The Slavic Languages and What Makes Them a FAMILY

[@oyasunachan4225]

Slavic time! : Tea Belarusian : чай (čaj) Bosnian : čaj Bulgarian : чай (chaĭ) Croatian : čaj Czech:čaj Mcedonian:чај (čaj) Russian:чай (chay) Serbian:чај (čaj) Slovak:čaj Slovenian:čaj Ukrainian : чай (chay) Polish:... Czech:No,NO YOU DON'T Polish: *BREATHES IN* Polish: HERBATA! Rest of family: You rebelious little shit...

[@Robertoslaw.Iksinski]

But "kettle" in Polish means: "czajnik", not: "herbatnik" (biscuit ;)

[@ЮрийМитрофанов-э5р]

Russian: чай (chaĭ)

[@oyasunachan4225]

Юрий Митрофанов Sorry :---:

[@blackraven5389]

Same with 'Włochy; when others have Italy/Italia.

[@wtc5198]

It's Serbo-Croatian, not "Bosnian", "Croatian", "Serbian"

[@mympearl]

I am Japanese and I understand 0% of Russian, 0% of Polish, 0% of Czech, and even less of other Slavic languages

[@vladimirpetrovic9380]

Have some Rakija and you'll understand them all...

[@miraaleksic2077]

Sam(u)raj - allein in paradies

[@mikoajbadzielewski3396]

Nani???

[@teodortodorov1662]

As bulgarian I can understand 0% japanese language!

[@TheRifild]

ikura with bottle of vodka?

[@ukaszbanasiak4787]

I am Polish but spent a week in Moscow. When coming back I heard very weird Russian at the airport. After few seconds I realized that it was actually Polish. In one week I totally oriented my mind to a different melody of language... and forgot my own :)

[@majstter7420]

Ja jestem Słowakiem i powróciłem z pracy studenckiej z Wrocławia. I tak w domu mówiłem, że to je pekné miasto (po słowacku mesto). A wybierając się dzisiaj na wycieczkę, to szukałem zamiast cestovného poriadku "rozklad jazdy." Jeszcze szczęście, że nie zapomniałem użyć słowa hľadať (szukać), bo šukať u nas to ruchać.

[@Alaric596]

@@majstter7420 Забавно,но смысл я понял or Belarusian Пацешна, але сэнс я зразумеў(Paciešna, alie sens ja zrazumieŭ)

[@АрсенийКорчевский]

For me polish accent of russian sounds the most beautifull

[@emilpavlov6656]

amazing story my friend but it only confirms that all slavs are brothers and we should treat each other like that

[@PapaSwall]

Hey man I don’t blame you, Polish still catches me off guard. And I’m not even Polish 😂

[@natanielgarro506]

Understanding different Slavic languages ​​depends directly on the knowledge of one's own language and vocabulary. For example, in Russian there are basic words to describe a thing or phenomenon, but there are also synonymous words that are not used very widely in Russian, but in other Slavic languages, they can be basic. If a person knows Russian or Ukrainian well, knows a lot of synonymous words, then he will have no problems understanding another Slavic language.

[@HeroManNick132]

Bulgarian is the same. It has many synonyms that are nearly the same as Russian but rarely used like instead for "бумага" (we have it as word but we barely use it nowadays) and instead we use "хартия" more often (this word comes from Greek btw) and we have "папирус" which is like "an ancient paper for writing." And so on.

[@anatolyrepin4743]

@@HeroManNick132 In Russian we have both хартия and папирус words as well, but they used only for historical purposes.

[@kapasian9009]

​@@anatolyrepin4743 And in Russian хартия means some official paper from the middle ages. Like the Magna Carta for example.

[@RL89pl]

Im Polish native speaker and with vodka im understanding 100% of every slavic language and vice versa XD

[@Vantus82]

You can't because you have only wódka and not vodka. We alone have true vodka. Actually, the true Russian name for this drink is "chlebnoje wino", and we mistakenly use Polish name for our drink.))))

[@teodortodorov1662]

@@Vantus82 Rakia on the Balkans beat vodka in Eastern Europe

[@oleksii7899]

@@teodortodorov1662 It's from turkish Raki? Turks got you hard bro...

[@teodortodorov1662]

@@oleksii7899 Rakia is the most traditional alcohole drink on the Balkans! Balkans countries drink more rakia than Turkey!

[@rwepnca7424]

@@Vantus82 горілка лучше звучит чем хлебное вино...

[@foggypete1860]

As russian native speaker, I can't understand what our politicians are talking about in russian

[@lechitic3348]

Hahah! Good one!

[@MarcinHRN]

haha the same in polish

[@gogi908]

xaxaxaxaaxaxax

[@daunyoku]

Lmao

[@Li.Siyuan]

Это потому, что они обычно говорят из того отверстия, как правило, охватываемой брюки.

[@krzysztofmarynowski3870]

I'm from Poland and I can communicate with Slovak and Czech without a problem. With Bulgarian and Russian is little more difficult but is not impossible.

[@Great_Fenix]

Просто убираем из польского пшепшепше и получаем примерно украинский)

[@purpleelemental3955]

@@Great_Fenix усё далёка ня так проста

[@smorrow]

I get such mixed messages on this. For instance Darek from Let's Polish claims there's little intelligibility.

[@M.Georgiev8527]

Perhaps you're one of few polish people who has no problem learning other slav languages. I live with different polish people for the last 4 years and none of them understands me when I start speaking Bulgarian. On the other side I had a Polish girlfriend, and for about 4 months I learned around 1000 polish words and I do not include the ones that are similar to their bulgarian equivalents.

[@anng2312]

Czeski i slowacki łatwiej mi zrozumieć, ale ukraiński i rosyjski to jakaś inna historia, niby słowanski ale nie do zrozumienia poza pojedynczymi słowami.

[@projectx5154]

I'm from Serbia and I have the most difficult time understanding west Slavic languages such as Czech, Slovak and Polish although Slovak is the least difficult out of three. Macedonian is really easy to understand both spoken and written and Bulgarian is a bit more difficult than Macedonian. Slovenian is also somewhat understandable and Russian is understandable to me but that's because I studied Russian in school. I wonder if it would be the same if I haven't been learning it. I haven't heard a lot of Belarus and Ukrainian so I can't judge although I assume Belarus is pretty similar to Russian. And of course we understand Croatian perfectly clear, there are only some minor differences in vocabulary and dialects and of course alphabet but Serbia uses both cyrillic and latin so it's not a problem. Love for all my Slavic brothers ❤️

[@issavisisland9870]

SlavoBulgarians🇲🇰 using the Greek name of Macedonia 🇬🇷 for their origin. Macedonians 🇬🇷 we are Greeks speaking the Greek language of Alexander and Macedonians. It was Alexander and Macedonians 🇬🇷 who spread Hellenism and their Greek language and made it the Lingua franca of that time. Greek language of Macedonians 🇬🇷 have nothing to do with the Bulgarian language of fyrBulgarians🇲🇰. Thnx. Greets from Thessalonike 🇬🇷 Macedonia 🇬🇷 Northern Greece

[@hash-CCFF00]

@@issavisisland9870 🤣🤣🤣

[@irenamladenovic8160]

@@issavisisland9870 😂😂😂😂

[@issavisisland9870]

@@irenamladenovic8160 Salute peaceful Irena (your Greek name means peace✌️) ✌️from Alexander's sister city Thessalonike🇬🇷 (which slavs call solun. Why??) Macedonians 🇬🇷 we say Thessalonike SlavoBulgarians 🇲🇰 say solun. Who's the Macedonian and who's pseudomacedonian?✌️

[@issavisisland9870]

@@hash-CCFF00 Ask SlavoBulgarians 🇲🇰 why they call Alexander's sister ThessaloNike as solun

[@абобус777]

I'm Russian.I can understand Belarusian by 95%.Ukrainian by 40%.Polish and Czech by about 8%, Serbian by 40%, Bulgarian by 65%.

[@stardustgachi8191]

The same story, but i managed to learn Ukrainian language and it helped me a lot to learn more about all slavic languages. It feels amazing.

[@Vantus82]

It is illusion. Polish is closer to Russian than Bulgarian. Pronunciation, grammar, even swearing in Polish are similar to Russian.

[@agonv7812]

Can u take the Serbs back please ?

[@elizabethbrower3191]

My dad was Ukrainian American and he could understand Russian and some polish too

[@Vantus82]

@@agonv7812 it is impossible, sir. We can't understand that nation. They have very weird grammar despite the many words that are similar. Fortunately, many Serbs know Russian.

[@demixx4518]

Slavic culture and history is amazing. We have so much to offer and we should put the political differences aside and work together :) I love every single Slavic country, we are all simply great

[@purpleelemental3955]

Work together is also politics

[@LeoTheComm]

I'm an American whose family name comes from my great grandparents that came here from Galicia about 1900. They settled in an area of Detroit where Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians settled so I heard these languages while growing up. About two years ago I began to study the histories of my family who are Poles, Czechs and Slovaks. The conclusion I have come to is we are all the same family, it's those in charge that divided us!

[@haroonmarikar]

i am seeing this in 2022 april . ya grusna

[@rodrigomartinso.s.9902]

Things have changed quite a bit... huh.

[@macedonia3321]

Not We are not slavs. We are Macedonians like Aristotle philosopher And Alexander the great. Slavs destroyed our History . The Slavs are conquerors and enemies of Macedonia. The Slavs Changed the Macedonian names of our cities to Slavic. Gebgel = Astraion Bitola= Heraclea Lyncestis. And many Many other Macedonian names that became Slavic!!!

[@AntonioKowatsch]

I'm a Slovak and can speak/understand Polish and Russian (mostly because two of my best childhood friends were Russian and Polish). I do have my difficulties with Croatian though. While I can understand most of it they have certain words which are completely different.

[@antevukovic3356]

AntonioKowatsch can you understand this : "Ja sam iz Hrvatske."

[@AntonioKowatsch]

Eggyruptor _ Yes, I can :-)

[@antevukovic3356]

AntonioKowatsch Can you send me a sentence on Slovakian?

[@AntonioKowatsch]

Eggyruptor _ Sure: "Som Slovak a som na to hrdý"

[@antevukovic3356]

AntonioKowatsch "I am Slovakian, and I am on a hill" I am not so confident I got it right.

