Russian vs. Chinese - Which one is Harder to Learn?

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[@mirumirone]

Hi. You didn’t mention a super interesting aspect of Russian. You can put words in the sentence in almost any order. Like: • Я пошёл в магазин (normal academic plain variant). • Я в магазин пошёл. • Пошёл я в магазин. • В магазин пошёл я (a bit of Yoda style, but still correct in some cases). It gives your speech more colors and depth, but grammatically they all are correct. Super advantage)

[@haotiantan6084]

Вадим Мельников I wanna learn Russian

[@onigirimely1]

Same for Italian

[@mrbale1815]

They have almost unnoticeable difference. 2nd is highlights the place you went to. Like its shop, nothing else. 3rd is more like you discussed going to the shop and you finally throw a phrase like I am finally going there despite my laziness/lack of time/whatever. Last has more meaning like it was me who went to the shop( everyone else was sleeping for example). Or it was my fault I lost a cake and I had to for example buy new one. So there's slight differences there tossing words.

[@mr.wisecat]

I am a native Russian speaker. You can hear the first sentence only in everyday speech. The second one can be pronounced only by a drunk person. The third and fourth sentences have a poetic word order. Я носитель русского языка. В повседневной речи можно услышать только первое предложение. Второе предложение может сказать только пьяный человек. В третьем и четвёртом предложениях используется поэтический порядок слов.

[@comrade_shibe_5408]

You can kind of do that with Chinese.

[@rasputinthelizard]

chinese: hieroglyphs Russian:gramma! ГРАММАТИКА,СУКА!

[@BarbaTimTim]

xaxaxa)

[@Katya_Lastochka]

Russian is super specific, but if you learn the roots and object and subject conjugation you can understand a lot. It's a really fun language to play with, as the sentence structure is loose and you can invent your own words and compound words that others will understand.

[@fake-r-]

Спешу тебя разочаровать, но возможностью комбинировать части слов чтобы лучше передать то что ты хочешь мало кого удивишь, и во многих языках такое практикуется ещё более углублённо. Я сейчас не про английский, разумеется.

[@fivantvcs9055]

True. and when you are motivated, as for every language, it is a bit easier.

[@ghilliem.g.5824]

i found this while searching "chinese ushanka"

[@yuna2500]

🤣🤣🤣

[@lalkao_o]

lol 😹😹😹

[@katyarom]

Very interesting, thank you! Hello from Russia and good luck with your Russian, guys :) Every foreigner who speaks decent Russian gets huge respect here. We know how difficult it is and appreciate it :)

[@MrSupernova111]

Awesome! I hope to be that Hispanic guy speaking Russian in Russia in a couple of years from now. Wish me luck!

[@aminana5271]

Supernova good luck :)

[@thedmitryguy]

@@MrSupernova111, are you still learning Russian?

[@MrSupernova111]

@@thedmitryguy . Hi! No, I'm working on Italian this year. I still plan on learning Russian after I get done with Italian. Sorry about any confusion.

[@user-rt4nh7pn1b]

@@MrSupernova111 good luck! Happy New Year😊

[@artemnazaroff]

Perfect Ы man! :D

[@artemnazaroff]

What are you talking about? What videos?

[@artemnazaroff]

No, you should delete it. Why the fuck you think I did it?!

[@sovkamazur1291]

Артём Назаров зачем ты разговариваешь сам с собой?

[@genshiyami]

@@sovkamazur1291 наверное удалил комментарии

[@SalahNeuer]

@@sovkamazur1291 запахах блин😂

[@rebeccaw5952]

I have been learning Russian for about a year now. Russian cases and verbs' aspects are not easy to learn! Изучать русский язык очень сложно! 如果你想学好中文，必须要学会运用正确的成语！

[@Abdullah_09090]

я так рад что вы изучаете русский язык! почему он вам нравится? :)

[@ayi3455]

你好 我是印尼人. 我是50多岁. I learned Russian 2000 - 2002 in the Russian cultural center in Jakarta. I tried to read Dostoyevski and Chekov in their original language with a dictionary next to me. I give up.... I didn't finish Chekov novel though I had made a photocopy of it. Russian is such a difficult language. 1. the cases / padzesh 2. the verbal aspects : perfective-inperfective 3. the verb conjugation. I like to learn foreign languages. I speak German and got Mittelstuffe-1 Zertifikat, which is equal to B2. But now I can only answer B1 questions satisfactorily. My German deteriorates. Now I'm learning Chinese. I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. However, I still speak German better than Chinese and Russian though I don't use it anymore.... My Chinese and Russian are more or less the same. When I repeat my Russian, I feel that my Chinese lost. On the contrary, when I memorize Chinese vocabulary with the complicated Hanzi, it seems to me that I know nothing about Russian. 就是很奇怪... I read Russian articles better than Chinese, but I listen to Chinese conversations better than Russian. It's easier to read Russian compared to Chinese. Thankyou....!!

[@ayi3455]

@@Abdullah_09090 I understand 6 foreign languages : English, German, French, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin with different levels of abilities. I'm a 50 year-old Indonesian. I speak German pretty well, and been to Munich to learn German. It was long time ago that I reached B2 level, nearly C1. But it seems that my German deteriorates. I also learned French and Russian, but I don't speak those languages very well like my German, and of course, my fluent English. Now I'm learning Mandarin, and I believe my Mandarin reached A2 or B1 level, because I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. My Chinese is more or less the same level with my Russian. Only, I speak Chinese a little bit better than Russian, but I read Russian articles, such as magazines and newspapaers better than Chinese. I can read Russian easily, while I have to scrutinize Chinese articles, because Chinese characters are not alphabetic like Latin and Cyrillic. The problem is maintaining the ability. Once you get the B level, you start to be fed up with the language you have learned, unless you have a very high motivation and specific purpose to learn the language. And after that the next question is whether you can maintain the level that has been attained. I reached B2 or even almost C1 in German long time ago, but now it seems that I can only answer relatively correct the B1 level. My German deteriorates. Language is a matter of habits and habitation....

[@Blondesax]

Interesting as always! Thanks for your video.

[@BigBlessedCake]

Have to both for WW3

[@ryu7291]

yes if you cant beat them join them

[@snhw.a.6056]

@@ryu7291 that made me laugh 😂

[@pitaji6659]

@@ryu7291 omg 😂 i spilled water from mouth 😂

[@Mellyouttaphase]

This question has been on my mind! Thank you for another excellent video. This has helped re-inspire me to learn Chinese :)

[@lastochka_chinese]

I am Russian, over the years managed to reach pretty high level in Chinese (HSK6). This year I started teaching Russian as a foreign and finally understood how difficult my mother tongue is! Waaaay more complicated than Chinese.

