Spanish is my first language and I'm fluent in English, how long do you think it'd take me to learn Russian?

Question

I know there's no conection between Spanish and English and Russian... I was just saying I'm already bilingual, and I heard it's a bit easier (I repeat, a BIT easier) to learn a language if you're already bilingual...

I just wanted an estimated time... obviously everyone learns at a different pace...

To whoever said it's an absurd question: that's just your opinion, and opinions are like a** holes, everyone has one and ... most times they stink...

And... to whoever asked "why would I want to?", WHAT'S IT TO YA? I just want to...

It's a beautiful language, and I like a Russian guy... are you happy????/

Geez....

Answer 1

Why would you want to?

Russian is MUCH harder than either English or Spanish.  In addition to using a different alphabet, it has a lot of case inflections that both languages have little of.

Answer 2

How long is a piece of string?

Answer 3

This answer should cut through all the nonsense.  I speak English natively, and have learned Spanish and Russian among others. Study European languages, and you'll find they have TONS in common.  Numbers for example: Uno, dos , tres  --- odin, dva, tri .  Really the only difference between Russian and Spanish is that Russian has

1) no articles, such as A or THE

2) 6 noun cases, as opposed to maybe 3 in spanish, so just like Yo-->Me in spanish, Russian pronouns do the same stuff, but their regular nouns ALSO inflect.  

3)Russian has two genders like spanish, plus a neutral gender

4) yes russian has its own alphabet, but it's obviously related to ours, and it's phonetic once you learn it, which is more than you can say about English.

5) Verb conjugation - c'mon people, they're all European language, they all conjugate their verbs.  You'll notice that the equivalents of the Tu and Nosotros conjugations are similar in Russian to the Spanish version.

oh, and past tense verbs show gender - that's all!  You can do it, I promise.  And it definitely helps to go to Russia. :) Good Luck!

Answer 4

How long will you live? How many people will win the lottery tomorrow? Russian will be useful soon, given the events in Georgia, but there's no standardized amount of time it'll take you to learn it. It's an absurd question no matter how you look at it.

If you really want to learn Russian, you won't care exactly how long it'll take.

Answer 5

it depends on how fast you learn and how fluent you want to be. I would say probably about a year, but that would be to be really fluent. If you just want the basics I would say about 6 month and that included reading and speaking. Just speaking about 3 months, but thats practicing everyday.  

Answer 6

Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, but if you know Greek from being in a fraternity or sorority, then this will be easy, as Macedonian (Greek) monks gave the Slavs their alphabet.

Russian uses a case system for nouns, pronouns and adjectives.  There are 6 cases.  Nominative corresponds to the subject of a sentence, accustive and dative = direct and indirect objects.  Locative and instrumental are used with prepositions (in and on mostly in locative, with with instrumental) and gentive shows ownership and negation.

Russian nouns and adjectives have three genders, and are singular or plural.  Correct Russian will have the number and case correctly suffixed.  Don't worry, modern Russian doesn't have the gender distinction in plurals (it adopted the feminine endings).

Verbal aspects can a hard concept to grasp, as Russian makes a distinction on if the action was one time, one direction or habitual.  These are known as perfective and imperfective aspects of verbs.  Many Russian verbs add a prefix to differentiate the aspect, but many others have a different word.  Verbs of motion in Russian can be challenging, as Russian places importance on the method of conveyance - foot vs. car, boat, horseback.

As for the phonology, Russian use palatization to show "hardness" or "softness" of consonants.  Palatization is placing the tip of your tongue near the roof of mouth or near the ridge behind your upper teeth.  This is difficult for beginners to hear the differences, but is vital to master as palatization is the only thing that seperates many words in Russian.  Don't worry, Russian spelling gives you clues when to palatize.

Vocabulary is not too difficult to learn.  Russian has borrowed from English, French and German, so you will recognize a few words.  Russian also took a lot of words from Greek roots, so you should recognize them too.  

Since you like a Russian guy, ask him to read some of Lermontov's poems to you.

Answer 7

Russian is hard. No connection to Spanish or English. Immersion is the best choice. Two years in Moscow, at least. Otherwise it may take 3-4 years.

Answer 8

42 years

Answer 9

i speak english spanish and french it took me about 6 months to learn french the only thing i know about russian is the alphabet so if russian is as hard as they say i'm guessin it'll take u about a year

Answer 10

get rosetta stone and work real hard in 3 week you will be well on your way. and no I dont work for Rosetta Stone. Yes it does work

you go girl

Answer 11

Well, I know Spanish and English too and Russian is VERY different from them. I have studied it before and it is tough! There are a lot of things, like different cases, that are a bit different from Spanish and English. For example, you know how in Spanish you say like "yo hablo" but "para mí" and "dame" and the yo, mí and me are all like words for I just in different positions in the sentence so they change forms, well Russian has 7 different things that I could be and so does EVERY noun! In addition, there is a weird system of verbs with perfective and imperfective meanings that is kind of hard to get the hang of. Oh and you have to obviously learn a whole new alphabet, which is the easiest part probably! haha. It is a really cool language but will take you quite a while to master! Good luck!