[@wojciechkrotoszynski5459]

Oh man you NEED to do an episode on the Interslavic language ......it's just amazing. You have an experiment where south, west and east Slavs are on a call and a guy tells them what to draw in Interslavic - they all draw the same scene with similar details.

[@MarigoldWendy]

this song is in Interslavic. When I first heard it I had an impression they sing my language but for some reason I do not know all the words kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2HCe5WggdJqqMk

[@noormohammed6186]

You deserve millions of subscribers :)

[@Langfocus]

Thank you! Maybe someday. :)

[@gtrvariedades]

agree, is channel with very culture

[@Henrikko123]

Many channel, such culture

[@seid3366]

He's got a 1M+ now

[@TheSkum]

I am just a French speaker passing through.. I just wanted to know that Slavic languages are so interesting... guys you are awesome. Keep it up

[@johnnyparallax7321]

@Українські фільми і серіали Dumb little prankster from country 404. You have been heard, return to the kennel

[@DownOnTheWestCoastLA]

@Українські фільми і серіали что за бред😭😭😭

[@SrdjanBasaric-w2s]

@Українські фільми і серіали Better golden Horde than Golden Nazi.

[@andjs]

Izvinjavam se u ime slovenske braće 😊 Ovo je familijarno zadirkivanje 😉 Slovenska braćo, ponašajte se pristojno pred gostima 🤗

[@EvelynMedrano-s3q]

True that! ❤️

[@magnetiaPL]

Cześć! I'm from Poland and last year I had the trip to Prague with my friend. We had no problems understanding what we needed from Czech, really. At the train we had a long conversation with some Czech people about multiple topics including history and politics and we were able to talk. Sometimes because of misunderstandings we had to stop and explain to the other side something in other words, but generally we could communicate. We had a lot of fun because Poles think that Czech language sounds funny. Believe me, if you are Polish native, you can't stop laughing when you hear some Czech words! And how did our new Czech friends comment this? They said Polish was funny for them in the same way. And what is more surprising: some people I know who also had been in Prague, had absolutely opposite opinion: Czech is so different from Polish that they understood nothing! I wonder why different people can have so different feelings about that. Me and my friend met during our university studies - we graduated from polish literature and language. Maybe plenty of books read in your life (also some literature written in old Polish from middle ages) makes your vocabulary wider and helps in understanding other Slavic languages? Or our knowledge about Old Church Slavonic help us to understand Czech better?

[@tlamiczka]

There is also possibility that Poles understand Czech better than Czechs Polish. I don't remember how exactly is this paradoxical thing named, but it is also true for the Scandinavian languages (some of them understand better to others than vice versa - it's weird). p.s. Poles love Ivan Mládek, Czechs love Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz :-))

[@mariacastaneda77]

Czesc, Thanks you

[@slouberiee]

As a Czech, I can confirm that Polish language sounds very funny to us.

[@justwondering6932]

I know it might be late and you won't see this comment, but I still have to add to this. I think it really depends on where you live. I live in Silesian region (Czech part) and a lot of Poles understand Czech here. The whole Silesia I dare to say understands each other without any real trouble. But when I traveled to Gdaňsk, Gdynie and basically that region up north, I was completely lost in translation. Poles didn't understand me anymore. If I wouldn't have my GF with me as my quick translator, I would be lost completely :D Ofc I mostly understood them, but they did not understand me.

[@magnetiaPL]

@@justwondering6932 If you come from Silesia, that's obvious that you understand a lot of Czech, because the Silesian is a mixture of Polish, German and Czech, isn't it? But I come from surroundings of Bydgoszcz and now I live in Krakow. I have no idea about dialects, I speak only classical Polish :)

[@Smin-f3h]

I am a Korean and I am currently learning Polish. It is a challenge for me, but I think it is so systematic and beautiful-sounding. I’m looking forward to learning other slavic languages as well

[@tomslastname5560]

Once you get proficient at Polish, I recommend learning Cyrillic, it will open the door to learning a bunch of other slavic languages because you will recognize many words that have the same root as in Polish, just with a slightly different suffix or something like that. You would probably understand at least 30 or 40% of Russian and Ukrainian. And if you can read Polish then you can automatically understand probably 40 or 50% of Czech and Slovak already. I am personally less familiar with the Southern Slavic language family, but if I'm not mistaken they're a bit closer related to Western Slavic than Eastern Slavic.

[@abcd7613]

I love it!! Korean is also a very beautiful language, sounds so melodic ❤️💙🖤🤍❤️

[@sombatromba]

I'm Polish and I'm learning Russian, and I can tell you that they're actually pretty similar (of course except for the alphabet), after a couple of lessons I could already kind of understand her.

[@ethanclark4116]

It

[@liamj7550]

@@ethanclark4116 Sounds pretty normal to me as an Aussie hahaha

[@2garinveselo804]

Не врешь?)

[@mikiradzio2214]

Alphabet? Lol A is А D is Д G is Г J is Й M is М S is С R is Р Y is kinda Ы B is б E is Э H is Х K is К N is Н T is Т U is У Z is З C is ц F is Ф I is И L is Л O is О P is П W is В and there are ja, je, ju, jo, sz, szcz, cz, zh - Я, Е, Ю, Ё, Ш, Щ, Ч, Ж

[@Quirktart]

@@ethanclark4116 within Slavic Grammer words that are gendered are refered to with her and he instead of it when the subject is given. This is a grammatical change, if you spoke Russian and used it in this case it's be grammatically wrong

[@pd209458]

As a Polish I can say: 1. Your ę ą is really good, nearly native. 2. I can understand lots of written Czech and Slovak and have a simple conversation with mutual understanding. 3. I've been learning Russian long time ago so I can understand some and read Cyrillic but for average Pole It's hard to understand spoken Russian - some words, sometimes general idea, but even if some words have common origin their pronunciation often have shifted so much that it's impossible to guess without former study. 4. For most Polish people Ukrainian language sounds just like Russian because of the accent and some "melody" of the speech, but I've heard from both Poles and Ukrainians that the vocabulary is really similar to Polish 5. I've never had much contact with southern Slavic languages. I have a friend who is half Bulgarian and I read his Facebook posts in Bulgarian (I know Russian Cyrillic) but usually I don't understand a word. I suspect he uses lots of slang in his Bulgarian tho.

[@teodortodorov1662]

The Cyrilic my bro was made by Bulgaria! The inventors of Cyrilics are Kiril, Methody and their students Kliment Ohridski, Naum, Angelary and ect. Kiril and Methody was called "the Solun's brothers" Solun was town from The First Bulgarian kingdom. Kliment Ohridski is from Ohrid that was also town by The First Bulgarian kingdom and later became a capital during time of Simeon the Great. Present days Solun finds in Greece and Ohrid finds in Macedonia, but the inventors had slavic names that doesn't make them greek ones!

[@tlamiczka]

Also the speed of speaking is extremely important :-) As a Czech, I can roughly understand Polish if they talk to me slowly like I'm demented. :-D But if they speed up to a normal pace, it changes almost to giberish for me (similar with Serbian/Croatian/Slovenian). Slovak language is clearly understandable for Czechs (it basically sound like softer, nicer Czech but the differences aren't too big).

[@cedmelancon]

I’m French Canadian and these ę and ą sound to me like « in » and « an » in more of a Paris French accent.

[@emilgigov3126]

@@teodortodorov1662 това съвсем не е така. Кирилицата е готова 30 години скед смъртта на константин кирил. Създадена е за да замести глаголицата, която вероятбо е само въведена от кирил и методий. Твхната майка е българка. Но кирилицата е БЪЛГАРИЦА. НЕ Е лошо да сменим името

[@qwerte6948]

​@@teodortodorov1662 Solun has always been greek town...

[@ladygagafairystutorials3466]

I'm Czech. I understand almost all Slavic languages pretty good. For me the easiest one might be Slovakian (I understand like 98%) and than learn Russian, so I can also understand eastern slavic languages. Plus I live very lose to Poland, so I can speak Polish almost fluently.

[@Internationalnonational]

Same here

[@Mumon7]

THAT was my question! I went to Prague a few times, and I swear, Czech and Slovak looked very similar; I'm of Slovak ancestry but I have relative in Prague.

[@ЄвгенійПанасенко-н2к]

Learning Russian doesn't help understand Ukrainian or Belarusian

[@wBacz]

Czesi i Polacy! Przejmujemy ten kanał!

[@proxlavi4444]

Hezky pěkně 😂💪🏻

[@alexbelyaninov724]

I’m Russian-American whose second language is Russian. My American mother and I did a trip to Slovenia last year. While we were at a cafe to get something to eat, our server (a Macedonian) spoke Slovenian to us and didn’t know English. I had an easier time picking up on what he was saying than my mom since I grew up speaking Russian. Although the server and I understood the gist of what we were saying, it wasn’t enough to have a full on conversation in Slovenian and Russian. The biggest plus behind this story though is knowing one Slavic language is very useful for picking up on others. The closest languages I could understand are Ukrainian and Belarusian, although not 100 percent. I heard Bulgarian a few times, and I found I could pick up on it because it’s similar to russian despite being a southern Slavic language. I could understand bits and words of the western Slavic languages and some of the Serbo-Croatian family, but not enough to have a conversation.

[@antivistia3712]

One word that is the same in all our languages: Piwo

[@unnamedguy2191]

+DataLoss_ Well, not quite. In Bulgaria, the word is bira, but pivo is still understood as beer.

[@antivistia3712]

ShhHSHhshSHSHHsh don't need specifics

[@unnamedguy2191]

Won't stop me from telling you.

[@sevtu2]

oko too, i think :)

[@antivistia3712]

***** Yes

[@dingospo310]

Isn't it stupid that we, slavic people comunicate in english? I think we should all learn staroslavenski. Puno pozdrava za slovensku braću i sestre :D

[@mojunez1374]

Pozdrawiam przyjacielu ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@JoJanDiezel]

+dingospo310 Здраво!

[@Robertoslaw.Iksinski]

+dingospo310 Możemy gaworzyć na starosłowiańskim bez problemu :)

[@TheStraightEdger]

This is so close to Russian: Mozhem govorit' na staroslavyanskom bez problem :)

[@Историческифакти]

Denis Yarukhin Можем да говорим без проблем ;) България ;)

[@bostonskiherbaciarz]

One magic word, which make every slavic language understandable and brakes all linguistic barriers- VODKA. Na zdrowie!