[@AlbertoGomez-oi5ou]

if you compare gramar so hungarian is harder than russian by far, and navajo is worst

[@TiberiiGrakh]

@@AlbertoGomez-oi5ou hungarian is harder than russian by far - No its not Ppl dont learn entire Russian language they learn some start package and thinking its entire language. So for example Russian language has 29 tenses(not 3!!!) and 15 verb moods - cases - not 6!

[@NiksWickOfficial]

Hey! As a person who learned Russian for 3 years, I am fluent, I can read it, speak it, understand it, everything, it took me 3 years to do so. The hardest thing in Russian was definitely learning the cases, Russian has 6 cases (7 in some cases) and they're a new aspect of grammer English doesn't have, Russian has- Nominative- subject Accusative- the target/affected Genetive- possessions, of, for Dative- indirect, to who receives Instrumental- the helper, with Prepositional- shows the positioning and aspect Verbs in Russian show 2 aspect in 4 different tenses which means 1 verb can be conjugated in over 50 ways which is insane at first but practice makes perfect. Every Russian pronoun has 6 forms which are correspondent to their cases, and same goes to possession pronouns like "my, your, our) and basically everything about Russian has a rule to it and skills set that needs to be mastered before u even open your mouth

[@twoblocksdown5464]

I recommend u watching this kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYSmq5Wvjceaq80

[@GrafMKristo]

How did you polish it? It's obviously you did something on regular basis. And what is absolutely I love here - you made it scientific way! Молодец! Уважаю!

[@III-pt2cn]

in fact they have 10 cases

[@flankweaver]

This definitely didnt kill my entire motivation

[@petra1995]

It was the writing that made me fall in love with Mandarin! I love to sit down with paint and brushes and look up the stroke order of a character :)

[@stefanreichenberger5091]

If you sum up all your arguments Russian looks easier than Chinese... I had learned some Czech before starting Russian, so I already knew the basic concepts of Slavic grammar. There are more weird grammatical features in Russian than in Czech, but declinations and conjugations are much easier. I've been studying Russian quite consistently for two years , and so far I think it's fairly easy to make progress.

[@kayl804]

I'd say Russian is more difficult in the long term. But easier to get to conversational level.

[@chezgrg1505]

Fun fact: You are Russian or chinese

[@user-yt2fz7um2x]

I'm persian 😂

[@Unknown-zm2kg]

I am indian 🇮🇳

[@jordanisbroke554]

Russian

[@russkidoshik8362]

Ukrainian 🇺🇦

[@niwerbzoruiq343]

Filipino

[@ameliax3034]

Hey love your videos and really admire your resilience with languages. Ive got a bit of a language learning SOS. I have studied French and German and this year at uni Ive picked to study Mandarin and Russian to around A1 level at the same time for the first semester so 3 months. I know its maybe not the smartest idea but I want to see how far I can get! They are both taught through books and classes. If you (or anyone reading this) have any advice I would really appreciate it :) good luck!!

[@joelniv6718]

I really think that the Russian alphabet is very easy to learn especially if you how to wrire and read Czech or Slovak or other Slavic languages, Russian has other ways to make equivalents to Slavic letters and diphtongs, for example you have in Russian letters for "ju" "jo" "je" "ja" and little j to put after consonants that often have a little fast J after them like in Ljubljana, Kranj, plávať etc. I didn't learn Russian, I've just studied the script for fun, but actually I'm learning Slovenian now

[@user-ls8cr1vp8g]

"Ты" that you pronounce on 2:57 sounds perfect as if it were pronounced by a russian native speaker. I wouldn't tell the difference, but another one on 3:00 isn't that good but still close) Sorry for my English)

[@zkkrhfhska]

yes first one perfect second one not so good

[@tramvajtramvajevic9247]

He said not [t̪ᵻ], but [t̪ɨ] (Как в украинском «ти» по идее)

[@kayl804]

Да ладно, не предирайтесь, оба хорошо :).

[@ethanclark4116]

Он показал нам неправильно путь. (Простите я говорить по-русски плохо)

[@user-nk7kv2kx2d]

Русский на самом деле сложный. Но в отличии от японского и китайских языков он имеет свои преимущества и более лёгкие моменты в изучении. (Хотя многое на самом деле сложно) P. S. Я - русская.

[@alexandermarkov300]

Как и любой другой флективный язык.

[@osmantus_tea]

Я думаю, японский всё-же легче китайского. Пусть там и есть падежи, склонения и структуры предложения, но произношение куда легче и структуры запоминаются достаточно просто)

[@user-ts6bt7qj4i]

Хэдэ

[@tramvajtramvajevic9247]

@@alexandermarkov300 ну да, но падежей в разных языках разное количество. В том же ПИЕ их 8, в финском аж 15, в латыни 6. Но мне кажется число падежей не сильно влияет на сложность языка. Падеж это же послелог, тебе же не сложно учить язык из-за того, что в нем 15 предлогов, например?

[@alexandermarkov300]

@@tramvajtramvajevic9247, падеж - не просто послелог. Например, помимо отношений между объектом и субъектом он обычно выражает число и род. Чтобы понять всю сложность, нужно число падежей помножить на число склонений и на грамматические числа. Для сравнения в латыни 5 типов склонений, в церковнославянском (старославянском) их 6 и 3 грамматических числа (единственное, двойственное и множественное).

[@giovannig2509]

maybe being Italian I wouldn't have much problems rolling the Russian R right? Probably the only advantage though

[@TheManinBlack9054]

Yeah, English, unlike many other European languages, uses retroflex approximant and alveolar approximant, while Russian, Latin, Italian and many others use alveolar trill to pronounce "R" You can learn about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R

[@disappointedenglishman98]

That helps with the hard r, not the soft one. Ручка, речка.

[@jonlin8193]

Chinese isn't as hard as you think, guys. It's a different, interesting and useful oriental language which you'll find a lot of fun on your way of learning it. Keep going💪

[@user-ft1pp6te2u]

hieroglyphs are hard for me)

[@veruskatorres9276]

Chinese words are so beautiful

[@metalsabatico]

Grammatically it isn’t, but the writing system is probably the hardest one there is to learn.

[@Crake13]

@@metalsabatico assuming by “Chinese” we mean mandarin, which uses simplified characters, it’s definitely not the hardest in the world. At minimum, Cantonese and Japanese, two languages which use traditional characters are going to be more difficult. Additionally, learning characters, either traditional or simplified really isn’t that heard if you learn the radicals. Most characters can be broken down into a sound component and a meaning component. Once you learn this, they really become quite easy to remember. Except for the tones, good luck with that part.

[@SimpleGeopolitics24]

I tried to learnd Chinese with a teacher from China. It's by far the most difficult language in the world.

[@jinc1950]

Hello I’m Korean and I lived in different countries resulting in me speaking Chinese / French / Russian (having lived in Beijing - Paris - now Moscow) I am still struggling and Russian is harder. To master basic Chinese seems much easier to master while Russian ... too many verb forms depending on the subject / gender / pronouns ...

