Good Reasons to Study Russian: Awaking the Russian Sensei in You

Why study Russian? This is the most common question when you start any language. Why should you choose it or even try to learn it? Especially when you have to learn a new alphabet, six instead of four cases and all of them in plural with each different ending for each gender. Of course, you can say that Russia is a boom in terms of economy and became an important business location over the last years, but what if you’re not interested in money or business at all? Two years ago, I asked myself the same questions… As someone who took Russian courses, let me provide you with some interesting and fun facts, who changed my point of view and may will do the same to yours. 

The cold war is long over

When people here ‘the cold war’, they are instantly thinking of the issues between Russia and the United States. But that’s long over! Actually, these two share more than in terms of their language than you think. Over 10 % of Russian words bear resemblance to the English language. For instance: проблема (“problema”) means ‘problem’ and такси (“taksi”) is ‘taxi’. 

Question marks in my head 

The first time you see the Russian letters, you might get a bit shocked. 33 letters who split up into 21 consonants, 10 vowels and 2 letters (which are without sound). But when you look closer you will recognize, that is easier than it looks like. In the Cyrillic alphabet are view letters similar or even the same to the Latin one. Ones you’ve learned it, you just have to practice it by reading signs or descriptions in the public. For more information, follow this link https://lidenz.ru/learning-russian-alphabet/ 

No need for leaving earth 

Just in case you didn’t know it yet, Russian is an official language of space, which means if you’re planning to explore the cosmos, you should start to improve your Russian. However, you need not to fly 410 kilometres high just to use this language. Over 230 million people are able to speak Russian, which proves the fact that is the 5th most spoken language of the world. And the fact that is not only spoke in just Russia, but also in Georgia, Latvia, Ukraine and Moldova.  

The tone makes the music 

In Russian, the right pronunciation is everything. You have to know exactly when to stress a letter or not. The difference could be crucial! For example:  я плачу means ‘I’m paying’ – the stress here is on the second syllable. BUT, я плáчу – stress is on the first syllable – means ‘I’m crying’. Could be both when the bill for your dinner is too high. 

What a time to be alive (or dead) 

When you start learning Russian, you have to know that there is animacy in nouns. The animate nouns are considered to be more alive than inanimate ones. This means, that a dead man (мертвец) is more alive than a corpse (труп), because the corpse is inanimated and the dead man animated.  

You see, the learning Russian could be useful and fun at the once. Of course, at the end it comes all up to you, how much time and effort you invest, but this blog might give you push in the right direction. Do you know any other fun facts about Russian? Write your comment below. 

Posted by Philip Forstinger