I’ll stick to reading and listening for now but I am curious to know if what people say is true. I know there are different endings to words but I’m okay with that.
We can find it out if you try to translate your question to Russian without mistakes.
I don’t know everything in russian so I can’t really translate my question to russian.
happycheeks,
it’s much more difficult than you think.If you want to achieve C2 level you’ll have to work very hard with tremendous diligence.
Russian grammar is complicated and it takes a lot of time to learn it even for native speakers
I don’t want to achieve a C2 just yet. I’m aiming for B1.
Since it’s impossible to learn russian should I just give it up? I should just focus on french. I can’t do anything can I? -.-
You could try to find yourself a nice dark corner where you could hide or you could just continue enjoying chipping away at any language of your choice…
There is no law that says you need to be perfect!
I feel like I’m getting somewhere in russian but I wish I could achieve my goals without being put off.
Of course I’m motivated. I still studied russian today.
From my mere 4-month exposure to the language, I can testify that Russian grammar is more difficult than, say, English grammar. But then ‘difficult’ is just a relative term.
Like you, I am motivated. So that doesn’t really bother me. I just try to avoid grammatical explanations as much as possible. So far this tactic has been working well for me.
it depends on your goals.If you don’t need to be fluent in Russian just take it easy and enjoy listening and reading.Forget about grammar,do simple tasks.Steve learns Russian this way and it works
It’s easier than English grammar in some ways, but harder in others. The order of words is relatively freer in Russian, whereas it’s very rigid in English. On the other hand, all the inflections in Russian does make the grammar quite a challenge to grasp, let alone to master. I can only speak for myself, however. I hate the inflections, and I hate learning about them. I’d hate them in any language. I only know them in English because it’s my native tongue. But Russian is a beautiful and very logical language, and it’s most definitely worth learning. I just hope I can pick up all the proper inflections without having to eventually agonize over grammar books. I’ve certainly come a long way from only knowing a 100 or so words since using LingQ. I think it’s just a matter of time with language-learning - for me it certainly is. Time, patience, motivation, and daily exposure.
Yes, Russofile said very well: Time, patience, motivation and daily exposure.
I could only add that Russian grammar is more dofficult for first levels as also the German one, but after that it’s easier.
And don’t be afraid of endings - yes, all Slawic languages have these endings, but they are unstressed, that’s why they are very unclear, so add something like ‘e’ in all cases, and everybody can understand you.
And after a long exposure to Russian most of the endings will be automatically for you.
Good luck and pleasure with Russian!
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I will continue to read and listen to russian. But I have learnt french and they have endings to words as well. So surely I’ll be use to russian word endings. Thank you everyone for your advice. 
The grammar of the Russian language is difficult, it’s true. But not because it’s Russian, because it’s a language. The grammar of all languages is about equally difficult, says…er…Chomsky I think.
The funny thing is, even primary school children can understand the grammar of at least one living language, given only enough exposure to the language.
Keep listening to Russian. You will get there. And make a lot of mistakes in the meantime. Fortunately for us language learners, mistakes don’t hurt us. It’s not like chopping a finger off with a circular saw.
Who said that grammar = (plurals)/(genders)/conjugation/declension?
Maybe your post was written tongue-in-cheek, but if not, it’s not the first post that suggests that grammar=plural/genders/conjugation/declension. Last October, I even read “One can rarely make grammar mistakes in Chinese.”
That’s a language myth if ever I saw one.
To happycheeks:
Russian grammar may be difficult, but it’s mainly “different” from the grammar you’ve encountered in your native English. All verbs are conjugated according to person (like French); nearly all verbs come in aspectual pairs (unlike English or French); nouns, adjectives, numbers etc. are declined according to case (i.e. their function in the sentence) (also unlike English or French).
As long as you find that your motivated enough to keep studying Russian, do so.
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Thanks, evgueny!
Yes, Russian is very daunting for the English speaker at first: with the Cyrillic alphabet, different pronunciations, etc. But those are relatively quick and easy to master. In fact, Russian is a lot easier to read in terms of pronunciation than English (which is fairly irregular.)
I did have trouble comprehending meaningful sentences for a significant period of time, despite “knowing” most of the words. I no longer have that problem, though - it’s just a part of the brain that needs flexing. (It is scientifically proven that different languages operate within different sections of the brain.) I read them slowly, but I do understand them - just as a young child reads their native language. As time goes on, we get better and faster at it.
It’s very easy to be hard on yourself during the first year or so with Russian. It’s an ego thing. Being adults, we expect to be perfect at everything way too soon. Language is such a deep-seated, almost primitive thing, that, naturally, it takes time to develop second-language acquisition. By that same token, our brains are also wired to learn language - so I don’t accept all this negative nonsense about “extreme limitations” in learning a second language.
@ russophile82 :
“It is scientifically proven that different languages operate within different sections of the brain”.
Interesting… Could you provide a study or an article that explains this fact ?
@ russophile82 :
“It is scientifically proven that different languages operate within different sections of the brain”.
@JujuLeCaribou
“Interesting… Could you provide a study or an article that explains this fact ?”
I have also studied this in my Psychology courses. I will try to find the article the instructor gave us.