[@forlornpreponderance2299]

Jin C well because basic chinese is really easy, it has no grammar. What makes chinese hard is writing + 四字成語. Idioms. Mastering chinese is hard for chinese. Russian is hard in respect to its grammar. For example I think german is very easy after spending 5 months learning grammar

[@jinc1950]

Agreed on the basic Chinese grammar, it’s easier to learn

[@andymounthood]

My motivation for learning particular languages is often aesthetic. To me, Russian sounds poetic (Swahili, too). Despite it's difficulty, I love the Japanese writing system. I like the Korean and Japanese grammars. I like the intonation patterns when I hear Koreans speak informally. The spelling of French words fascinates me. I like the rhythm of German. And so forth. My problem is that I haven't discovered the beauty of Mandarin Chinese yet. Every language has it. But, oddly, the pronunciation and tones of Cantonese feel more natural to me than those of Mandarin. In one podcast episode ("#151. Why am I still a beginner?"), Olly Richards told me that I need to spend more time with the language in order to get used to it. But the more I listen (even to easy, beginner podcasts from ChineseClass101, as well as to natural, native speech on TV/movies/radio/KZbin etc.), the less I like the language. That's my struggle with Mandarin. Once I get past this problem, I'll probably find it in some ways easier to learn than the other languages. But it's a difficult problem for me now. My Russian was going well last year--I was close to reaching a B1 conversational level--but my various italki tutors corrected me too much and I lost confidence in my ability to learn it. So I stopped learning Russian for a year, and now I've finally got enough courage to start learning it again. Affective (i.e. emotional) barriers are a big factor in what I consider easy or difficult to learn. If my motivation is lost in some way, even an easy language can be really difficult. (deleted and posted again to eliminate argument with troll)

[@dcrock8978]

Oregon Polyglot I’ve only started learning a second language(Mandarin) 5 months ago, but the more I hear it, the more I fall in love with it. So I totally agree with you that aesthetics/emotion is a huge part of motivation for some people. There are so many great songs by bands such as Escape Plan or Mayday, so that might help as well if you’re a music connoisseur.

[@AndreaOlivieri87]

Everything you said in this video was stressing out how much Mandarin is much more difficult than Russian in every aspect, but the conclusion was the opposite... That was really confusing and it was hard to understand why... And all you said was assuming that one is not going to take on learning characters (which is a bit unrealistic, I wonder how many people are willing to spend tons of hours learning such a hard language tolerating they'll never be able to read anything in it...). Said that, congrats for your achievements in 10 years of Chinese and 2 of Russian! Keep it up! Cheers!

[@shanepunk94]

I can see why you are putting Russian higher when it comes to level of difficulty although for me it is a slightly different case. I am originally from Poland so Russian seems not to be that hard because I am used to the hard grammar rules and also it often sounds very similar to Polish so I am able to understand much of it without trying. Learning the cyrillic alphabet back in the high school years was not as hard as I thought before. With Chinese, it is a struggle for me to memorise the characters, however I am aiming to do that, not only to learn pinyin and the pronunciation. Even Hebrew feels easier for me than Chinese in terms of the letters to be honest. I have studied Chinese for about half a year with a Taiwanese teacher while living in Berlin and I feel like I know about nothing. With languages like Spanish or German after half a year I was able to say many things and be like B1 so that is a huge difference but I am not giving up. What I do not like though is choosing and waiting with the next language to learn.

[@mariusamber3237]

Agreed, it totally depends on whether you know other Slavic languages or not. I'm bilingual in Polish and (Irish) English, so Russian was honestly the easiest foreign language for me to learn. I had to learn certain rules by heart, and the pronunciation can get tricky too, of course, but I could pick up Dostoyevskiy or Bulgakov within months, due to how much vocabulary is shared between Polish and Russian. Chinese has much easier grammar than Slavic languages, but everything else is brutally difficult for me. I've been learning it for a while and my knowledge is still pretty basic. I guess it depends on the context - Chinese might be much easier for Vietnamese learners, and Russian will definitely be easier for those who speak other Slavic languages.

[@357QueenBee]

My first language is Spanish then English. I learned when I was 13-14. So I am equality fluent in both. In college I took one semester of French and I'm able to understand with French subtitles. Two years ago I started learning Russian on my own, I'm 54 now, and I totally agree about conjugation and cases. There were times that I thought, why in the world am I doing this to myself? Spanish and French conjugate verbs as well so that was not new for me. Russian doesn't conjugate in past but we do in Spanish. Russians learning Spanish find the conjugation difficult. Plus we have in many cases several words for a single thing.

[@Martina-Kosicanka]

It took me 15 minutes to learn Russian alphabet, as it is similar to Greek alphabet on one hand and the special sounds make sense to me as native Slavic speaker. Few more times to repeat it to really recognize the signs. An much longer to read it naturally , word by word instead of deciphering signs

[@birdbirdbird1565]

I heard that more westerners learn Mandarin for A.I robotic. Is that true ? Does Mandarin language make a choice faster based on its shorter way to express it ?

[@bibiMification]

What you mentioned about the third conditional in Mandarin probably has to do with the fact that it's a language spoken in a so called "high context culture". To a certain degree, Russian is also a high context language as the word order changes based on the mood and emotional state of the speaker. I'm a native speaker of another Slavic language, and we also change the word order however we deem appropriate to express how we feel as opposed to Germanic languages, which are considered low context since sentences follow an exact word order.

[@meatmoneymilkmonogamyequal5583]

I'm studying both at the same time. I agree with everything you say! I realised with the chinese characters that you can learn the passively without any problems. To actively, write them down on a piece of paper is another universe. Thank god we type today so with the piying system typing on a computer, or mobil phone is easy 很方便！

[@frieber247]

0:32 (check out the subtitles, "hey everyone my name is young vomit"😂

[@thaihm]

Less time with Russian Cyrillic for sure. This was a very nice comparison, thank you!🙏🏼👍🏽

[@LanguageBoost01]

Sign up for our FREE Russian course: goo.gl/VJq3TA

[@user-lj2mu4ib9x]

I usually like to watch some foreigner teaching Chinese . That I can understand what they think about my language. that's quite fun.

[@liu547]

语言条理， 逻辑清晰 👍 （我最近想学俄语， 看了你的视频吓的不敢学了😂）

[@aitolken]

Didn’t expect to hear about Kazakhstan Almaty Astana when started to watch your video!!! Love ya!

[@choybalsan3977]

Definitely russian. I’ve been studying in russian for more than 4 years and now still stuck in the fucking gramma

[@syryx3502]

I know Mandarin and English, which language is easier for learning Russian? I want to know because I'm thinking about buying some books to learn Russian.

