haven't studied Russian since 2011 and don't remember a thing.) In the past, I also gave up on Italian and ASL. Italian isn't a hard language, but it's too similar to Spanish and I just muddled them together and had to stop. ASL... I think that part of my brain is missing. Meanwhile, my Greek is coming along, slowly.
Russian is related to the Romance and Germanic languages--just more distantly. (The same can be said for Greek, and a lot of other languages too.) I too started my foreign language journey by studying Romance and Germanic languages. Greek was the first I studied that fell outside those two groups. And like the presenter says of Russian in his experience, I was finding it more difficult to memorize Greek vocabulary because it was further removed from English than are the vocabularies of Romance and Germanic languages. I made an offhand comment about this when I was in Greek class once, and do you know what the reaction was? I got called a racist!
jetzt auf Deutsch , schön dich wiederzusehen, Wilkommen zurück... Ich bin der Meinung, es ist schade, dass du kein mehr Russisch lernst aber ich trotzdem deine Gründe. Mann kann alle Sprache auf der Welt nicht lernen. Das ist unmöglich.. Manch Sprachen sind auch schwer. Die Grammatik im russischen ist verrückt und verwirrend. Russisch ist trotzdem eine schöne Sprache.
Oh well can happen to anyone i reckon. I wish I hadn't given up on my German. As for the titular language, i happen to speak it, and i became fluent in Russian relatively quickly but it was only because I already spoke polish so the complex Russian grammar with all the different word endings etc didn't put me off. On the contrary I found it quite easy and logical almost like a formula. However I do realise that not everyone can relate to it. Currently I am mastering my spanish and its speakers have always been my no1 driving force.
That's awesome! I imagine that Polish and Russian are somewhat similar. Is that true? But I won't lie: since making this video, Russian has been quietly calling me back. I'm not quite ready to dive back in, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully let go 😆
For the longest time I've wanted to be fluent in Russian for its literature, and the fact that it is an essential language to know when dealing with Central Asian history and culture. But then I actually got to it and sadly discovered that these things were not enough to motivate me and I found learning Russian to be so tedious. Still, I kept on giving it a chance and returned many times and still didn't have a great time.
I first found your channel via your Afrikaans videos a few years ago and you were one of those people who made it seem that it is in fact possible to learn it even though the learning materials are scarce. I took upon it and have been enjoying it ever since. Dankie. As a Russian woman, I've experienced the sexualized part of language exchange a LOT. Though I believe it is true for every language out there and those websites and apps that label themselves as language exchange and end up being a hangout for pervs. I wonder what makes your experience with Russian different from other languages in this matter. Glad you hold no grudges towards the Russian language though xD I know I did, for Japanese, when I quit it after 10 years of studying, because I went to uni for it and a passionate hobby turned into exams and scolding teachers. I am past that now and able to enjoy content about Japan again, but it took me few years
Russian is so wide spread its a language i can't ignore it there is a lot you can do with it that you can't in most languages. and about the $éxùal problem it seems to be a lot easier to get a girlfriend in another country no matter what your country of origin is so if you are desperate you can try to find someone in another country but it is ofcourse quite bad when you meet the pick up artists and people who have no respect.
You can quickly learn the Russian language or any other complicated language. First of all, you need to learn vocabulary and only vocabulary at the beginning. You can use audio-visual dictionaries before jumping on to learn any language. Learn 5000-10,000 words in Russian or in any other language you learn. In the language learning community, I have found that most people are using old and outdated approaches such as reading, writing, and learning grammar. Instead, you can find audio-visual dictionaries and drilling audio courses with pdf files in your target language along with translations and last but not least you can acquire languages from UA-cam by using subtitles. In this way, you will learn any within a month. If you can spend at least 6-7 hours a day.