[@elizabethbrower3191]

Amen!

[@savourymilkman8147]

Na Zdrovia toveriish! Cheers to Poland for the invention of vodka! God made the lakes and the oceans, but slavs we made the vodka!

[@elizabethbrower3191]

@@savourymilkman8147 Da!

[@viktorsocial]

Бате, ще го бием тоя, сипвай ракийцата!

[@mariomusic3058]

Ja sam Hrvat i radim sa turistima. Sve Slavene se može razumjeti ako govore pomalo. 80% do 90 riječi je razumljivo,možda 10 do 20% jezika treba naučiti.

[@linala9600]

hi! i'm russian and i agree with you. btw, understood your comment without translation ;)

[@gvirupot]

se strinjam

[@jakubgrabec3008]

ja som rozumel 100% toho a ja som czechoslovak

[@szczerbcowarekojesc3313]

Ja też rozumiem każde słowo :D.

[@quick906]

Ja sam Bosanac i ništa te ne razumijem.

[@theromanplaying]

I'm from Belarus. Speak both Belarusian and Russian. I moved to the Czech Republic few years ago. And the amazing thing of our Slavic group is that we can easily learn other Slavic languages. So, after like only 9 months living in CZ I was able to understand everything and speak fluently. Great channel!!

[@ВикторУеплётов]

Был проездом в Белоруссии и ни разу не встретил белоруса говорящего на белоруском языке . Наверное только в какой-нибудь деревне . А в википедии про белорусский язык написано, что носители белоруского языка составляют 10 миллионов человек , то есть население самой Белоруссии , а на деле в Белоруссии днём с огнём не сыщешь белоруса говорящего на своем родном языке .

[@Brzerz]

​@@ВикторУеплётов носитель не значит говорящий. Можно знать язык(быть его носителем) но не разговаривать на нём

[@Quetzalcoatlv3]

I'm native Polish speaker. You have forgot about "butelko". (USE: 'Oh dear bottle' - when you are speaking to the bottle (applies to names)). We have 7 grammatical cases AND (very important) you can count additional 7, because we have different pronunciation for singular and plural verbs. I don't know if you can understand that, but you-English speakers use 2 forms. That is 'bottle' and 'bottles'. Polish people use 14 forms (sometimes some forms are duplicated), of course we use it in real life and everyday speaking. Foreigners usually can't use these forms even 80% correctly (my experience with non-native polish speaking people), but even if they don't they can still be understood by Polish people in 95%.

[@Jack-sy6di]

+Ivan Marosevic That's still just seven cases. Plural isn't a separate case, it's just plural. Most languages with a case system use different endings for plural and singular.

[@kralj_lakihdroga1796]

OK.

[@aliceinwonderland4395]

This is called the vocative case which is considered too minor because well it is lol

[@kosovir]

+Quetzalcoatlv3 But you don't have duality, or do you? :P Slovenian language then has 21 forms, by your criteria. Gotcha :* :*

[@Quetzalcoatlv3]

Well, about difficulty. It's all matter of where are you looking from. Also, there is no such thing as instinct for Slavs. I think that you wanted to say 'native speakers'.

[@hubertbieniek5888]

Being Polish allows me to talk with Czechs and Slovaks (even though those languages are really similar it's easier to communicate with Slovaks) without any bigger troubles. There are some word-traps like droga. In Polish it means 'a road' and in Slovak 'drugs'. Frajer and frajerka in Polish mean 'looser' and in Slovak they mean 'boyfriend/girlfriend'. It's actually easier to communicate in our languages than in English

[@istinavaker718]

We also say droga for drugs and frajer/-ja for boyfriend/girlfriend in Macedonia

[@losikhin]

It's very interesting because in Russian frajer means someone who's never been to jail. This word is widely used among prisoners as a peace of slang.

[@najgauner]

Im of the opinion frajer comes of the gernan freier, meaning a free man, a whorehouse visitor and in someaustrian dialects boyfriend. Clearly for polish it would mean loser as its bordering with germany( and they defined freier as a whorehouse visitor) . Slovakia and the Czechs are bordering with austria therefore definig freier as boyfriend. And russians somehow caught this word from germanic and defined frajer as a man who was free of jail, a free man. You often hear interchanges between slavic and german as these folks lived together for centuries. Ja som Slovak.

[@RisXXX]

In Croatian frajer is cool man. But just in slang. Not in standard language. There is no frajer in stndard Croatian. Droga is drugs. But thos are "false friends". Nothing important.

[@najgauner]

yes actually theres a czech/slovak word coherrent for droga, dráha meaning path. For example theres the train company České Dráhy. The only reason we dont speak it out the same way is a vowel/consonant shift.

[@Helios8170]

As an English speaker, I'm oddly fascinated by how much of a basic vocabulary is shared across the Slavic languages. I'm practicing Russian, but I'm playing a Czech-produced game called "HROT" (which I believe means "pike" or "stick") and being able to read the Latin scripts is so helpful. I noticed that the words for "friend", "work", "honor", "meat", etc. all had very similar pronunciations and spellings. It's also absolutely bonkers watching the Slavs in the Balkans argue about their language differences, just another reason I find the place so, um... interesting.

[@HeroManNick132]

Bulgarian and Macedonian have quite different vocabulary compared to the rest.

[@radovanmoucha2224]

HROT precisely means the tip of something sharp, for example, the tip of a sword, knife, arrow, stake, etc

[@mottom2657]

@@HeroManNick132 You mean syntax.

[@TheStraightEdger]

Zdravstvujte, slavyanskije brat'ja. Privet iz Rusi :)

[@johnrud8999]

+Denis Yarukhin ти з України?

[@TheStraightEdger]

John Rud нет, из России

[@johnrud8999]

??

[@johnrud8999]

Denis Yarukhin ну, то до чого тут Русь? Русь була Київською!

[@TheStraightEdger]

John Rud лол, я вижу ты такой умный) По-твоему, территория современной России не была большей частью территории Руси? А какая Русь кроме Киевской была еще?) Не знаешь о Новгородской, Московской Руси? Других? Великой Руси или Великороссией называли в имперские времена территорию современной России. Не уж то не знал? Ну тогда самое время тебе загуглить и почитать

[@catscats4427]

I'm studying in Bulgaria right now, and learning Bulgarian is interesting while also being difficult. I'm originally Indian and I've noticed surprising similarities between my native language from the Dravidian language family(called malayalam) and Bulgarian.

[@mihjq]

Some time ago, in this thread, an Iranian guy gave us a riddle, I quote: I'm Iranian and I wonder how many persian words in this text you slavic people recognize? "Madar be man iz miz shesh mysh dad".

[@Lechoslaw8546]

Sanskrit is similar to Slavic languages, Polish in particular.

[@kirilltischenko3423]

Becauce our ancesty had with Indo-Iranians Commonwealth in the past called "Scytho-Sarmatia". We have more simular words with Indo-Iranians then with other languages called "indo-european", even more than with Baltic. Also share with Indo-Iranians not only many same worlds, but also some cases of grammar - thet's about numerals, they are same. I leaned a little Avestian. So I think Dravidian languages have some simularities with Slavic, because of Aryan invason and conquest. But the Aryans are from our Eastern European origin. Also to me, billingual Ukranian who speaks both Ukranian and Russian , knows some Polish and laern Serbo-Croatian I can tell all these languges are sumular, but Bulgarian have got many differences from another Slavic languages in grammar. It's hard to understand this language, espeseally aurally.

[@Lechoslaw8546]

Do you know of Ignacy Pietraszewki who translated "Zend Avesta" into Polish and French in 1858's. He considered Avestian, which is old Persian simply a proto-Polish language ?---pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_Pietraszewski

[@kirilltischenko3423]

No, I don't heard about this scienetist. Thank you for information.

[@libertefraternite9542]

I'm Serb and I can perfectly understand Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin (this exists??!) languages (=100% written and spoken language). Politics has given (and still giving) them different names, without real reasons. Langfocus, I' ve just realized that you have great videos about languages, thank you!

[@annurissimo1082]

I don't think I have ever heard anyone include Montenegrin as a separate language. But sure, let's make the biggest name of a language in the world. Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin

[@zorandjipanov6492]

@@annurissimo1082 it would be great if we could just call it south Slavic and be done with the whole ordeal… and every nation can have their dialect…

[@angelkostadinov330]

jebo tebi bog ako ne razumes makedoncd

[@TheSGEllie]

Greetings from Bulgaria,neighbour.. 😊

[@Popexssj]

@@zorandjipanov6492 yesss and we could even use their own name for the word "south" to make it more appealing to the natives!

[@acacioluanstocco3488]

Jestem z Brazylii. Uczę się polskiego i bardzo lubię mówić po polsku. :-)

[@przemysawdata6246]

Very good, bardzo dobrze, múy bien (if you understand some spanish), I'm Polish and I'm really glad seeing, that non-Polish people learn and like speak my language that for the majority of the world is the hardest language to learn. Jestem Polakiem i naprawdę się cieszę, widząc jak ludzie nie będący Polakami uczą się mojego języka, który większość świata uznaje za najtrudiejszy do nauki.

[@halinailkiewicz6146]

wspaniałe! skąd zamiłowanie do polskiego?

[@acacioluanstocco3488]

@@halinailkiewicz6146, mieszkam w Kurytybie, miasto z polskimi rodzinami. Chcę jechać do Polski w czerwcu. :-)

[@halinailkiewicz6146]

@@acacioluanstocco3488 wspaniale...najlepszy sposób nauczyć się języka

[@patrick_albert_golinski]

Obrigado 💪🏻

[@Bartas95pl]

As a Pole i can communicate with Czechs and Slovaks pretty well. Additionaly, after short discussion with Russians and Ukrainians i could understand like 60% of what they were talking about. In my opinion, it's easier for us to communicate in our native languages than trying to use english, even if we know it well (accent differences are way to hard to deal with).

[@ip-ub2jj]

Greetings from Bulgaria! Great channel Paul, I found it a couple of hours ago and already watched most videos. As a great language geek myself I am really impressed by the accuracy of the vids. Just one small correction - Cyrillus and Methodius didn't create the Cyrillic script, they developed the Glagolithic one, the Cyrillic developed later but tbh getting too detailed here would have been an overkill so maybe it's good you omitted the details here.