[@Borat_Kazakh]

You can communicate perfectly in Russian without using any of the declensions. Advice: learn Russian vocab! as much as possible. memorize survival phrases first, then move on to longer sentences. They will understand you if you don't add the feminine locative case in your speaking. Only study grammar if you need to pass a university exam or some such academic thing.

[@polyanagula]

this makes sense only if you come for several days as a tourist and you want to impress your friends who come with you. if you want to learn a language, you have to learn its grammar. Especially it is important for understanding. for example, if you decline the Russian word for "head", its stress starts to jump between syllables. if you make a mistake, Russian person might still guess from the context what you mean, but if you are listening to his speech, you might not even recognize the word "head" if it is not singular Nominativ.

[@Borat_Kazakh]

@@polyanagula You make a fair point. But the human mind wil not think of "what did I learn in class" when you use the word "head" in Russian. The grammar will not come to mind. That double meaning will come through familiarization by usage. Repetition. But if people like grammar-- by all means, study grammar.

[@polyanagula]

@@Borat_Kazakh it is much easier to read the rules first and try to learn them and then master them by usage. at first you need 5 min for each sentence, because it takes time to remember the correct form, but with time and practice it gets faster until the point when you pronounce everything correctly without thinking about the rules. unlike German, where you change the form of the article but the word itself stays the same, in Russian you change the ending and the stress, which might make the word sound completely different, therefore knowing the rules might help you recognize the word, because you would know what to expect from it. Anyway the final goal is to try to speak as correct as possible. whether you reach it by studying grammar rules or by direct using is up to you, but always using nominative singular and hoping that people will guess what you mean from the context would work only for the basic conversations.

[@Borat_Kazakh]

@@polyanagula Yes, my college professors were fond of saying: "the grammar is your road map to learning a language". For 90% of us this is of course false. Which is why studying language in a university is a waste of time. When I took French in college the professor always told us "you must say it perfectly, with excellent pronounciation, or they will think less of you." Now I realize what a backwards way of teaching that was, since none of the students would ever be perfect. The students who eventually learned to actually speak well spent a semester, using the local language. Familiarization and repetition, and that is the best way :)

[@polyanagula]

@@Borat_Kazakh I also know someone who prefers learning a new language by speaking, but those are a minority. I also know one Spanish girl who learnt to speak German after she moved to Germany for studying (the program was in English, so learning German was her own initiative). She took some courses but was mostly learning by speaking. Now she speaks very fluently, understands almost everything, but her grammar is terrible. you might ignore the mistakes when she speaks, but the way she writes is so funny! this level is totally ok for her, but if she would want to stay in Germany and work there, she would defeneitly have to take grammar lessons. and relearning wrong grammar is much harder than learning from 0. well, I say all of this from my own perspective: I like structure and rules, therefore grammar is the easiest part of the language for me, probably for others it could be different. but in my opinion if you ever want to learn a language making minimum mistakes, you should put an effort and learn grammar rules before you learn to speak wrong.

[@svetlanaboldin8671]

"Ты" is actually perfect, 👍 but "школа" и "школу" unfortunately not yet, "л" I believe is too soft, should be harder 💪. But Russian is difficult, so my respect and good luck! 😊

[@vladoshka9014]

@@mikeg8876 which one?

[@pianistanton1]

@@mikeg8876 are excited for Stalker 2?:)

[@mikeg8876]

@@pianistanton1 yes

[@JahMaister]

Great. Slavic languages are a bit special. Comparison is awsome. Hail from Czech republic.

[@PyromaN93]

Why our languages have so brainfucking grammar? Specially to dismorale our enemies😁 🍻 from Russia.

[@Proto_Type614]

Slavic languages are very conservative grammar-wise and the lack of vowels is very striking. I am learning Russian and it´s real tough stuff for a German speaker.

[@cloeye32]

The only thing that might be difficult about the Russian language is the cases. However, if you continue to listen to a lot of Russian material and read you can overcome the key system. It will just take a lot of time that’s all. I’ve been learning Russian for 40 month and can speak at an upper intermediate level. Where I like to speak at an event swivel at some point yes. I’ve made a lot of Russian friends as a result of learning Russian over 40 months ago. I don’t find this language to be difficult like people saying it. I think it’s about the mindset of the individual when wanting to tango such a beautiful language is Russian. It’s been around for years now just like Chinese have along with French and English and Arabic. These languages are the cornerstones of the world and the people that live within the world itself today. It’s giving me an opportunity to be able to learn about the people, it’s politics and economics system, is culture history and literature and how people think with in Russia and outside of Russia. I will never regret ever learning is most beautiful language. No I do not think it’s a difficult language to learn. I do think that it’s a very beautiful Language tomorrow and I’m happy that I learned it.

[@WinteressNavja]

I bet you learnt it on the level of Насальника не бить, моя работать.

[@user-qi7kk7su3l]

Разве упомянутые в видео совершенные и несовершенные глаголы не могут показаться сложными? В европейских языках такого вроде нет. Нужно знать все приставки и суффиксы делающие из несовершенного глагола совершенный и наоборот.

[@kuznechik]

2 just a translator. Отнюдь... В английском языке совершенные глаголы выражаются через перфектные времена (Perfect Tenses). Соответственно, все глаголы выраженные через все остальные времена - несовершенные... Поэтому концепция совершенных и не совершенных глаголов для тех, кто говорит по-английски, не является сложной. Ничего не могу сказать за другие европейские языки. Начальная сложность не концепции, а в том, что используются другие языковые инструменты, как Вы упомянули, суффиксы и приставки... Но количество суффиксов и приставок и правила их употребления в русском языке - число конечное, а, значит, сложность ограничивается только затраченным временем и усердием...

[@user-qt9vn1yj8x]

3. Stresses - they are flexible and you have to learn them all, no any system, but centuries of traditions. 2. Cases - at firs they are perplexing, but in the end they have a system and you have to understand it to make it clear. 1. Word formation - and booooy, here we go... Russian is extremely flexible and just a slight changes can completely alter the meaning and moreover, create complex interconnected context and sub-context like a layered pie. Best example of this mastery of linguistic acrobatics is russian swearing (MAT) that could be arranged as far, as your imagination allows it.

[@suss8644]

Both language will make you smarter =) Which is super USEFUL =)

[@littleengine9502]

I found Chinese easy, pretty straight forward- writing it on the other hand was super hard and very time-consuming that I just gave up because of my full-time job. Russian, I think it's gonna be trickier because of the cases. Very well done on the explanation

[@anugrasyuraa]

0:19 whaaat? I started learning Russian like yesterday and this video really got me stuck in between either I should continue learning or not. And also I always thought that Chinese was the hardest language to learn.