1. Well you're right about sexualization of learning Russian. When I use Tandem - language learning app I stumbled upon many girls who were openly trying to find a lover there, and also many Turkish and Westerners who were trying to find a Russian Girl pretending to learn Russian. 2. I had that luck that my native language is not just much more similar to Russian then to English but also use Cyrillic alphabet so that everything was very familiar. Despite that, I'm still much better in English since I use almost it ever day. 3. I'm no longer learning Russian too. But I do watch some video, read some article or do a couple of duolingo lessons from time to time, that's enough.
huh I amRussian and I always thought I wouldn't be able to learn it if I didn't already know it. Same reason as why I am currently lost with Finnish - cases, endings etc. I am swimming somewhere in the middle of Finnish like in the ocean 🤣
Welcome back Michael, I also was very disappointed with finding language exchange partners in Chinese until I decided to quit exchanging for English and would exchange only for my native language, Portuguese. This helped me a lot to cut through all the scammers and desperate college students having to do a english test in a week... and I finally started finding people really interested into forming friendships and serious about learning a language.
I decided to quit learning Portuguese a year ago because it's too similar to my native language Spanish. There are some aspects of the language itself I didn't like and the fact that I wanted to learn Italian but I wasn't dedicating so much time to actually learn it properly. I was focused on French, English and Portuguese I wasn't feeling like keeping learning Italian. I can still speak and understand Portuguese and I know if I start studying again, I'll have the same level of fluency I used to have very quickly. Glad you're back making videos.
the language partner issue is really common with Korean as well, it's common for women on the language exchange apps to say they won't talk to men at all otherwise you get people looking for dates and as for the language just not clicking, I had the same experience with German. I worked on it diligently for 4 months straight and it just didn't work with the way I think or something, I didn't retain any of it. I actually find asian languages easier despite how different they are from English
Welcome back Michael after almost 3 years of absence. I have been eagerly waiting for you. I am a polyglot that is learning Urdu and and continuing to improve my Arabic even though my native language is Sudanese Arabic.
I studied Russian heavily for several years and reached a C1 but even beyond. I stopped in 2016. I love being able to speak Russian and I am still very good in the Russian language. I love the language but I'm burnt out. I actually stopped learning languages all together about 3 years ago.
I also stopped （no no, not quit ） learning language during pandemic. In my case it was Chinese, but I still plan to continue learning, I just need one or two more years. I love the language, but I tried to learn to much in a too short time and I guess I just reached some kind of limit. Never happened to me before. Anyways welcome back.
I'm curious as to what made you start learning at first. I don't think you were very interested in Russian because of you were you would look for reasons to keep learning not reasons to quit. For me this always happens when i try to learn korean. Nothing sticks and in end up stopping everytime
I think I wanted to learn Russian for the challenge. I liked the idea that it was a language that wasn't like any others I had previously studied, and I liked the "prestige" of learning a "hard" language. But you're right: I kept looking for reasons because I didn't have a strong enough motivation to learn. I've learned my lesson for next time!
Great to see you back with a new video Michael all your points in his video is valid in the Russian language is super hard that's why I quit learning it myself just so many words I couldn't pronounce
I also found Russian extremely difficult to learn at the beginning for the same reasons you said (my mother tongue is Portuguese), but after I got used to the language maybe after 1 year studying it, it got so much easier to learn and the rest of the process learning it has been very enjoyable. And I also found many cool language partners.
Hello! I recently quit learning Russian as well. I was in a Russian Flagship at my university. Essentially it's an accelerated program for the first year so the typical first and second years of Russian are compressed into one. Here are some reasons why I decided to quit. Environment: Although the teachers were really supportive, I found that some folks that were attracted to the language (in my program at least) just had odd motivations and reasons. Culture and Entertainment: When it comes to languages, consuming pop culture is usually a really big part in me staying motivated and really enjoying the process of learning since I have something to use it on. I personally couldn't really find anything for me to really dive into, media had different humor than I was used to + most popular recommendations were a bit outdated for me. There was also a bit of an emphasis that you need to be a bit assertive and loud when communicating with folks in Russia, that's really just not something I can do for more than one reason. Grammar: As you mentioned in the video, not being knowledgeable on even the smallest part of the grammar or just not being fully clear of one thing sets you back a ton. It gets extremely difficult to proceed with really anything unless you drill the grammar until you know it 100%. It becomes way too taxing and becomes more of a chore. disclaimer: these are just why I personally had to stop, someone else can have completely different experiences or enjoy some of the things that made it difficult for me and that's okay! everyone is different ❤
I'm so lucky that I already spoke Bosnian/Croatian in the home with my Bosnian immigrant mother because it made learning other Slavic languages smooth for me!
