• Gork@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The grammar can be complicated, but with Russian I find the pronunciation can be particularly difficult. There’s a lot of vowel I, e, and y sounds that are subtly different. И, й, э, ы, е all sound kinda similar, with ы not having a direct equivalent in English (it’s like an “eeyeh” pronounced with the frontal palette which is weird because English doesn’t have a lot of frontal letters).

      The consonant clusters are also tough because there’s so many of them and connecting vowels are absent. A classic example of this is Здравствуйте (Zdrasvuitse) with the Zdr pronounced with a rolling r as well.

      I’m sure if I’m trying to say things I’ve got a heavy gringo accent.

    • margaritox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      But it’s also simpler in many ways. For example, it doesn’t use the verb “to be”. So, for example, instead of saying “I’m a boy”, you would say “I boy”.

      • o0joshua0o@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes, that one aspect of the language is simpler, but the six grammatical cases, three genders, two aspects, and unpredictable stress make up for it.

        • margaritox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          My boyfriend is very good at picking up languages, so he’s been pretty good at picking up Russian too. But yea, he mentioned the unpredictable stress thing being a removed and that’s something I never noticed.