[@leksolee6135]

Russian is harder if u start mastering the grammar. Just get familiar with grammar rules but dont try to master them. Learn vocabulary and then just watch Russian TV serried and talk shows. Eventually u will master the grammar passively, like children do learning their native language.

[@tmteam8840]

If you are a perfectionist , you should not start learning grammar. As a native speaker, I will say that Russian grammar is fucking hell! But. If you want to speak for, communication, understanding and travel - just forget about grammar! Learn vocabulary. Learn how to read. Russian-speaking people are fascinated by people who try to speak Russian and almost always understand you exactly. Grammar will come by itself while you learn phrases and communicate more. Good luck!

[@simon215a]

Russian not that hard. I think Chinese harder to sound literate enough.

[@benl9047]

I studied Chinese from 2013-2018 and I've been studying Russian from late 2018-now (I've stopped learning Chinese for now so that I can focus on Russian.) I'd say my level of Chinese is a decent intermediate level whereas my Russian is worse, more like A2., but that's because I spent more time on Chinese. I think all your points are valid, but I disagree with you about how important the different factors are. It's true that beginners will find it impossible to use the correct grammar in Russian, but how important is that really? If someone speaking English said to you: "I yesterday go big cinema, such big cinema, it really crazy" the grammar is wrong, but people will understand you. With my Russian I feel like people can understand me ok even with my bad grammar and most importantly I feel like I understand a lot considering the amount of time I've been studying it. I even feel like I understand it almost as well as I understand Chinese, despite spending less than half as much time on it. Chinese vocabulary is so difficult to build and it never gets easier. For example I'm interested in politics and words like democracy, liberal, capitalist, president, referendum etc will all be totally different in Chinese whereas in Russian they're similar to English. So no wonder you understand Putin better than Xi JinPing! This makes it feel like a real slog to build your vocabulary beyond a B1 level in Chinese and it makes listening harder. And don't even get me started on chengyu! Then I think you downplay the importance of learning thousands of characters. Sure in the first few months you can focus on pinyin, but eventually you need to learn characters to really consider yourself to be a proper student of Chinese and to simply survive if you actually live in China, as I did for two years. That takes many, many years and is much harder than learning to read/write in Russian. All that said, I love learning both Chinese and Russian and in a way the biggest challenges are the most interesting part of learning languages. I don't understand why that other person said that they regret learning Chinese and wouldn't do it again, because I've loved learning Chinese and would choose to do so again in a flash. There are so many cases of their way of thinking being so totally different to ours and I think learning languages like that can really expand our way of thinking compared to learning easier languages. By the way I made a 4 part series that compares Chinese, Russian and Spanish by 4 categories (writing system, grammar, pronunciation and accumulation of vocabulary) for anyone who is interested ...

[@milicamarkovic9747]

Thank you for writing this comment, all of the points you listed here are correct. I have been studying chinese for more than 5 years and, as a Slavic person, find chinese vocabulary difficult to build. As you said, chinese writing (书面语）and oral vocabulary is completely different. Although I have got HSK 6 which equivalents C2, I still feel like my chinese is weak. Not to mention 成语 or when I compare my sentences with native speakers’ way of expressing. I will gladly look your videos about other languages. Good luck!

[@benl9047]

@@milicamarkovic9747 Getting to HSK 6 is an immense effort and it's better than my Chinese, so well done! I find HSK 4 incredibly easy but HSK 5 is a challenge for me, it feels like a bit step up - so yeah, HSK 6 takes a lot of work and I really respect someone reaching that level. But all that said, I don't feel like HSK 5 and 6 correspond to C1 and C2, I think HSK 6 is more like a good B2, so that's why you still feel like there are too many holes in your vocab. Meanwhile I'd describe my level as a B1. Hope you like my videos by the way, apologies in advance for my pretty poor attempts as Russian, not spent enough time on it to get especially good yet, although hopefully I'll get to a C2 level someday!

[@thedmitryguy]

@@benl9047, what’s your first language?

[@RovexHD]

It’s funny, because in Russian I often find English loanwords harder to pronounce understandably than Russian words.

[@kuznechik]

Another level of complexity of Russian language is that it is very contextual language.For example, ball is red. Russian would say, мяч красный... "is" in this Russian sentence is presumed and meant as мяч есть красный... It is just one example. Russians very often omit words in the sentences because those are clear from the context of the conversation or printed text.

[@apollon6870]

well, the "ti"(you)is the same as in english i thing, like "timber"

[@birdyashiro1226]

This is very nice tho, I totally understand it

[@sedmokraskadieta1485]

however if someone already came from a slavic background say czech, would you say russian would be easier to learn compared to chinese as some of the grammar is similar with the cases and some pronounications

[@RovexHD]

Of course

[@RovexHD]

Btw, when you mentioned Russian accents being homogeneous, that’s true for Belarus and Russia, but Ukrainians have a different accent, especially west Ukrainians. Also you have people speaking dialects. Another aspect of Russian as far as speaking, is the free floating stress when declining nouns (also when quantifying i.e ‘table’. I don’t know if it’s fair comparing it to the tones in Chinese, but in any case, having the stress change on a word, can make it sound like an entirely different word ! Remembering where the stress falls in russian is definitely a pain the ass for any Russian learner !

[@languages4fun888]

Hi, I have found your example with Russian 'I want to go to school' brilliant. I thought a while about all the verbs of motion *theoretically* possible and came to the conclusion that in reality there is no choice at all. You see, the verb хотеть by its logic implies that you *want* the result, so you can use only perfective aspect, otherwise the sentence would sound really bizarre: я хочу идти в школу implies you kind of more interested in the process of going rather than reach the school itself. Having said that, and this being Russian :) that sentence makes sense in a certain situation, too. If you pronounce идти with additional stress, it says that you would like to walk to the school as opposed to driving or swimming there. Russian grammar is full of mysteries 😉 Keep up the good work!

[@MichaelSemikin]

Such kind of situation :) Imperfective aspect is possible I think if you *want* a current process or you have an alternative action. E.g: Mother: Сына, сходи, поиграй с друзьями в дворе :) (son, go and play with your friends in the yard) Son (weeping): я хочу идти в школу! / хочу слушать музыку (listen to music). And here there will be "flavor of continuation of listening". Or just я хочу кушать/пить - i want to eat/drink

[@languages4fun888]

@@MichaelSemikin я хочу идти в школу doesn't work in your example, you said as much yourself by using поиграй instead of играй

[@ayi3455]

Hi... I just found your channel. I wish I had found this a year ago before the pandemi. I learned Russian.2000-2002 in Russian cultural centre of Jakarta, Indonesia. I learned Mandarin Chinese 2017-2019 in a course, up to level 3. I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. True, Russian grammar is awful, but for lower intermediate level it is easy for me to recognize the words and get the meaning. But Chinese, even lower intermediate level I have to scrutinize to try to bring out from my memory how to read the character. Chinese characters are like stones. The size, the shape, and the colors. The scratch, the pronunciation-intonation, then the meaning.... Recognizing Chinese characters is like recognizing photos : Napoleon, Caesar, Trump, Biden, Brad Pitt, etc. And writing it is like when asked to describe them. As I learn Chinese now, I feel that I forget my Russian. I won't forget English because I learned it when I was very young before you were even born. Guess how old I am. I also learned German 1990-1994 and been to Munich 1993 to learn German. I can still speak German though not as fluently as English.... Anything learned when someone is still young linger on...