Whoa. Welcome back Michael 🎉
Thank you! It feels good to be back :D
Russian isn't only a language of Russia and isn't limited to only Russian culture. It's a global language, like English, French or Spanish. It's spoken in many post-Soviet states like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova or Estonia. Therefore you don't even have to go to Russia and wait for some regime change to find Russian speaking people.
Hahaha. It's a regional language, not a global one. You can SEE it mainly on the internacional reach of soft power (music, series etc). English, spanish cultural products are global. Russians are not clearly
I tries to learn Japanese and i took 1 test hour by an teacher and i stopped to leatn japanese. 1. Japanese language Partners are interests only in manga and anime. 2. Outside of Japan, few people speaks Japanene and Japanese people only want to communicate English with foreigners. 3. Too complicated writing System. 4. Totaly diffrent grammar from my native (German) language. 5. Btw. The hole Languafe its so diffrent from German.
I decided too focused more on Russian because 1. Easier writing System as Japanese (and even Greek). 2.Quite similar grammar structure as German. 3. I consume over 10 years of Russian Media (UA-cam Music etc.). And my favorite Singer is Russian.
And last but not least. I have more motivation to learn Russian instead Japanese.
Возможно стоит попробовать учить Болгарский или Македонский. Там нет падежей, они легче
If so I think you should just join different language learning groups, for example those with more Native Russian speakers than those with foreigners. These spaces would be much less sеxualised
I'm glad you are still alive 😊🧡
I decided not to study Turkish because of the grammar and hiw unmotivated I was at the time. I want to pick it up eventually. Send me the goid bibes for Russian tho!! Im going to need them!!
Good luck! I hope you have more success than I do.
My main motivation for studying languages is that I want to experience grammars radically different from that of English. Therefore, the more difficult a language is, the more enticing it is to me.
You're adorable.
I gave up on learning Hebrew. I took 4 college classes before moving to Israel, I took 4 ulpanim in Israel, and I livedin Israel for 5 years. I can't hold even a simple conversation in Hebrew. I blame the lack of vowels. They don't write vowels even in books made for language learners, so there are no texts for beginners to read, so there is no way to practice the language. I found Russian much easier by comparison. (Though I haven't studied Russian since 2011 and don't remember a thing.)
In the past, I also gave up on Italian and ASL. Italian isn't a hard language, but it's too similar to Spanish and I just muddled them together and had to stop. ASL... I think that part of my brain is missing.
Meanwhile, my Greek is coming along, slowly.
Russian is related to the Romance and Germanic languages--just more distantly. (The same can be said for Greek, and a lot of other languages too.) I too started my foreign language journey by studying Romance and Germanic languages. Greek was the first I studied that fell outside those two groups. And like the presenter says of Russian in his experience, I was finding it more difficult to memorize Greek vocabulary because it was further removed from English than are the vocabularies of Romance and Germanic languages. I made an offhand comment about this when I was in Greek class once, and do you know what the reaction was? I got called a racist!
jetzt auf Deutsch , schön dich wiederzusehen, Wilkommen zurück... Ich bin der Meinung, es ist schade, dass du kein mehr Russisch lernst aber ich trotzdem deine Gründe. Mann kann alle Sprache auf der Welt nicht lernen. Das ist unmöglich.. Manch Sprachen sind auch schwer. Die Grammatik im russischen ist verrückt und verwirrend. Russisch ist trotzdem eine schöne Sprache.
