What are the main difficulties when speaking Russian?

Despite what it may seem, the Russian alphabet is easier to learn than Chinese characters. Of the 33 letters that compose it, 7 are Latin and 9 are Greek, which can facilitate learning. You still have 15 Russian letters left and a hard sign and a mute sign.

The pronunciation also sometimes raises the odd headache. It is easier to learn a language when we are small because our brain, tongue and palate can more easily mold and even adapt to the phonemes of different languages. Russian phonetic rules are very different from Spanish rules. For example, the tonic accent can be a source of concern for a Spaniard, since it can vary even within the same word depending on the declension.

If you have studied Latin, Italian or German, the declensions will not pose any problem. On the other hand, if it is not your case, you may have some other little problem. In Russian, there are six declensions:

• The nominative
• The accusative
• The genitive
• The dative
• The instrumental
• The vocative

These declensions modify the ending of an adjective, a pronoun or a noun based on three criteria: the case, the gender and the number.

Finally, the last issue foreign language (or mother tongue) learners grapple with is grammar and conjugation – the black beasts of any language. Russian grammar only has two possible forms for a verb:

• The perfectible: to describe a past, future or unique action;
• the imperfection: to describe a present action, which is repeated or not.

On the other hand, the verb “go” can pose another problem. If in Spanish we use it to refer to everything (going to school, going to the movies, going to the supermarket …), in the case of Russian, there are specific verbs for each of the actions.

By the way, do you know that you can also learn  Russian online ?