[@kobeli3465]

Does the prevalence of a single accent in Russian, compared with Chinese with multiple dialects, imply a more centralized system (political-linguistic-wise)? At least I know France once attempted to unify and standardize its language, thus resulting in the extinguishment of many local vernaculars. As a Chinese myself, I understand that the current CCP gov is implementing a language policy popularizing standard Mandarin based on northern dialects (官话) with the Peking dialect as its kernel, is there anyone who could talk little more about the Russian language policy (such as any popularization campaign of a certain dialect, medium of instruction, etc.)?

[@user-it8ik2wy7g]

I'm hath Russian, and I grew up in a household where we speak Russian, and I struggle a lot with Russian still (tho i spoke it for 13 yrs now), I have an accent and I forget what to say, so good luck to anyone learning Russian ...

[@ivannew9753]

Ok, so what if you can speak both Chinese and English fluently and are good at both of them, I’m confused, I tried learning Russian and it’s extremely hard, how do Russian learn their Russian! It’s so hard!

[@brendon2462]

You can learn new words by looking them up. Watch the shows over and over until you know every word. Doesn't mater if it's not comprehensive yet.

[@belstar1128]

When I learn Russian there is always something I get wrong and it seems that there are just more words than in other languages there is always something new or something I forgot. I started Chinese recently and the biggest problem is the characters but the grammar seems more English like.

[@JameBlack]

betarage actually English vocabulary is richer

[@somestuff7876]

Bobo Momo, I think that English has this weird system where the vocabulary of a person is basically stops at a certain point. It almost seems like language is separated by invisible borders. Where native speaker can have no idea what particular word mean (without context). And this situation isn't common in Russian. Even if a person is using "fancy" words. It seems like with Russian you just using more words in your day to day life. Maybe it's what betarage means by "more words". Cause yeah, English vocabulary is richer is just not get used that much in my experience.

[@jeremyemilio9378]

Chinese grammar similar to english is the most BS Thing ever.its not even close

[@32ivan23]

@@JameBlack This is not true. Russians are very conservative in their language. Therefore, in the official dictionary of the Russian language there are not even half of the words that Russians use in everyday life. In Russian, words can quickly appear and disappear. In the Russian language there are a lot of words where they are used only in a certain area, which are not clear to Russians from other cities.

[@JameBlack]

@@32ivan23 do you speak Russian?

[@prince223681]

Should I learn italian or french? Or german? I'm torn between the 3

[@rauschma]

(My native language is German. I also speak English, French, and Spanish.) Benefit of learning either Italian or French: It’s relatively easy to learn the other language (or Spanish or Portuguese) because they are quite similar. If you know German, Germanic languages (*) are easier to learn. Other than that, I’d decide based on culture and content (books, movies, TV, etc.): Which of them interest you most? That will help you a lot with learning. (*) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

[@konstantins4984]

Hi! I’m Russian and I’m fluent in Chinese. You’re right about grammar.

[@user-cb1jv4mt2h]

ээээ ? ты русский ? точно? я не уверена!......

[@konstantins4984]

Да, точнее не бывает.

[@nehcooahnait7827]

I think u mixed up Chang and Zhang.... they all sounded the same when u pronounced it... Which also proves ur point haha...

[@xXPurpleLoliTranceXx]

Imparari cinese e russo da solo o all'universita? I'm still learning Italian myself, sorry lol

[@onigirimely1]

*il* cinese e *il* russo :)

[@kiiro3336]

I find That When I know What a Kanxi Means in English; Then I am Able To Learn The Chinese Pronunciation more easily. I learned Japanese by First Writing out Both Hiragana and Katakana. Then When Learning The English Meaning of Kanji; associating The Japanese Words made it very Easy. But I also Believe interest and desire really can Help you. :)

[@qqdd9306]

I’m Chinese, I can speak English and now I study in Russian, recently I perpare to pass the exam B2, so I know the difficulties of learning a foreign language

[@immortlityecstasy5904]

所以那个更难

[@qqdd9306]

@@immortlityecstasy5904 对于中国人而言，俄语更难，因为俄语的词形变化很多很复杂

[@gueratom]

French native here. Chinese is 10 times easier than russian. The grammar is super easy: no plural, no gender, to tense, no articles, no irregularities, NO NOTHING. Russian grammar in the other end drives you crazy. It has everything. I could manage talking in chinese after 4 months. It's been 4 years I'm learning russian, it's stil a struggle.

[@Martina-Kosicanka]

You can try Bald and Bankrupt's method. Learning vocabulary, ignoring the whole grammar. As a native Slavic speaker (Slovak grammar is very similar to Russian one, in logics how cases are built) I can assure you that we understand even if you are messing with the cases.

[@gueratom]

@@Martina-Kosicanka thanks for the suggestion.

[@Martina-Kosicanka]

@@gueratom Gladly

[@RovexHD]

@@Martina-Kosicanka Not exactly true. For example, in Russian, stress on a word can change depending on a case. This can be very problematic in terms of listening comprehension as a foreigner. For instance, 'bridge' in russian is 'мост', but if you were to say 'under the bridge' bridge takes on a different spelling and completely different pronunciation. As a foreigner, I can guarantee this will lend to confusion. And this is just one example of many.

[@Martina-Kosicanka]

@@RovexHD In Slovak it is most and pod mostom 🙂 I know that Russians pronounce letter o as a in English word bar, when the syllable is not stressed- like spasibo is read "spasiba" When o is in a stressed syllable, it remains o . For example kon'/ horse. It is little easier in Slovak. Because we have a strict rule, that the first syllable is always the stressed one. And o is always o (like in English word pot) But when a foreigner wants to say "she was in the school" and says: "ona bol v škola" (incorrect) instead of correct one "ona bola v škole", everybody would understand. (Ona is feminine pronoun, bol/bola/bolo all mean l "was"- but feminine pronoun requires the form bola and škola is nominative case of the word school. In the school is accusative case so škola becomes v škole.

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Aren't you from the north brabant? Why couldn't you roll the R?

[@LanguageBoost01]

Janco van der Westhuizen ja, uit Helmond.

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Jan & Lucas - LanguageBoost So wat was jouw probleem met de R? Jullie praten toch ook zo, dacht ik

[@LanguageBoost01]

Wij rollen de R zeker niet, in België doen ze dat wel.