Oh well can happen to anyone i reckon. I wish I hadn't given up on my German. As for the titular language, i happen to speak it, and i became fluent in Russian relatively quickly but it was only because I already spoke polish so the complex Russian grammar with all the different word endings etc didn't put me off. On the contrary I found it quite easy and logical almost like a formula. However I do realise that not everyone can relate to it.
Currently I am mastering my spanish and its speakers have always been my no1 driving force.
That's awesome! I imagine that Polish and Russian are somewhat similar. Is that true? But I won't lie: since making this video, Russian has been quietly calling me back. I'm not quite ready to dive back in, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully let go 😆
For the longest time I've wanted to be fluent in Russian for its literature, and the fact that it is an essential language to know when dealing with Central Asian history and culture. But then I actually got to it and sadly discovered that these things were not enough to motivate me and I found learning Russian to be so tedious. Still, I kept on giving it a chance and returned many times and still didn't have a great time.
I first found your channel via your Afrikaans videos a few years ago and you were one of those people who made it seem that it is in fact possible to learn it even though the learning materials are scarce. I took upon it and have been enjoying it ever since. Dankie.
As a Russian woman, I've experienced the sexualized part of language exchange a LOT. Though I believe it is true for every language out there and those websites and apps that label themselves as language exchange and end up being a hangout for pervs. I wonder what makes your experience with Russian different from other languages in this matter. Glad you hold no grudges towards the Russian language though xD I know I did, for Japanese, when I quit it after 10 years of studying, because I went to uni for it and a passionate hobby turned into exams and scolding teachers. I am past that now and able to enjoy content about Japan again, but it took me few years
Russian is so wide spread its a language i can't ignore it there is a lot you can do with it that you can't in most languages. and about the $éxùal problem it seems to be a lot easier to get a girlfriend in another country no matter what your country of origin is so if you are desperate you can try to find someone in another country but it is ofcourse quite bad when you meet the pick up artists and people who have no respect.
You can quickly learn the Russian language or any other complicated language. First of all, you need to learn vocabulary and only vocabulary at the beginning. You can use audio-visual dictionaries before jumping on to learn any language. Learn 5000-10,000 words in Russian or in any other language you learn. In the language learning community, I have found that most people are using old and outdated approaches such as reading, writing, and learning grammar. Instead, you can find audio-visual dictionaries and drilling audio courses with pdf files in your target language along with translations and last but not least you can acquire languages from UA-cam by using subtitles. In this way, you will learn any within a month. If you can spend at least 6-7 hours a day.
By sexualized are you saying they called u a gay?
1. Well you're right about sexualization of learning Russian. When I use Tandem - language learning app I stumbled upon many girls who were openly trying to find a lover there, and also many Turkish and Westerners who were trying to find a Russian Girl pretending to learn Russian.
2. I had that luck that my native language is not just much more similar to Russian then to English but also use Cyrillic alphabet so that everything was very familiar. Despite that, I'm still much better in English since I use almost it ever day.
3. I'm no longer learning Russian too. But I do watch some video, read some article or do a couple of duolingo lessons from time to time, that's enough.
huh I amRussian and I always thought I wouldn't be able to learn it if I didn't already know it. Same reason as why I am currently lost with Finnish - cases, endings etc. I am swimming somewhere in the middle of Finnish like in the ocean 🤣
Good to see you back. I, myself have also come back from a long hiatus of not making videos. Now i'm back
Welcome back Michael, I also was very disappointed with finding language exchange partners in Chinese until I decided to quit exchanging for English and would exchange only for my native language, Portuguese. This helped me a lot to cut through all the scammers and desperate college students having to do a english test in a week... and I finally started finding people really interested into forming friendships and serious about learning a language.