[@Andrivx]

I'm a native Ukrainian speaker living in western Ukraine and I can understand 99.9% of Russian, 95% of Polish and like 85% of Belorussian. Russian is highly understandable in Ukraine due to the Soviet Union legacy and almost all Ukrainians can easily communicate in Russian language. Polish is also very popular on the west of the country especially in the area around Lviv. Actually before WWII western regions were under Austro-Hungarian and Polish control and a big amount of Polish ancestry still lives here. And Belorussian is just intuitive for me. I can't say exactly about other slavic languages because I don't usually communicate with people from such countries but I faced big difficulty in understanding Czech language while I've been there.

[@Ellary_Rosewood]

I hope to see you do a video on Bulgarian soon! I just started learning in and have been finding it so interesting, especially how it's so different from the other Slavic languages. 🇧🇬

[@HeroManNick132]

А македонският не е ли и той различен като знаеш колко тези два езика си приличат? И според повечето чужденци, изглежда че е като руски диалект, но не е българският е създаден преди руския. :) Иначе ти откъде си?

[@Ellary_Rosewood]

@@HeroManNick132 I'm originally from the U.S., but have been living in Tbilisi, Georgia 🇬🇪 for a while. Planning on going to Bulgaria when I am able. ☺️

[@HeroManNick132]

@@Ellary_Rosewood Nice!

[@crosby817]

I'm a Serb. Здраво / Zdravo ! :D

[@TheAmd481]

Здорова (рус.)

[@gurupatikus]

дратути

[@teztteztov184]

Здрасти.

[@aleksandrszytow]

Чао

[@damijedonald6591]

Crosby A isuse

[@mvulkov4057]

The video was perfect, I've never seen more accurate one.

[@Langfocus]

Thank you!

[@illya.ruslanovichshevchenk4106]

No, it was not perfect. There are a lot of mistakes 1) They are not "much closer to each other that languages of another branch because separated late" 2) To divide Slavic language into East, West and South is wrong and the fact that russian is a constructed language was not mentioned 3) Why Bulgarian and Macedonian were mentioned to be similar but Czech and Slovak; Ukrainian and Belarusian were not?

[@АяЯнсен]

I grew up bilingual Russian/Ukrainian, with Russian dad and a Ukrainian mom(which is very common for Kiev, Ukrainian capital). So I can understand about 70% of Polish( 90% of written), 60% of Chez( 80% written, though it's sometimes confusing, since the words, that sound familiar, may not have the same meaning). 90% of Belorussian(100% written). 50% of Bulgarian( 70% written). And if I encountered other Slavic language speakers I would've probably understood them as well. Also, we spoke German and Yiddish in my family( but I can't say I actually speack them well, my German is embarrassing, sorry Oma) since my dad has German ancestry and my mom is a Ukrainian Jew and they are, among to most similar languages I've ever heard. Now, you can say I'm trilingual, since I use English everyday at work and at home and it really helped me to understand the Latin influence on the Slavic language family. I even started to get a hint of Rumanian ( since they had a huge Russian influence durring the USSR era and despite that Rumanian isn't Slavic, some words leaked into everyday life of Romanian and Moldovian people).

[@pwolkowicki]

+Ая Янсен so true! sklep - магази́н (eng.shop) склеп (read: skl(j)ep) - grobowiec (eng.tomb) дива́н - kanapa (eng.coach) dywan - ковёр (eng.carpet) and so on...

[@АяЯнсен]

+Jin you don't know much about Ukrainian, right?

[@АяЯнсен]

***** мені абсолютно не потрібен гугл для того, щоб зрозуміти польський текст, принаймні такий простий, я розумію повністю. Трохи складніші, вже іноді з словником, але загалом це зовсім не складно. В український мові дуже багато слів з польської, особливо на заході України. Польські літери я давно знаю, друзі навчили, та й була я в Кракові та Варшаві не раз. А ось мене, без гугла, ти навряд зрозумієш, якщо звичайно, не володієшь россійською:) Або, ящо я не спробую писати українські слова, латиньскими літерами: chi ne prawda, mij polskiy prijatel?:))

[@АяЯнсен]

+Jin a teper uwaga (I'm going to transcribe Ukrainian words using "polishesized" English letters). Micyazi roku, ukrainskou budut: Sichen, Lutiy, Berezen, Kwiten( sometimes Maj in Eastern regions), Traven, Lipen, Serpen, Werecen, Zhowten, Listopan, Gruden. See the resembles?Ukrainska ze jak Polska, tilki z Rossiyskimi literamy. Not literally of course, I grammar is pritty different, Ukrainian is very rich language in terms of synonyms and some if them may be from Polish, others aren't. Phonetics as well( but surprisingly closer then you might've thought). But strangely, most of my Polish freinds understand if I'm texting them in Ukrainian, using Latin alphabet:)

[@89Sawik]

+Ая Янсен Zgadzam się w 100%. Uczyłem się rosyjskiego, niestety tylko pół roku, ale byłem w stanie naprawdę dużo słów zrozumieć dzięki skojarzeniom. Nasze języki są po prostu dla siebie nawzajem jak takie grobowce dla słów - słowa i zwroty uważane za archaizmy w polszczyźnie, są używane czy to w rosyjskim, czy ukraińskim. Pozdrawiam serdecznie!

[@oliviapetrinidimonforte6640]

Yes! My late husband spoke Croatian, and he could have conversations with Russians, Poles, Slovaks, Ukranians, Slovenians...he claimed the only Slavic language he could not fudge was Czech. He understood it, but could not reply.

[@polskyprodavac3598]

If he could reply to slovaks, then he could to czech. It is more close than russian and belarussian…

[@Michalovce_Soldier34]

Yeah you're right

[@chabr1783]

But czechs understand coratian without problem

[@user-uz6si1ze6l]

@@polskyprodavac3598 it isnt

[@4ndrej]

@@polskyprodavac3598 He could reply to czechs in slovak language and the older ones will understand. Czech youth is not able to understand slovak anymore, they are not exposed to the slovak culture and language enough since the cz/sk split anymore.

[@Skrim666]

Drinking lots of alcohol makes them a family.

[@nightmarepotato120]

true, true... I'm serbian and I can confirm. Водка и ракија!

[@Goldberg1234]

+Skrim666 You western dumbs haven't got good head for drink alcohol. By this muslims fucking your woman now. From Poland-Warsaw.

[@Goldberg1234]

Skrim666 And you?

[@ds2sofs]

+ustanow Learn english ty jebany idioto.

[@Goldberg1234]

shuttze Probably one arab or turk fucked your german ass.

[@viktorbilan2214]

Calling Serbo-Croatian four different languages is a political decision. People of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro can perfectly understand each other, I am a native speaker of Croatian, and I can understand 99% of the other three languages mentioned.

[@blotski]

+Oz Bo It's great to hear a Croatian say that. Well said.

[@viktorbilan2214]

+blotski Yes, our languages used to be only one language till 1990 and bloody wars all over ex Yugoslavia. :(

[@djordjestanojevic8543]

+The taunting french guard You dont need to study them except for sebian cause it uses Cyrillic if we are talking of exp-Yugoslavia. But besides the Cyrilic like 95% is understandable when speaking and writing! I mean I am a native speaker of Serbian and i can write and speak like 95% of Croatian, Montenegrian and Bosnian.

[@FeraRafeEHMAF]

+Oz Bo If they're the same, then American and British English are also the same. There are differences is ortography, example : BH/HR : uradit ću to - S/CG : uradiću to Accentuation is also different for many words. Different phonetics are used for many words. Montenegrin even doesn't have same alphabet as other 3 languages. Morphology is different, BH/HR/CG primarily using "ijekavica", while S uses "ekavica". Some parts of Croatia speak in "ikavica". Some country and city names are different in all four languages. Pronouns are also different BH/S using "šta", while HR uses "što". There are also many differences in syntax, and Croatian have different month names. We can understand each other perfectly, but there are also differences that make up a one own language...

[@kalyanarc4467]

+Fera Rafe If you're that keen on goddamn language division, than there are atleast 5 versions of Serbian, 5 versions of Croatian and 5 versions of Bosnian !! As a guy who speaks central Serbian, I can understand Croatian better than someone who speaks southern Serbian. Same way an American English speaker from Washington can better understand London English speaker than an American English speaker from Texas. I live in Serbia, and they taught us that our language is SERBO-CROATIAN, not Serbian. Thats how it is, and thats how it will be. So your statment invalid. If you're obsessed with politics and 90's wars in Yugoslavia, than go visit another channel, this channel is about language.

[@kate8359]

I love your videos!! I'm Serbian but I live in Italy :) Поздрав из италије

[@locturui]

I'm Russian and I have a friend from Bosnia. We use English to communicate, so we never really tried to see how much we would understand from our respective languages. But one day she came to Russia and naturally she heard a lot of Russian. I also heard quite a bit of Bosnian when she talked to her mom on the phone. We agreed that we could at most understand some words, but the meaning was lost almost completely, so like 10-20% probably is intelligible both ways

[@GuyHeadbanger]

I am German and learned Russian. When I hear people speak Bosnian, is sounds somehow cute to me, I cannot explain why. It is somehow softer and more tender then Russian.

[@АнтонАнтошин-г1й]

​@@GuyHeadbanger learnt*

[@KotrokoranaMavokely]

Use interslavic or slovio to talk with her.

[@anastassiosperakis2869]

It seems the slavic languages are far more similar when WRITTEN than when SPOKEN. (about twice as similar!)

[@Mir_v_takt]

​@@anastassiosperakis2869 agree Я Русский, украинский легко понимаю, но когда кто-то говорит, то наченаю паниковать I am Russian, I understand Ukrainian easily, but when someone speaks, I start to panic I hope translated correctly)

[@mattbunney901]

1. I'm a native English speaker, but in an attempt to connect to my roots I've tried learning Macedonian (my mum is fluent). I've also spent a whole learning German in a classroom context, which probably helped with the learning process. I found Macedonian very easy to pick up. Macedonian grammar is very simple and straight forward, and the lack of case and presence of articles make it easy (as you were saying), so I'd definitely recommend that to people who are looking for a Slavic language to learn but don't want to wade through case endings. 2. This is a little left of field, but recently I read "a Clockwork Orange". The author created an English slang using many Russian words, but I was surprised that from my very limited Macedonian knowledge I could pick a lot of slang up without consulting the index for the definitions. Also watching your Russian video, a lot of the basic vocabulary is recognisable. Love your work Paul, keep it up :)

[@MrKaranus]

Did y o u finally learn Macedonian language? Поздрав од Македонија 😊

[@yukimann2000]

We , Slavs , can unite via internet . Well , and I see that we're going to know more and more one about each other . That's nice , Pozdrawiam .