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Jan & Lucas - LanguageBoost Oh sorry, dan weet ik niet waarom ik dat gedacht heb :D By the way, ekskuus as ek foute maak, normaal praat ek Afrikaans en my nederlands is verskriklik, soos jy kan sien :D

[@shutterchick79]

If I were to learn Russian, I don't think I would have trouble learning to inflect verbs for aspect - I've studied American Sign Language, and ASL verbs will inflect in a similar way to Russian. Maybe one day I'll give Russian a try...

[@ablan8801]

Привет, Я русский язык чу чуть знаю

[@castom1227]

Ага)))

[@user-qt9vn1yj8x]

As a native Ru speaker, learning mandarin right now (4th language), I have to say, whole Asian language groups are plain headache at the beginning and has no bottom. But fun fact: the more I learning foreign languages, the more I become to value my native. Russian language has 2 distinct features, that makes it so special: extremely flexibility and freedom of expression combines with complex grammar. In terms of learning, Russian is no any difficult than any other Slavic language, they are more or less the same. It may be difficult to begin if you are used to strict Germanic-language family, but then it is just as any other European language. Still, there is one obstacle: Ru is really hard to master. If only you are not polyglot-genius, we always can distinct those whom Russian is native and others.

[@nehcooahnait7827]

I don’t understand someone from certain part of England as well... they honestly made me doubt myself...

[@znh3900]

“(要是)早。。。(我)就不。。。了”可以理解为一个固定句式吧，难道这不是语法的一部分吗？🤔

[@squaiyo2589]

I think when people say Chinese doesn’t have grammar, they just mean there’s no grammar like the grammar as we’re used to in European languages...I recommend you to listen to the podcast episode from this show about linguistics called “Lexicon Valley”, and the episode name is “ Chinese has no grammar right? Wrong!”

[@pierreabbat6157]

Russian: Хочу (I want)... German: Gesundheit! Using the accusative for "to school" and a different case for "in school" Is common to several Indo-European languages, including Latin, German, and Ancient Greek as well as Russian. It is not in Modern English or Modern Greek, as the other case in both languages was the dative, which merged with the accusative in English and fell out of use in Greek.

[@look007456]

Thanks for your video,come from china

[@junchen6945]

To fully understand a formal speech in Chinese, you need to read lots of Chinese classic literature first.

[@coldfusionmusical]

I kind of agree with you but this could be bias because I'm actually Chinese, Chinese Malaysian to be specific. Russian is quite easy to learn to read, that one hands down, Russian I'd say has an upper hand. Even though I have been using Chinese, both in speech and in writing, the writing does sometimes give me a hard time, used to be worse (I even forgot the entire writing system at one point and had to relearn it) until I got to do church stuffs using Chinese extensively, so I'd say, one has to constantly have practical use of it to keep it, otherwise it's very perishable in the memory. Russian has more cognates in English, yes, but the pronunciation is a tongue twister for me, this one maybe Europeans have an easier time. English is sometimes hard enough for us to pronounce properly (our English is a bit simplified or Asianized), Russian is like a consonant rich language, while Chinese is a vowel rich language. As for this I think I'm not qualified to pick which is easier as it can be bias, but what you say is really edifying for me as a Chinese, for a European to find our language the easier one is really priceless. One tip, when learning more advanced Chinese structure, just keep it as simple as possible, like you mentioned "I early know, I then won't do", don't be too caught up by being precise like in European languages, this is the way we are. That's why too much grammar rules can be a problem for us, many of my friends struggle with English grammar. This the same for Malay and Indonesian, though I'd say these two have got more resemblance to European languages.

[@butchstein9738]

russian is easy to understand and that means a lot. of course you will spent lots of time polishing it but its fine. if you speak few european languages you already know around 2000 words in russian and that counts for something. learning to read russian can take up to a week if you are slow thinker like me. so there is no comparison here. i have learned chinese for 2 month and couldn't understand much of what they were saying in the movies and stuff. maybe 2 to 5 percent. it is supper hard. i think its almost impossible speak it without making effort. Jan was it you who recommended a web page for chinese series with subtitles? thank you in advance.

[@disciplinefreedom3083]

Try glossika for speaking and listening in Mandarin and most languages they have on line. Helped me most with Chinese...glossika and pimsleur.

[@RovexHD]

Funny because I speak Russian as a foreigner and English loan words people don’t know understand how I pronounce them.

[@philipphortnagl2486]

I did not start chinese yet but what I can say about Russian, learning it now 2 1/2 years almost daily is, that Russia doesn't get easier .. I hear often that German gets easier on a certain intermediate level.. whatsoever, as a non slavic native Russian is constantly difficult also on an intermediate/advanced level :D

[@Elvenlijk]

Philipp Hörtnagl That is true. I have been learning Russian for the same amount of time and it never gets easy, for example every time I read a newspaper article I find new words to learn. This is not my case with German. After a couple of years with German I got to an intermediate level where I could understand everything and didn’t feel the need of further learning, so I stopped studying German. Russian, on the other hand, has this thing that you just never feel comfortable with what you have learned.

[@philipphortnagl2486]

gulfov andre true. I am native german and hear this all the time from German learners, that German is hard in beginning but gets easier...

[@Elvenlijk]

Philipp Hörtnagl Ich glaube dass es vielleicht die Lexik ist. Auf Deutsch hat man einen größeren von Latein Einfluss als in Russisch, und das vereinfacht den Lernprozess für uns die romanische Sprachen als Muttersprachen haben (meine ist Spanisch). Es kann auch der Grund sein für die Menschen die germanische Sprachen als Muttersprachen haben (wie Niederländisch, Dänisch und so weiter). Auf jeden Fall finde ich dass Deutsch eine sehr schöne Sprache ist sowie als Russisch :) Ich hoffe dass ich eines Tages beide Sprachen gut sprechen kann. Grüße!

[@philipphortnagl2486]

dein Deutsch ist schon mal gut ;)!

[@polyanagula]

@@philipphortnagl2486 Meine Muttersprache ist russisch, und ich geniesse deutsch zu lernen. Zum Beispiel in 80% der Faellen kann ich entweder den gleichen Kasus nehmen, wie in russischer Sprache oder sehr einfach das russische System vereinfachen. Das geht nicht immer, aber oft genug :) Mein groesstest Problem ist der Wahl zwischen der/die/das, weil meistens muss man das einfach wissen.

[@random-guy]

In my language, a saying goes, "a crocodile in the river, a tiger on the bank", which means either choice poses the same risk. In this case, Mandarin is as hard as Russian.

[@Anatoli8888]

Russian takes four times less time to become fully functional. Ask Georgetown or FSI Universities in the US, which prepare diplomats. Forget the perfect grammar, accent and choice of right vocab. Functional is something else. Perfection comes later.