I decided to quit learning Portuguese a year ago because it's too similar to my native language Spanish. There are some aspects of the language itself I didn't like and the fact that I wanted to learn Italian but I wasn't dedicating so much time to actually learn it properly. I was focused on French, English and Portuguese I wasn't feeling like keeping learning Italian. I can still speak and understand Portuguese and I know if I start studying again, I'll have the same level of fluency I used to have very quickly. Glad you're back making videos.
the language partner issue is really common with Korean as well, it's common for women on the language exchange apps to say they won't talk to men at all otherwise you get people looking for dates
and as for the language just not clicking, I had the same experience with German. I worked on it diligently for 4 months straight and it just didn't work with the way I think or something, I didn't retain any of it. I actually find asian languages easier despite how different they are from English
Welcome back Michael after almost 3 years of absence. I have been eagerly waiting for you. I am a polyglot that is learning Urdu and and continuing to improve my Arabic even though my native language is Sudanese Arabic.
Thank you!
I studied Russian heavily for several years and reached a C1 but even beyond. I stopped in 2016. I love being able to speak Russian and I am still very good in the Russian language. I love the language but I'm burnt out. I actually stopped learning languages all together about 3 years ago.
I also stopped （no no, not quit ） learning language during pandemic. In my case it was Chinese, but I still plan to continue learning, I just need one or two more years. I love the language, but I tried to learn to much in a too short time and I guess I just reached some kind of limit. Never happened to me before.
Anyways welcome back.
I'm curious as to what made you start learning at first. I don't think you were very interested in Russian because of you were you would look for reasons to keep learning not reasons to quit.
For me this always happens when i try to learn korean. Nothing sticks and in end up stopping everytime
I think I wanted to learn Russian for the challenge. I liked the idea that it was a language that wasn't like any others I had previously studied, and I liked the "prestige" of learning a "hard" language. But you're right: I kept looking for reasons because I didn't have a strong enough motivation to learn. I've learned my lesson for next time!
jy lyk 'n bietjie soos 'n Italiaanse politikus met die naam Matteo Salvini
Yes, you must always dance, but never sing.
Great to see you back with a new video Michael all your points in his video is valid in the Russian language is super hard that's why I quit learning it myself just so many words I couldn't pronounce
And technically all the Islamic languages are the same so if you learn one you can kind of learned the other
@@williemacon30Islamic?
I also found Russian extremely difficult to learn at the beginning for the same reasons you said (my mother tongue is Portuguese), but after I got used to the language maybe after 1 year studying it, it got so much easier to learn and the rest of the process learning it has been very enjoyable. And I also found many cool language partners.
Glad to see you again 😊
Welcome back!
Same here, I found the Russian boring one of the most less fascinating language of all. Ukraine is way better to learn though.
Ukranian u mean??
Genuinely asking, what made Ukrainian better for you?
@@Caliberskyxx I'm not him but ukranian sounds cool
@@EMPANAO321 are you Ukrainian?
@@Caliberskyxx
I find it more interesting on the vocabulary because it has Polish influence, that is why I find Ukrainian better than Russian.
Hello! I recently quit learning Russian as well. I was in a Russian Flagship at my university. Essentially it's an accelerated program for the first year so the typical first and second years of Russian are compressed into one. Here are some reasons why I decided to quit.
Environment: Although the teachers were really supportive, I found that some folks that were attracted to the language (in my program at least) just had odd motivations and reasons.
Culture and Entertainment: When it comes to languages, consuming pop culture is usually a really big part in me staying motivated and really enjoying the process of learning since I have something to use it on. I personally couldn't really find anything for me to really dive into, media had different humor than I was used to + most popular recommendations were a bit outdated for me. There was also a bit of an emphasis that you need to be a bit assertive and loud when communicating with folks in Russia, that's really just not something I can do for more than one reason.
Grammar: As you mentioned in the video, not being knowledgeable on even the smallest part of the grammar or just not being fully clear of one thing sets you back a ton. It gets extremely difficult to proceed with really anything unless you drill the grammar until you know it 100%. It becomes way too taxing and becomes more of a chore.
disclaimer: these are just why I personally had to stop, someone else can have completely different experiences or enjoy some of the things that made it difficult for me and that's okay! everyone is different ❤