How important is it to learn Russian respectively in Europe & Asia ?

Question

As much as I know, Russian doesn't have any influence upon (Latin) America, Africa, & Australia, but perhaps it is generally regarded as an important language in Europe & Asia, the question is that, how important is Russian respectively in Europe & Asia. & Is Russian really harder than German in aspects of grammar, cases, gender, & syntax ? And is Russian really much easier than Arabic? Thanks !

Answer 1

I am living with someone here in germany that can speak russian fluent and learnt it for eight years and she now says that she wishes she had learnt english instead as she has almost never used russian but constantly is asked to speak english as comes into everyday life. Though also depends on the type of people you are mixing with. I would also say that yes russian is harder than german as someone who is learning the german language.

Answer 2

No, Russia doesn't really have much influence on Latin America, Africa or Australia, but it is an important influence and Russian is an important language particularly in Eastern Europe. While Russian itself might not be universally used in Eastern Europe, it is related to other Slavic languages, such as Polish.

As one woman said before me, Cyrillic is used for Mongolian, but I am not sure if Russian would be very helpful in Asia. Even though Northern China, Mongolia, and Manchuria are near Russia geographically, the areas might not care for the Russian language because of cultural differences (the language might remind them of the culture if they don't mix well).

As for the difficulty level, I've tried both and Russian is "harder" for an English speaker to learn because it isn't an Indo-European language (it's not closely related linguistically to English at all in terms of Grammar or vocabulary), whereas German is related to English (English is considered to be a "Germanic" language). The Russian grammar structure can be more difficult to learn than German for an English speaker, and all of the different case forms can make one's head spin. However, for me Russian vocabulary seems to "stick" more easily than German. I haven't tried to learn Arabic, but I would think that Arabic would be harder to learn than Russian mostly because Arabic is devided into a bunch of dialects, so the Arabic Algerians speak might be a little different from the Arabic Egyptians speak and so on. If you learn the "standard" Arabic, you'll be understood a little bit, but won't be able to communicate with ease with people.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Answer 3

I can't help you much in your question if it is difficult to learn Russian since I don't speak. I think Arabic is more difficult though.

I'm European and Russian is not that important language. English, French, German or Italian and Spanish are definitely more useful for someone to know in order to find a job for example.

Answer 4

Russian is useful if you plan to work or live in Eastern Europe (due to the past Soviet influence) or Russia and former republics of the USSR. It is also useful to learn cyrillic script if you plan to, for instance, work in Mongolia, since Mongolian language uses it.

I am a native speaker of Russian, and have studied Arabic in the past. For me personally, Arabic was an easier language than Russian, although a bit less logical.