[@RovexHD]

Not really. If you make mistake after mistake in Russia, it sounds awful.

[@redcloud4741]

so this video has completely destroyed my drive to learn russian now that i know that i can learn like 2-3 languages in the time on learning russian

[@RovexHD]

6 months you can be conversational living in either Russia or Ukraine.

[@Adam__Lee_Jang_Chu.2024]

ofcourse English is more difficult, but because i am a chinese) but writing is more difficult, and the most difficult language is Russian :)

[@user-ce8vk5rq3d]

Китайский, конечно, сложнее... Русский я уже выучила XD

[@gatritioponsoutoni1742]

Hoy me di cuenta de esto

[@classiccrime1]

I have studied both Russian and Chinese and completely agree with this. I am much better at Russian than Chinese, however it was easier to remember and say words. The grammar in Chinese is pretty easy in comparison, and they say things more simply. In Russian things are always complex.

[@chatpak7179]

Chinese has grammar but a complete set of grammars, totally different from European languages. Most Europeans learning Chinese speak Chinese like a robot, I can confirm.

[@squaiyo2589]

Well said. People have the association for grammar as grammar for European languages, conjugation, tenses etc. But when it’s a completely different system, people think that means there’s no grammar when really, the grammar is just VERY different and not what you expect.

[@georgerabus9314]

I am from Moldova, Moldova is very influenced by Russia, you can hear russian in every corner. I learned russian without going to school. Our official language is romanian, also if you know romanian you pretty much know english. Of course you need to learn the very basics of english grammar and words first, now, every complex word (i am by that complicated) is very similar to Romanian, for example "peripheral" is written "periferic" in romanian. So its easy to understand the words, if you see an unkown word in english language, its usually very similar to romanian word so you can understand its meaning. ALSO Romanian is a little similar to French and its easy to learn, besides french is taught in our school (and russian). An example of word similarity of french with romanian language is this: word "șofer" means driver in english, "șofer" is "chauffeur" in french. They may look different but they sound the same. AND voilà i know Romanian, Russian, English, French. P.S If you pay attention on Romanian history you will understand why every Moldovan knows russian and no native Romanian knows russian

[@yuna2500]

I'm Russian and I love Russian language because you can say a word that doesn't even exist and people will still understand u.

[@briansmith7773]

i live 35 years in the Russia, but still learn this language every day, especially grammar.

[@GrafMKristo]

For real?! 35 years?? So you did witness "the fall and raise from knees".

[@briansmith7773]

@@GrafMKristo i did :)

[@user-fh4le1pn8o]

Chinese is sensor control automatic vehicle with weird pictograms. English is automatic transmission vehicle. Russian is manual control airliner. It's hard to study, but give a new level of movement to your feelings expression. Something like that I think. ;)

[@MasiukA]

I watched this because I am learning Ukrainian, which is one of the closest languages to Russian. There are some differences, but overall, the structure is very very close. It is not an easy language. The number of cognates with English is actually quite minimal I'd say, and the ones that are there, are usually straight up modern loanwords, and many others are divergent in pronunciation anyways that they still require learning and some people might not even notice they are cognates. Overall, Slavic languages require a strong dedication to learn. There are a few things that come easy (namely alphabet, syntax, rules, phonetic rules), but everything else is quite different from English and can be very challenging. One thing I would say, is that given the grammatical complexities, it can be much easier to understand Slavic languages to the ear, than to speak them. This is because all it takes is hearing the roots of the words to get the general meaning which can then be inferred by context. But formulating your own sentences with correct grammar, well, that's much more of a task. So in a certain sense, this is an advantage, but in another sense, it's a challenge.

[@maxbrennock1003]

Interesting hearing someone learning Ukrainian as someone who learnt Russian in Kiev. What got me with Russian is the shifting stress when declining words. Not only is it a pain to learn (and time consuming), words can sound totally different when declined. I note that Ukrainian is consistent with the 'O' pronunciation, however in Russian it can be stressed and unstressed.

[@number1kep1ian32]

Chinese is more harder to write and read. Russian is more harder because of their grammar. With pronunciation they are both very hard. Chinese is tonal and Russian words are long and weird.

[@rauschma]

Counter-point: If your goal is *not* avoiding mistakes while speaking, Russian seems to be easier (especially understanding when listening, reading, writing). I only learned Russian for a brief time, but progressed much faster than with Mandarin (which I’m learning at the moment). You understanding Putin significantly better than Xi Jinping after having learned Russian for a much shorter time than Mandarin, seems to point in the same direction(?)

[@RovexHD]

I'm living in Ukraine 6 months and my russian is decent for a western European but I still make mistakes and still i don't understand what a lot of people say to me. Fluency in Russian would take 3 years at least.

[@susanallen7681]

I'm currently learning Bosnian which is similar grammatically to Russian. I can tell you that Chinese, which I speak at an upper intermediate level, is HANDS DOWN TEN times easier to learn how to speak. For example, with the verb 'to say' in Bosnian, the VERB ITSELF changes from the 1st person to the second person, etc, and in many verbs even in the choice of the verb you have to decide whether you are speaking in the past progressive or the simple past---and I can't even begin to tell you the insane complexity of using the reflexive verb 'to like'. It broke my brain yesterday--no joke.. And we haven't even gotten into cases. The Chinese past tense basically consists of adding the particle le at the end of a sentence--the future equally easy. Yes, there are word combinations to learn for the more subtle variations of tense like the past perfect, and how to express ago, etc, but even these are TEN times easier. By the way, really admire the speaker in the video (didn't catch the name) for his pronunciation of both languages. Clearly super talented.

[@RovexHD]

Hehe, I can't tell you how much in russian I think about the endings of words before saying them - or how often I have to correct myself. It's crazy. 😂

[@wenyibo]

russian, arabic

[@vere9652]

I am not Russian speaker but I am slavic speaker, so we have the same grammar as russian. 8:45 This is the exact thing that came to my mind, when I was learning english. That english is oversimplified.😂

[@RovexHD]

Piss easy. So many inflections in Russian, it's a joke even comparing to English.

[@willowforster4283]

wow, i know both. Я живу в Москве, китаянка по национальности, и знаю английский на уровне С2. Весело, но все зависит от человека, склада ума и менталитета, языки устроены по разному.

[@mendax7125]

Очень сомневаюсь что вы знаете английский на C2

[@jakewood5475]

I went to school today. In Chinese, you can say. 1. Today I went school. 2. I today went school. 3. I went school, today. The third sentence is not that common but in some context it stills works.

[@polyanagula]

same in Russian. you choose one of the options depending on which exactly information is new or important. you can also use other variants (To school I went today, to school I today went, I today to school went etc), some of them sound too poetic though.