[@jupiters_rider]

Hello! I'm from Ukraine. I do not understand English very well, so I watched the video with subtitles. I belong to the Eastern Slavs. My native language is Ukrainian, but I can speak and write in Russian as in my region ubiquitous dialect of Russian and Ukrainian, and I also spoke to the Internet in Russian so I taught him a bit of it. I slightly understand the Belarusian language because it is similar to Ukrainian and Russian.

[@mc-not_escher]

My family is from Slovenia, but I’m second-generation American-Irish/Slovenian and am quite fluent in English (father was from the Pennsylvania-Dutch area and mother was from Slovenia). I’m learning Slovenian to bring myself back to my roots. Great video! Najlepša hvala!

[@georgimihov2690]

I’m Bulgarian and can easily read and understand almost everything in Serbian, but when I tried to have a conversation with a cab driver in Belgrade I was really clueless what he was saying. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I think that goes for all Slavic languages - reading them is one thing, understanding spoken language totally different.

[@AUSSIETAIPAN]

I noticed that somw words in Bulgarian and Serbian are written exactly the same, but differently accented so in a sentence when speaking quickly we don't get each other. When you slow down and use synonyms if you see your conversation partner doesn't understand you Serbs and Bulgarians can have a casual concersation.

[@rodelle7499]

I'm Korean, and I love the slavic languages! Currently, I'm learning Russian♥️🇷🇺

[@dmtrv.m]

Bulgarian (Slavic) here! i wanna learn Korean so bad but it’s going to be really hard :( good luck with the Russian tho!

[@rodelle7499]

@@dmtrv.m благодаря Maggie! Good luck to you too! 🇧🇬🇰🇷♥️

[@drewbieber1399]

КНДР или Южная Корея?

[@sergeyshurygin6463]

@@drewbieber1399 ты дурак или да?

[@shahoazizii]

I'm kurdish from Iran... me too :))) I love russian for no reasons!! Maybe because It's familiar with my native language. a small similarity in pronunciation and similarity in some words.

[@alskdjva]

Nice video! There is seventh case of the word "bottle" in Polish, vocative: butelko. Greetings to all, especially the Slavs :)

[@mr.sidious9163]

Śmieszne było by mówić do butelki ;)

[@ZeLeninovoMasoveRizoto]

I'm Czech, and aside from Slovak, which I'm fluent in (outside of a certain group of dialects...), I understand written forms of Polish, upper Sorbian, Slovenian and Rusyn, plus some Croatian dialects, by around 95%+, and I can usually deduce the rest. I have a slightly harder time with lower Sorbian, Kashubian and Silesian, which are maybe 85-90% depending on the context. Ukrainian, Belarusian and the Serbo-Croatian languages I can generally understand 75-80% of, though having to read cyrillic means I am much slower. Russian is complicated, given that I've been exposed to it from a relatively young age (joys of early post-communism entertainment), but outside of that it's about 70% I have not actually seen Macedonian outside of insults, but I can't understand Bulgarian much, spoken or written - though the latter has more to do with me having a problem with even reading their cyrillic rather than not understanding, with the only example I've ever "bothered" to decipher being intelligible at around 50%. As for spoken, it greatly varies on the speaker, dialect and circumstances, but in normal conversation it generally stays about 50% pure understanding and 75% deduction outside of the 90s group (which I can communicate with without much issue, especially as I am generally aware of false friends like szukat), and Bulgarian and presumably Macedonian, which are at about 30% overall, 45-50% when speaking slow enough.

[@nickname325]

Rusyn language is a dialect of Ukrainian!

[@Чода-ч6з]

@@nickname325 Русини живе у Србији тј. Војводини од 17. века, досељени из Закарпатја. Тад нико није знао за термин Украјина, украјински. Зато не једи говна, у лажи су кратке ноге.

[@lollipop171]

Slovaks and Czech can understand each other on about 99,9 %. It is mainly due to many similarities and shared TV channels and a fact that we were one country some 23 years ago. But you can usually communicate with other Slavs speakers pretty well.

[@heimdall1973]

+Vikkis TV, yes... I remember many cartoons from your area I watched in 70s and 80s. Ceskoslovenska televizija Praha and Ceskoslovenska televizija Bratislava. I think the best one was A je to. Really funny! The great thing about it was also that there were no language issues for non-Chech-Slovak (or even non-Slavic). There was no talkong or narrating, the characters' expressions and the background music told everything.

[@dominikadomaczaja5019]

Marianne Houskova So you understand Slovak and you can speak Czech, Norwegian and English? ;)

[@dominikadomaczaja5019]

Marianne Houskova that is amazing! ☺

[@mariannehouskova9774]

+Dominika Domaczaja haha thank you!😊😂

[@dominikadomaczaja5019]

Marianne Houskova :)

[@nikola6619]

I think this two words will be 100% understandable in all Slavic languages: SLAVA RODU !!

[@PLKartofel]

Glory to... the lineage? Race?

[@FacefulJizz]

​@@PLKartofelfamily, clan, live

[@Alien215215]

I am from Slovakia. Recently i read an article about migration of Slavs in middle ages, and there was written that Slovaks are only one from all Slavs that still are on the same territory - in the middle of all Slavs. That is why isthe easiest for us to understand other slavs languages. I can understand 95 or more percent of Czech language (just some scientific words are not known for me), Polish, Serbian, Croatian about 70%, Bulgarian 50% and Russian just about 40%. But I have a russian colleague and we speak in english, but when we dont know word in english we use russian/slovak and we can understand each other without problems. The rest of Slavic languages I dont know yet.

[@claudianowakowski]

I just re watched this video after your recommendation at the end of the Bulgarian video. I found this video very informative. I can see how you have made many improvements over the years. Your content has always been high quality.

[@hermanndusek]

Being a Czech, it is unbelievably easy for me to understand Slovak, since our languages are extremely similar to each other (I heard somewhere it's even more similar than German spoken on the north part of the country compared to the one spoken on the south, but I have no proof for that). Of other Slavic languages it's pretty easy to understand Polish, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian, never actually heard Sorbian or Kashubian being spoken. Other Slavic languages are, well, hellova mess to understand, atleast for me. That's pretty much all I can add to discussion, not gonna bother with percentage since it's totally nonsensical for me. Thanks for the video though, keep it up!

[@MrSoundSeeker]

hermanndusek cheers from Poland :)

[@sywu111]

well, it's pretty funny while Czech and Slovak people try to understand the Polish words: >>> frajer, niewiasta, szukać ;-) . PS. -) frajer = Polish "fool, deceived male"; Czech "boyfriend"; -) niewiasta = Polish "woman (old-fashioned word)"; Czech "prostitute"; -) szukać = Polish "to look for"; Czech "to have sex";

[@hermanndusek]

sy wu Well, for the frajer one, "boyfriend" is only one of meanings, it can be a good loking/behaving male aswell. About niewiasta, there's a little problem, since nevěsta means bride, while nevěstka is, just as you said, ol' word for a prostitute.

[@najgauner]

hermanndusek Its true what you say. 150 years ago a north german could hardly understand a bavarian or an austrian haha. Today its comparable with czech and slovak.

[@snoucajld]

in serbia frajer is a gentelman/a guy who flirts well xd

[@petrobiker]

polish native here. the easiest slav language to understand for me is definetly czech (50% when spoken, about 80% when written). the same for slovak i guess as these tongues are pretty much the same for us. eastern languages are very hard for me. 20-30% when spoken (such russian) but i really need to focus. and still many words i just know from my mom who is a fluent speaker, they do not sound familiar to their polish equivalents. writing is completely illegible as we use different systems, of course. belarussian and ukrainian- the same case, they all sound like russian for us but i can tell them apart. for southern slavic, i really don't know but once listened to serbian documentary i guess, it was pretty understandable.

[@likeyou3317]

+petrobiker languages', bo tongue to też język ale dosłownie. :D

[@petrobiker]

haha wiem ale jest też znaczenie 'tongue' jako mowa albo język.

[@IvanDespoiler]

Seems like everyone has different perceptions. For me Slovak about 60 to 70% while Czech 40 to 50 tops (dont ask me why), while Russian I can agree on

[@medicann_coping]

im slovak and i can confirm that i can understand about 70-90% of what my polish brothers are sayin or typing. i can say for my self that my knowledge of polish is little bit better cos i grew up in high tatras area in north of slovakia. some words have funny diferences like "szukacz-hľadať" or "truskawka-jahoda"... tho other slovaks are really ignorant to other languages. some areas degraded pretty bad, even english is huge trouble for some of slovaks. for czech we understand up to 99% . some people still didnt recognize latest fascist state we living in for past 26 years. the petition for dissolving czechoslovakia never publicly passed. about russian language its pretty much non-understandable when its typed. we dont know azbuka. until 1989 it was mandatory 2nd.language in schools but soon it officialy vanished instantly. same for speaking words , we can recognize like each 10th word, there might have been many familiarities. for south slavic languages its undertandable for me maybe up to 20%. some words are pretty much accurate or the same but i have to focus to guess .

[@IIIIIIIIIIllIIIIIIII]

Tak bratři by si měli rozumět, že? (:

[@adrianelittle3759]

I’m born Slovak . When I was 9 years old, My family immigrated to Canada .I was fluent in Slovak, and have remained so even though I speak English a majority of the time. I Can understand many words from all Slavic languages , the most are in Czech , and then in Polish. Many words are identical .. only a difference in accent… of course many are completely different. Written is another story because Slovakia does not use the Cyrillic Alphabet . For the Slavic languages that use the Latin Alphabet … my comprehension is about the same as for spoken. I could probably make my way quite nicely in any Slavic country as a tourist. I worked in Lithuania for a while. Although Lithuanian sounded Slavic to my ears, the language itself is not Slavic at all. I was a bit confused when I first arrived . Because Lithuanian sounded so familiar, I tried asking for common things in Slovak. To my surprise … many people would understand me … turns out that there are a lot of Polish and Russian speaking people living in Lithuania.( I hadn’t known that Lithuania and Poland had a common history ) . Anyway, I had a great time, and got along quite nicely because most Lithuanians know some Polish .

