Russian or Italian?

Russian is very difficult for English speakers. We have a different alphabet etc: I advise Italian - it's very much like English.

Reply 3

Italian is a piece of cake to compare to Russian. Though this is my opinion and being French, Italian is very easy for me and I really struggle with Russian. Russian is a great language though, all nice and funny to listen to/speak/write. Even if it's quite horrible to learn because the grammar is indeed very difficult, if you like it you shouldn't have that much problems. If you're already used to learn declensions though, Russian might be easier than Italian. Italian is a romance language with quite a lot of tenses and moods, but even if the grammar has some irregularities, they're imo way fewer than those in Russian.

Reply 4

Italian is similar. It's because they're all Romance languages, i.e. they come from Latin. Russian doesn't so it's much harder for a speaker to learn who comes from a Romance language background. Also I found learning English easier than people I know who try to speak Russian.

Reply 5

I'd say Italian grammar is easier than German grammar and Russian grammar is more complex than German, lol. Though I don't know German grammar at all (but as there are declensions and lots of irregularities...)

Reply 6

WastingMyThyme

Yeah I'd agree with you there Anatheme.

1. Russian
2. German
3. Italian

In terms of grammar difficulty.

Sorry to be annoying Lord Lawz, but German isn't a Romance language.

Reply 7

WastingMyThyme

Sorry to be annoying Lord Lawz, but German isn't a Romance language.

Lol, I was wondering if I misread it or misunderstood it, but apparently not, lol. German is a Germanic language, lol, even if it seems quite obvious, and so are English and Danish :p:

Reply 8

I didn't say it was. I meant English and Italian. German is similiar to Romance languages for many reasons. For one, Germanic words were incorporated into the Vulgar Latin. Plus, Eng. and German are both Germanic. But I can't be bothered to go into this because we're all agree.

Reply 9

ciaranfleck

If you are going to study one or the other I would seriously go for Russian. Yes.. it is notoriously difficult, and from my experience this year it is a bit of a bastard when trying to learn it.. but with continued effort it'll be well worth it. Russian is FAR more useful than Italian, and will be a big selling point for future employers :smile:

Reply 10

pretz

English isn't a Romance language either...

It's a complete non-issue and you're being ridiculously pedantic. The issue which I'm addressing is which one is more difficult to learn for the OP. A romance language is one which has roots in Latin. English is not generally considered to be one, but this isn't so axiomatic as you suggest. If you knew the history, it's pretty dodgy to say anything for sure, given the Roman occupation and the Normans etc. I'm not going to argue that it should be considered one and I don't want to; but it contains over 80% of its vocab from Latin and French and its grammar lapses with other romance languages like French, although it is largely Germanic in origin. For all intents all purposes, they descend from similar sources and are far more similiar languages than Russian. I technically mean Italian and English are Indo-European. But it's such a pedantic point to raise it's a wonder you did. And counter productive too, in this context, because it creates confusion whether Italian and English are similiar languages. And they are.

Reply 11

Neznayu

Russian is harder but not as incredibly difficult as it's sometimes made out to be. The cases are annoying and there are simply too many endings but as others have said it's a more useful language right now. Perhaps you should listen to the Russian instead of the person who's only done it at AS level though.

Reply 12

pretz

There are far, far more similiarities between Italian and any of the Romance languages (barring perhaps Romanian, I don't know enough about it) than between Italian and English.

Agreed, plus technically, Russian is as indo-european as English or Italian, though whereas English is a part of the Germanic sub-division and Italian is a part of the Italic one, Russian is a part of the Slavic sub-division. But well, I stop here, we're being very picky as Lord Lawz certainly thinks the same way we do.

Neznayu

Russian is harder but not as incredibly difficult as it's sometimes made out to be. The cases are annoying and there are simply too many endings but as others have said it's a more useful language right now. Perhaps you should listen to the Russian instead of the person who's only done it at AS level though.

Oh, really ? And how could a fair comparison be made in this case ?
I mean lots of English persons struggle with French, but for me, it doesn't seem *that* difficult, because I speak it all the time and can't fairly compare it to another language as the other language will always seems harder than my first one. Though a point of view from someone who already studied a Romance language (Italian, French or Spanish) and Russian is probably more interesting to compare Italian and Russian.
And I can tell you Russian is wayyyy harder than Italian in this case. :rolleyes:

And about usefulness of a language, it only depends on which field you want to work in or just where you want to work. Of course if it's something like business or trading, Russian is probably more interesting, unless you want to stick to the EU and in this case, Italian will won over Russian.

Reply 13

Slothuus

There might be some truth in that, actually. I absolutely adore Italy, Italian culture and I love the sound of their language. However, I am also fascinated by the Russian alphabet, the usefulness and widespread use of Russian. Dostoevsky in English is even something I have to kick myself in the back to start reading :biggrin:

I reckon I couldn't choose between both, lol. Though, now that I've been to Moscow, I really doubt I'll ever want to live there, lol. It's weird. Great, but weird. :p:

. Both cultures and countries are amazing, and now, I think it mainly depends on which field you want to work in, lol.

Good luck for your choice, I hope I helped a bit :biggrin:

Reply 14

PIZZA FTW !
I'm sorry, no offence to any Russian here, but I really don't like Russian food, loool.

Reply 15

UGeNe

14

lol, I'm russian and I don't like russian food that much...I love caviar and raw salmon with 'black' bread, but these aren't dishes on their own

Reply 16