- NEW!
While the Cyrillic characters of the Russian alphabet may seem daunting for speakers of English and Western European languages to learn, Russian has been determined to be somewhat easier for them to tackle than Chinese. Sites such as Learning Russian.net and How to Learn Any Language concur that the Russian alphabet's Cyrillic characters can be learned within a week, while Chinese characters may take years of study before a language student feels familiar enough with most of the characters. Many letters of the Russian alphabet are written and articulated in virtually the same way as are those in English. Also, certain words in Russian, such as "kosmos" and "komputer," are strikingly similar to their English counterparts. A poll run by the website LexoPhiles shows both Chinese and Russian in a list of the top 10 most difficult languages to learn. Although Chinese is ranked more challenging to learn than Russian, more people in the world speak Mandarin Chinese than any other language. Learning to speak Chinese can be more useful considering the sheer numbers of people who speak it, but speakers of English may have an easier time learning Russian. Both Russian and Chinese are included in the United Nation's list of five official languages. Both have large numbers of speakers and are ranked as important world languages. LexoPhiles: Top List of the Hardest Languages to Learn LearningRussian: Introduction to the Russian Language How to Learn Any Language: What Is the Easy Part of Learning the Russian Language?On One Hand: Russian Words and Letters May Seem Familiar
On the Other: Both Are Difficult Languages
Bottom Line
Source:
More Information:
by DarkShadowX Off AB for a while on March 4th, 2010
i know some russian and it wasn't to hard to learn
by StyxMan on February 26th, 2010
Took me two weeks to master the Cyrillic script......as half of it is derived from Greek and anyone who has done maths will tell you Greek letters pop up all the time. On the other hand, Russian grammar is hard to get your head around. But yeah, linguistically speaking, there are "familiar friends" in Russian words....."sport=sport", "garazh=garage", and "karandash=pencil" (karandash is a Russianisation of "Caran-Dache", the French brand of pencil). Just as it is hard for an English speaker to get their head around a Slavic language, Slavic speakers have great difficulty with English grammar. I sometimes hear Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Serbs etc who when speaking broken English will say "Here's house" instead of "here is A house" or "here is THE house"......there is no definite article in Slavic languages, unlike Germanic or Romance (Latin) ones.
How many words are in the russian language?
by Answerbag Staff on February 16th, 2010
| 1 person likes this
Is the Russian language easier to learn than Chinese?
by Answerbag Staff on January 24th, 2010
| 1 person likes this
What is the latin name for Буравица possibly transliterated Booravitsa? It is a kind of apple variety?
by kiarrith on December 15th, 2010
| 1 person likes this
Seeking an online friend who can help me learn the Russian language. Anyone here who can read, write and speak Russian?
by MusicalChef on September 26th, 2009
| 1 person likes this
Russian words, help please?
It sounds like 'zny-yeteh'? what does it mean?
by EvanescencexLover on January 26th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
You're reading Is the Russian language easier to learn than Chinese?
Your favorite Q&A site is on Facebook! Become a fan to connect with the ever-growing community of Answerbaggers, share your thoughts and find out what Answerbag's up to next!
Comments