[@radoslavliptak3842]

I am Slovak and i can understand 100% Czech.

[@danchokonstantinov6735]

I am bulgarian and I can better understand Slovak than Czech language .

[@Mr-bm7sk]

Can we text together and some speak together in Discord? I from Belarus, I would like talk about differents in our languages

[@dimaboiko3124]

@@Mr-bm7sk hope you will find more similarities, than you can see at the first glance.

[@Hersonets]

@@Mr-bm7sk I'm ukranian who lives in Slovakia. I tell you, that you can understand Slovak or Czech easly, just need time to concentrate.

[@andrazlogar861]

Lol

[@jobejer]

As a *Polish speaker*, I'll try to share my experience about understanding other Slavic languages. Be aware that polish is not my first language, but I speak it almost fluently. *Czech/Slovak* are pretty easy for me to understand. I can almost understand everything, especially if it's written. *Belorussian* is also somehow similar, and pretty understandable, but to a lesser degree than Czech and Slovak. *Ukrainian* is a bit tricky. Sometimes when I hear something in Ukrainian, I understand most of it, and other times I don't understand anything. I think it depends on which dialect you speak. I've heard that people from east Ukraine speak a bit different than people from west Ukraine. *Russian* can sometimes be hard to understand. Sometimes I don't understand anything, and other times I understand some of it. Much easier if it's written. *Serbo-Croatian* can also sometimes be a bit hard. The problem with Serbo-Croatian is that they pronounce the words a bit different of how a Polish person would pronounce it. That makes it hard to understand, but when you get it on text, or translate it, you'll be surprised that you couldn't guess what they were saying. From my experience, it's about as difficult as Russian. *Bulgarian* Is probably the hardest language. Personally, I have a hard time understanding Bulgarian, but there are similarities. It's not impossible to understand Bulgarian, but it's probably the hardest Slavic language to understand for a Polish speaker. I have not really heard any other Slavic languages, so I'll not comment on them. My biggest problem for understanding other Slavic languages are that some words can be pronounced in a way that a Polish speaker will not get at the beginning. It's also a lot easier for me to understand a Slovak than a Bulgarian, so the languages vary in a certain degree.

[@viktorsocial]

Bulgarian is easy - has a lot less cases than others and just has more tenses/depending on what you'd wanna say/ but as in English most people just use 2-3 summary tenses instead of always using the precise one, if you lead a casual convo("I wanted this" instead of "I would have liked to have this", you get the point). The main difference with other slavic languages is this: in English: an apple. Bulgarian: ябълка. English: One apple. BG: Една ябълка.; Here's the tricky part: EN: The apple fell. BG: ЯбълкаТА падна. ; EN: The red apple fell. BG: ЧервенаТА ябълка падна.; You see how the "the" which exist in the EN/Ger and other languages, but not in other SLAVIC languages exist in Bulgarian in this shape and form. I don't know where this came from but I suspect - Bulgar/Turkic roots influences the Slavic language in this way - or maybe the Ottomans. Turks also do this at the end of some words. Otherwise it's a nice language with roots to Old Church Slavonic which was also called Proto-Bulgarian.

[@MrTeired]

Well, I am from Poland, and polish is my native language. I can understand approximately 90% of Slovakian, 85% of Czech Rep., 70% of Whiterussian, 70% of Ukrainian and 60% of Russian. Same story with Croatian/Serbian. Nulgarian is a little more harder and I doubt I could communicate with someone from Bulgaria even though they are very similar with Russian. Generally slavic languages are easy to communicate and learn if you are slavic yourself, because we easily get the idea of cases.

[@rezusjezus]

Belarusian mordo ;)

[@vaevictis2789]

+Teired i envy to ukranians, they can equally easy understand as polish, as russian. Russians can understand 90% of ukrainian, but only half in polish

[@MrTeired]

Oj tam, zapomniało mi się no :P

[@MrTeired]

Oj tam, zapomniało mi się no :P

[@icr091]

+KarlAlex Nordberg It's funny actually, I'm from croatia and croatians generally have a problem with understanding slovenian, but slovenians understand croatian perfectly (at least that is from my experience)

[@VladimirTrajanovski]

One remark, around 5:15 in the video you say that one of the writing systems used by Cyril and Methodius was the Cyrillic script. But they did not use that script, since it was developed after their death, in the First Bulgarian Empire, by some of their disciples. Cyril and Methodius devised the Glagolitic script which was the first written Slavic standard.

[@t.r.8386]

In Croatia glagolitic script was used till 1810. Croats were using 3 written standars: glagolitic, cyrillic and latinic. Also Croats were only western christians using his own language in liturgy instead latin. The oldest known written Croatian glagolitic documents from 9th century are today in Kiev museum (hope that this stupid war in Ukraina will not destroy it). Lot of French kings were put hands on "Texte du sacre" in Reims during king's inagurations, that book is Croatian glagolitic liturgy book from 1483.

[@ilijanacro]

when I am drunk, I understand them all. From the heart.

[@blotski]

Great video. Really enjoyed it. I can speak Russian, Czech and BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian). I recently tried to read a Bulgarian news website and was able to understand about 80% of the article I read and I've never learned a word of Bulgarian.

[@albertdimitrov7962]

+blotski Can you read cyrilic ?

[@blotski]

Yes. or rather Да.

[@bigboizism]

+blotski dont even call bosnian a language

[@maticborovinsek]

+blotski Can you undertand Slovenian? One sentence: Jutri se bom šel smučati na sosedov hrib.

[@bigboizism]

***** as a russian speaker im deciphering this as something about walking on a neighbor's mushroom

[@sfinxwojerz]

Thank you very much for this episode

[@Langfocus]

It's my pleasure!

[@myxail0]

I am a native Ukrainian speaker. I ve learned russian pretty fast in the childhood and now i speak russian as good as Ukrainian. Now, I have learned polish for 1 year and can easily communicate in it, but not at native level. probably it is b2 level. Bulgarian and belarusuan are easy to understand especially when it is written. also, when i ve learned polish, it became really easy to understand slovak and czech. however, croatian is very hard Audio, but better when it is written

[@spitfire3797]

You doing good now брат?

[@myxail0]

@@spitfire3797 yeah, im not in Ukraine rn, thanks. Update for my Polish ability: I guess I didnt REALLY learn it when i wrote the comment, because once I got thrown into a school with no Ukrainian or Russian speaking people I learnt Polish very fast and my ability improved significantly. Became C2 or more easily

[@spitfire3797]

@@myxail0 Oh that’s good stay safe I hope you can back to Ukraine I am moving back to Europe as wel☺️

[@myxail0]

@@spitfire3797 good luck

[@ipooponurface]

@@myxail0 добър ден на тебе

[@ajdrag]

I did a real estate transaction with a gentleman who came from the Czech Republic. He had a very heavy accent. My native language is Polish. As we walked to the attorney's office we started a conversation. He spoke in Czech, I spoke in Polish, and somehow we were able to understand each other. The words were different yet familiar and we could make out what the other was saying. Surprising.

[@meimeilei]

Greetings my Slavic brothers!

[@soniaskolada6791]

so im a ukrainean native speaker and i live in that part of Ukraine where most of the people are bilingual(i live in Dnipro).We speak ukrainean and russian.So i obviously understand both of those languages and also i can interact with belorussian,czech and polish people.

[@teodortotev1113]

Regarding the Cyrillic script (5:13) - Cyril and Methodius actually created a script called Glagolitic alphabet. You can check it in Wikipedia - it looks totally different from Cyrillic. Cyrillic script was created later by the students of Cyril and Methodius.

[@airvlad777]

I agree. However, this script existed thousands of years before C&M. Check out the Vincha culture, which stretched from today Serbia into Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. 24 characters out of today's 30 in Serbian or Bulgarian or Macedonian Azbuka are the same.

[@tatjanavelkova5814]

@@airvlad777 vo MAKEDONIJA LUGJE govorat Makedonski jazik. .... c'ao.

[@sergii2945]

I know Russian and Ukrainian languages. The rest of the languages ​​are as follows: Belarusian sounds like Ukrainian, everything is clear but it has only a completely different accent (it seems that someone learned the Ukrainian language, but at the same time completely ignored the phonetics, i.e. the pronunciation of words), but Serbo-Croatian is vice versa. The pronunciation seems Ukrainian (a Ukrainian accent is clearly heard), but the words are only far from similar and the meaning escapes, even if I listen attentively. Slovak surprised me with that, if you listen attentively, it is very similar to Ukrainian. Polish is also understandable, if you get used to pshek and rzhek sounds. Bulgarian sounds like Russian, is understandable, especially if you discard the ending and substitute the ending from Russian, but there are some incomprehensible words. Moreover, Bulgarian pronunciation is close to Russian but with tender additions (because of a lot of soft sounds ti instead of ty, etc. and because of articles ata, which are recognised as caring suffixes by a Russian speaker). Macedonian is similar to Bulgarian, but it is more difficult to understand, sometimes you have to listen attentively, and sometimes it does not help. Church Slavonic is very similar to Russian and is understandable except rare words. Of course, I understand that it seems to me as "understandable" can occur wrong interpretation, and the real picture will be worse. But that was the impression. And what is yours?

[@sergii2945]

Being a Ukrainian from the Eastern part of Ukraine with Russian and Ukrainian native proficiency (but Russian prevailing), I am not so free in understanding Polish. Moreover Slovak seemed to be even more understandable than Polish.

[@quoranquesa9560]

You right about Belarusian and Ukrainian. As a native Belarusian, I can assert it. Nevetherless, some words sound the same but mean completely different things.

[@brammeijer5411]

intro: You forgot the rakia!

[@brammeijer5411]

živjeli!

[@chicheka1753]

Bram Meijer true

[@brammeijer5411]

Niksatar 25 ili Hrvatska ili Srpia

[@carolkatrawitz2314]

Yum, yum. And slivovitcka!

[@brammeijer5411]

Carol Katrawitz i still don't know the difference between slivovitć and rakia...

[@S4NY4RKuRDBoZZ]

I love Slavs and i am an Kurd. BTW Slavic Languages have Iranian Words

[@anonymousbloke1]

Salut iz Ukrainy, bradar

[@anonymousbloke1]

You kurds speak Parsi, right? :V

[@Drietfoga]

Slavic languages are all from Satem branch of Indo-European family, we have many common words but there are not borrowed from neither side but inherited from a common ancestor. Look at the name of Bagdad, no one really knows which language was the source of the name yet it's not really hard to determine what does it mean for a Slav when he thinks about it.

[@yukimann2000]

Because Iranian and Proto Slavic people were ethnically near cousins about 2700-2900 years ago . Persians were elder brothers Balto-Slavic tribes .

[@duroduric15]

No,no,no Iran has SLAVIC words

[@boris7540]

I'm Ukrainian and I can understand 95% of Belarusian. Russian is my second language, so I use it with the same frequency as Ukrainian. But when I tried to speak Ukrainian to Russians they hardly understand 70-80% of what I've said. Also I studied Czech to B2 and it was not difficult at all, because the paterns are really very-very similar in Czech and Ukrainian. Slovak language is something between Czech and Ukrainian, so I can understand it too. I can understand 50-60% of spoken Polish and 90% of written form. South Slavic languages are more difficult to understand to me. But in general, when I read some text in any Slavic language, I will understand the idea for sure

[@liliailinova4092]

Me, too!How lucky we are! 🙂

[@downedcrane7165]

I'm Russian. After watching some bloggers I can understand Belarusian spoken up to 90% and also I can read it. Surprisingly, the best way to read Belorussian for me is to pronounce literally everything and then listen to myself. Ukrainian text is harder to understand, but after some practice it is clearly possible. Spoken Ukrainian is hard to understand without the subtitles Bulgarian text have a lot of literally similar words, this is enough to understand general meaning of the text. I also can understand Church Slavonic to some extend

[@bulletproofcupid1242]

I can easily communicate with the members of the same language group as mine. In my case Russian is my native language. As for other groups, Polish language is more understandable than Czech. Belorussian and Polish share many common words. Pronounciation does matter. Bulgarian is quite understandable for Russians since both languages have pretty similar vocabulary.

[@artursh4824]

Hi) I am from Ukraine. I knew Russian as a secondary language( also i can say that EVERYONE ukranian knew both Ukrainian and Russian languages.) Also i can easily understand 90% Belarussian, 60% Polish languages

[@markiyanhapyak349]

NOT every ukrainian knows russian, LUCKLY…!! STOP spreading russian(!!), FOREVER!!

[@gnilca_]

I don't know Russian :/

[@МахмудТалибов-ц5г]

Wow in Russian we have word butilka = bottle. This word sounds just like in polish! And by the way it's my favorite word......

[@Langfocus]

+Махмуд Талибов Bottles of vodka are your favorite? :D

[@МахмудТалибов-ц5г]

+Langfocus bottles of C2H5OH =)

[@okiedokie56]

+Махмуд Талибов Mahmud is not a Russian name , it's Arabic

[@TheStraightEdger]

+Kolynk So? Talibov is not Russian surname. There is a lot of different nations in Russia :) He may be one of some Caucasian nations but he is citizen of Russian Federation.

[@okiedokie56]

Denis Yarukhin Talibov is

[@antonminchev1989]

I am Bulgarian and in my way till now i’ve got the opportunity to live in few slavic countries ( 🇨🇿 🇵🇱 🇸🇰). So based on my experiences with different slavic groups I could say that i have no problem to understand and read about 80% of any Slavic languages and speak on 80-90% few different of Bulgarian slavic languages.Generally depends of the person but a slavic person could learned easy some deferent from his native slavic language for a few months. He will speak pretty enough as to have fully understanding with the other guys.

[@hal9000svk]

I am native Slovak, I understand 99.5% Czech, 60% Polish, 40%, Croatian and 30% Russian. I just discovered your channel and it's awesome. Suggestion for next video: Hungarian language. I heard it's quite isolated and mysterious language.

[@metheshogenkii8424]

You're hungarian

[@georgesracingcar7701]

I forgot that language even existed

[@illya.ruslanovichshevchenk4106]

How much Ukrainian, Slovene and Bulgarian do you understand?

[@PUARockstar]

try Ukrainian, we should be way closer than croatian and russian at least

[@ElizavetaBeijk]

Russian speaker here. I just want to share some observations. In Polish "sklep" means "shop", in Russian it is "burial vault". Czeck for "attention" is "pozor" and in Russian it means "shame". But most funny is that "uroda" in polish is "beauty", when in Russian "urod" means ugly, moron, debil... Sometimes it can be pretty funny, but it is all have logical explanation. When I get to hear Czech or Polish or any other Slavic language it makes me feel, that I am in some kind of old fairy-tail.

[@treehugger3615]

+Лиза Мокелайнен Hence everything is the "other way around" in Russia.

[@heimdall1973]

+Лиза Мокелайнен Speaking of "sklep" - in Slovene it means a "joint" (where two bones and joined and can move). "oblast" in Slovene means "government", but in Serbo-Croat it means "area" (as in geometry, not sure about other senses).

[@PavelSikun]

+heimdall1973 well, in russian word " sklepat' " means "to tie together", so it's kinda not that far away from slovene in this aspect

[@VolodymyrKelembet]

+Лиза Мокелайнен It is fun to observe how all this meanings combined in Ukrainian: we have the exact same meaning for "sklep" as in Russian, but closer to Polish meaning when we talk about "uroda" (врода). And Czech "Potraviny" shop signboards still make me laugh when I think of it from Ukrainian perspective (sounds more like "poisoned").

[@mihjq]

+Лиза Мокелайнен As far as false friends, I have read somewhere about a situation during some ball or other party in 19-th century. A Polish lady wanted to compliment a Russian one with a beautiful rose attached to her dress, but didn't speak Russian well. Instead of saying: "Какауа у вас красивайа роза!" ("What a beatiful rose you have!" ), the Pole said: "Какауа у вас красная рожа!" (How red Your face is!). Zamiast "Ale ma pani piękną różę", Polka powiedziała "Ale masz czerwoną mordę!"

[@whoRtrolls9]

Dont need to be Slavic to understand: Cyka Blyat

[@NickVanHalen]

ебать блять

[@Quitarstudent]

Dont forget to cheeki breeki you blin

[@Burn0u7]

+Anatoli Makarov По-скоро "Цъка Брат". Пример: цъкаш ли брат? Цъкам! Цък Цък брат ми, цък цък.

[@matija5134]

Because fucking stupid Americans only know to say "сука блять!" or "kurwa" and nothing else... -.- so sad

[@adamcr1nge405]

+Matija Zuric lmfao

[@RumanischBursche]

As a native Russian speaker, I personally found that West Slavic languages (particularly Polish and Slovak) were easy to understand and their grammar was somewhat similar to Russian. Nevertheless it took me good 3 days to finally realise, that I started understanding some Polish. They use a lot of words which are considered very old fashioned in Russian language. Now I can understand Ukrainian and Belarusian better, because I have some knowledge of Polish. Czech is very difficult to understand. Bulgarian isn’t as easy as one might think, although it uses the same alphabet, but they tend to understand us better, than we do them. Btw Paul, I think that “funny introduction” which you chose for the video about Slavic languages only represents “South Slavic” culture, it sounds very Balcan.

[@selgan9968]

It goes both ways, for example the word for a loved one in polish is kochany/kochana, but an older version is luby/luba which is very similar to russian lyubov,

[@dzvinochok123]

@@selgan9968 in Ukrainian we use both, neither is old fashioned (любий, кохана)

[@cunjoz]

Native Croatian speaker here. First of all on Serbo-Croatian issue here. Are they separate languages or are they the same? There are pros and cons for that. Separate - they differentiate more and more every day. Croatian basically is constantly changing. Same - i can understand a Serb perfectly but a Croatian who speaks a kajkavian dialect is hardly intelligible to me. About understanding other Slavs. Well i remember when i was about 8 years old, i was at the sea and i met a Czech guy and i could establish a basic communication, such as "when's the bus arriving?". Another example was from a year ago. I was in England, visiting Peterborough and i visited a Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, and after the Liturgy i spoke to the priest and his wife. They were Ukrainians obviously, but we could establish a simple communication. That's actually pretty awesome.

[@cunjoz]

***** standardni hrvatski i standardni srpski - da možda bi se i moglo reći da su isti jezik. al de uzmi neke zagorske dijalekte - tamo se dva sela međusobno ne razumiju, i to je kao sve jedan te isti jezik, pa ti vidi...

[@Robertoslaw.Iksinski]

+risbo777 Ja sam Poljak i znam da glavna razlika izmedu srpskog i hrvatskog je takva da Srbi piju mleko i citaju vesti, a Hrvati piju mlijeko i citaju vijesti. A sta piju i citaju Bosnjaci i Crnogorci? :)

[@cunjoz]

Robertosław Iksiński ja sam trebao učiti poljski jer sam trebao ići u novicijat reda sv. Pavla prvog pustinjaka, ali majke ti, zašto ti znaš hrvatski? :D

[@Robertoslaw.Iksinski]

***** Samo ćitam na internetu vijesti i vesti. Ali od dobrog razumijevanja pasivnog je joś daleka ćesta do dobrog pisanja i govorenja.

[@mdza]

+Robertosław Iksiński ahahahahsvaka čast brate, inače u Crnoj Gori i Bosni se isto kaže mlijeko i vijesti :) pozdrav iz Srbije

[@sticksquash]

Polish stands out among most Slavic speakers, especially Eastern. As a Russian, Polish is easier for me to understand than most other non-Eastern Slavic languages. The syntax and morphology is essentially the same. It became easier by several orders of magnitude when I figured out how to convert Polish sound laws to Russian. ć = t', dź = d', ci = ti, rz = r', rzi = ri and so forth.

[@Lechoslaw8546]

@ sticksquash. Exactly. We could' have speak the same language and be one and the same nation, had thet be for some traitors and lackeys, now celebrated as "heroes". We actually are one nation, artificially divided. Privyet Vam.

[@PLKartofel]

Ć is somewhere between ch and t'.

[@DraconBS]

Polish "rz" and "ż" are spoken more like Russian "ж". In Polish diffrences in sound of "rz / ż", "ó / u" and "ch / h" faded in spoken language and usually they are just "ж", "у" and "x". Some slavic languages still has two diffrent sounds for this pairs, for example "ř" and "ž" in Slovakian / Czechs.

[@timen12]

Hi, I am a native Polish speaker. I have learned Russian for some time so I can understand about 70-80% of written Russian and about of 50-60% of spoken. Czech and Slovak are about 70% understandable for me. Since I know cyrillic alphabet reading Bulgarian and Serbian is also quite easy, but I didn't speak much with native speakers of South Slavic languages. We did an experiment though with a Russian guy once. We spoke slowly to each other with our native languages and we could understand each other very well, like over 90%.

[@liliailinova4092]

Do you know that the Polish language is the nearest to the Proto-Slavonic language and the only one which has preserved the nasal vowels? (in Bulgarian we lost them some centuries ago).The Polish word for "tooth" sounded the same in Bulgarian in the past.

[@MariaZverina]

I am Czech (well Czechoslovakian) by birth. For those of us growing up in Czechoslovakia, both Czech and Slovak were commonly present and mixed (TV, newspapers, etc). This means they both felt native - even though now I suspect it's a case of close languages where code switching happens as people growing today find it harder to parse Slovak. Having picked up bit of Russian, I find amost all Slavic relatively easy to "gist" - except Macedonian and Bulgarian. With those two there is some intelligibility but far less compared to Slovenian and SerboCroat. Suspect it's the Turkic influence. The other thing to note is that often the intelligibility will happen because the word in other language is similar to slang or archaic form. Or it's a false friend - however there is a link of some sort. E.g. ovoce (fruit) Czech овоще 'ovosche' (vegetable) Russian. Most languages are easier to parse in written form. However there are times where Polish/Ukrainian make sense in spoken form - for me this doesn't happen in the other Slavic languages.

[@HeroManNick132]

Май забравяш другият параметър, че тези два езика няма падежи, а опредителни членове, която е нетипично за славянските езици и може би затова те затруднява. Относно за турцизмите, аз бих казал, че сърбите, босненците най-много употребяват. Руснаците и те също например като с думата ,,лошадь," която не е славянска даже.

[@9Saper]

Polish speakers can understand 95 % of Slovakian and vice versa

[@doxepine]

That's so true!

[@stanleyyyyyyyyyyy]

I am not so sure... Slovaks can understand 95% of Czech but not really Polish... (my mother in law is Polish and I am Slovak)

[@RisXXX]

Slovak ih kind of central Slavic languages. So, we can all undesrand Slovak the best. Yes, Slavic languages are transitional, so we can understnd our neighbour the best, but we can all understand Slovaks. Czech have specific accent, so it makes the more difficult to undertand. ANd yes, our languages are circular (splited with Hungary and Austria between Slvenia and SLovakia), so Bulgarians and Russians /Ukranians meet again in the oder side.

[@najgauner]

Damir Ilic Well actually there are the Burgenland croats(austria,hungary) which more or less border with both croatia and slovakia

[@Robertoslaw.Iksinski]

I'm Polish and i like watching English-speaking films with Slovak dubbing, because Slovak without learning is more understandable than English after learning, ale podla mńa slovenske titulky su eśte viac zrozumitelne neż slovensky dabing ;)

[@janmacek1648]

Iam from Czech republick and I understand 101% to SVK ppl(Iam 1/4 Slovak), 80% to PL, 60% CRO (and other form Balkan), 50% RUS/UKR.

[@lukario_cz]

99% of czech rep. can speak slovak

[@stanleyyyyyyyyyyy]

understand, not speak.

[@blacktempluh3360]

stanleyyyyyyyyyyy Yeah. I want to suicide from that accent.

[@DDRmails]

увы, немногие так могут.... в основном кириллики понимают латиников, но наоборот уже гораздо сложнее

[@stefantheconqueror8710]

"Croatian" language doesnt exist

[@rosenberry9150]

Hi, I'm not Slavic, i just love your videos! Keep the goods up LangFocus!

[@ele4853]

Thanks for you videos about languages. You are the best out there. Explains to the point with no bla bla bla. Thank you so much for sharing.

[@feratcanbegi2539]

We love Slavic people from Kurdistan

[@Ballin4Vengeance]

Loving one fifth of the world is pretty based

[@stefanveleski333]

Hello Paul (Langfocus). This is my first post to you. I am very grateful for the videos you are posting and for bringing to attention a great many things realised by few (e.g. obviating the ignorance that Romanian is "Roma", and that it is "romance" hence the name). I get asked this one too when stating that Romanian is related to Spanish and Portuguese. Even many Spanish and Portuguese refuse to accept this fact. One error I must pick up on: there were NEVER distinct East Slavic, West Slavic or South Slavic cultures, dialects, populations or anything else. I'll try to explain: South Slavic (my people) are those who settled in today's former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria as well as surrounding countries. When doing so, these people were geographically isolated from the bigger body of Slavs by what is today three non-Slavic states: Austria, Hungary, Romania. Bulgaria has a maritime connection to Ukraine/Russia through the Black Sea but for the purpose of the distinction, this might as well be insular. East and West Slavic is an arbitrary classification that seeks to draw a line between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Apart from the fact that western parts of Belarus and Ukraine and largely Catholic, Poland as a state has historically controlled great parts of the lands to its east. Although each nation can trace roots to earlier Slavic tribes, there never was a "West Slavic progenitor" or "ancestral tribe" which makes Czechs, Slovaks and Poles closer related than to Ukrainians. Discarding the standard languages and the names of the individual ethnicities, the entire zone is subject to a dialect continuum whereby locals of western Belarus speak closer to the traditional dialects of Poland over the border than to standard Belarussian and the same for the eastern Poles. Likewise, there is no South Slavic common Slavic ancestor: Serbs and Croats were recorded as distinct peoples upon arrival and both have namesakes within the Slavic body which they fled. The words Sorb and Serb are commonly derived, and there was a population living in modern-day Austria known as the White Croats (now extinct). The similarities we have in the south originate from your observation that Slavic was common until relatively recent, coupled with living in proximity thus allowing us to maintain some form of ties whilst developing independently at the same time of the remote Slavic cultures. One of the most striking differences between South Slavic and North Slavic (welding East and West as one here) is that in the north, "pravo" is right whereas in the south, "pravo" is straight. Yet we all use the word for "law", "the right to do something" and similar meanings. Compare Serbo-Croat /pravda/ (justice) to Russian /справедливость/ (spravedlivost'), or its journal Pravda. All that needs to be known is that South Slavic formed its own way, and East/West came about over time and not through Ukrainians and Russians having a single tribal ancestor.

[@tecka6757]

Czechs and Slovaks can understand each other for like 99,999999%

[@GraemeMarkNI]

+Lord Tecka Yeah, but the languages are very different; they only understand each other because they are exposed to the other language from an early age (which is not true of Czech kids anymore). The Slovak-speaking community of Vojvodina, Serbia does not understand Czech.

[@tecka6757]

GraemeMarkNI well I do understand everything so.

[@GraemeMarkNI]

And you re Czech?

[@tecka6757]

yeah

[@redcape2184]

+Lord Tecka And Bosnians,Croatians,Montengrians and Serbians can understand themselves 100% ;)

[@ijyoyo]

Great Information, thank you!!

[@slumberfrog]

Ukrainian here, bilingual. I can definitely communicate with any other Slavic language speaker. I get about 80% of written Polish and Bulgarian, almost 100% in Belarusian. I get around 60% of slowly spoken Polish, Bulgarian, Slovac, and Croatian. Also smth like 60% of written Croatian and Slovac. Around 50% Czech. I believe being bilingual also helps though.

[@Ayzeykul]

Not certainly in that way. Ukrainian is actually two languages. There is Western Ukrainian, which is closer to Polish and German, and there is Eastern Ukrainian, the so-called "Surzhik". a rural dialect of the local population, which is closer to Russian, it is also spoken in the southern rural regions of Russia. Now Western Ukrainian is becoming "classic" Ukrainian.

[@vladimirkamensky8371]

@@Ayzeykul кому ,ты, объясняешь. она даже не сказала насколько она понимает русских.

[@vladshapran5000]

@@AyzeykulWhat you wrote can't be more wrong. Standard Ukrainian is based on Poltava dialect, which is a Left-Bank Ukraine (=Eastern Ukraine). Surzhik is not a language or even a dialect. It is a rural speech based on Ukrainian grammar, phonology and vocabulary with a Russian lexical superstrat (due to 350-year long Russification).

[@juulian1306]

Thanks for including Sorbian!

[@alanpotter8680]

I am half greek half bulgarian. When I was 11 my dad and I stopped at a Slovenian gas station/cafeteria on our way to Austria. He told me to speak bulgarian to the bartender while making my order. The bartender understood everything. Years later I still keep traveling through Slovenia for various reasons and I'm always blown by how similar our languages are, even though Slovenia is more Austrian than Slavic, if you looked closer.

[@HeroManNick132]

Нормално, та нали всичките тези езици са произхождали от един език и знаеш кой е той!

[@tomslastname5560]

I was born in Poland and that was my first language. For part of my time in Poland I lived with my grandma in a little rural village right next to the Belarusian border. The dialect spoken there was like Polish but with a very heavy Eastern Slavic accent (in fact, at first I believed everyone there spoke Russian until my grandma explained that it just sounds like that). There was some shared vocabulary with Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian as well. It's probably a dialect that's half-way between Polish and Belarusian or something like that. After moving to Canada I would watch the Ukrainian and Russian programs on CFMT every weekend (a multi-lingual TV station out of Toronto that had programming in various languages) and was basically able to understand the gist of what was being said, especially if it was someone speaking in a western Ukrainian dialect or something like that. We also had a friend of the family who was Slovakian, and we were able to have whole conversations just by him speaking to me in Slovakian and me speaking in Polish.

[@quoranquesa9560]

Because they spoke the dialect of Belarusian but don't want to accept it (because want to be real Poles). The similar thing is in the Wilno district of Lithuania. There they have spoken (till the second part of the 20th century) the pure Belarusian till the moment when they started to learn Polish at schools.