Would majoring in Russian be extremely difficult?

Question

I want to know how difficult it is to major in Russian in college. I don't know any Russian, but i am very interested in the culture and language.

I know i want to major in a foreign language for sure.

and i have to be interested in the language and culture to learn the language.

I am hesitant because i am afraid that learning a whole new alphabet will be impossible for me.

I know basic swedish but i dont think that it will help me at all with Russian, and i dont think being fluent in English will either.

Answer 1

You'd have to take so many Russian courses, then of course you'd have to take English, too.

For instance, I was a biology major, so I had to have 39+ biology credits, then I had to have chemistry, physics, and so on.  But I also had to have writing, and history, etc.

So, you'll probably take Russian Language, Russian history, Russian Culture, English, American (or British/Canadian wherever you're from) History, maybe a math.  But about 1/3 of your credits would be based on Russia if not more.

Answer 2

I am planning to minor in Russian from scratch along with Spanish. I know hardly any Russian but I can read Cyrillic, which is the alphabet used by Russian. It's really not so difficult at all, in fact many speakers of Russian, both native and otherwise, have said that is the least difficult part of Russian. Other than the alphabet barrier, learning Russian is like learning any other language. In some cases it is supposed to be easier, for example in the present tense there is no verb "to be", which often stumps beginners in other languages as this verb tends to be irregular. Hope this helped!

Answer 3

Russian alphabets aren't really difficult as you thought it be. It's kinda like a mixture of English/Latin Alphabets and Greek. Russian has 33 alphabets and their pronunciation isn't the same like English. For example "e" is pronounced "Ye", B is not "B" like English it's "Ve" etc etc.

If you're really interested to learn Russian, you better get familiar with the Alphabets first and their pronunciations. Plus, Russian grammar is kinda complex, but of course, not impossible to learn.

Good luck! ^^

Answer 4

You can do it! The Russian alphabet isn't nearly as difficult as it may seem; I memorised it in only a few weeks just by looking at Cyrillic articles online and practicing transliterations, watching films about Russia with Cyrillic signs and the like in the background, etc.

Now I'm learning the language itself with a few books, tapes, CDs and software. Just go for it, and try to learn a little before entering the class so things won't seem too confusing and/or frightening when you first start off.

Another thing (irrelevant I know) is that you should try and read "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, he makes up a sort of slang version using Russian words that the characters use when they speak, they aren't the exact words but the Russian roots are the same (Govoreet=Govorit in Russian, Slooshey=Slushiy in Russian, etc.) and I found it a bit easier to learn basic Russian words after reading the book (You might also want an index if you ever read the book :P)

It's not as hard as it looks, good luck! :D

Answer 5

You are correct that knowing Swedish or English is no help when it comes to learning Russian.

The Russian alphabet is the least of your worries when learning Russian. It's only 33 characters and you'll know all of them within weeks of starting. I could read Russian perfectly within 6 months of starting. By "read" I don't mean "understand" (as in: I didn't know all the words I was reading), but "decipher", as in I could read it as if it was Latin script.

Russian grammar will be your major hurdle here. Each noun and adjective in the language features inflection in 6 separate cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, prepositional, and instrumental. There are a few more that are used in specific cases and are vestiges of Old Russian.

You have to use a different case depending where the word is within the structure of the sentence or depending on what you mean. The adjective agrees with the noun.

Nouns may come in 3 genders: masculine, feminine, and neutral.

"Standard" word order (which is SVO) can be changed to emphasize a certain meaning in what you're saying which the SVO word order would not convey.

99% of Russian verbs come in two aspects and you have to use one or the other aspect to convey what you wish to say in order to be understood. For the most part the two aspects of one verb don't conjugate the same way, which is a lot of fun.

Why don't you try starting to learn it by yourself before you start in college? http://www.masterrussian.com is a pretty good resource for beginners.

You could also read Wikipedia's thorough article on Russian grammar to give you an idea of what you're getting into:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gra...

After all that I hope you aren't discouraged. Learning Russian is indeed hard but not ridiculous, and it is rewarding. It's interesting, it opens a world of awesome literature to you (granted you, can read a lot of it in your native language but isn't it more fun to read it in the original language?), and if you have an interest in Russian culture, then understanding the language is primordial. I don't believe you can truly understand a culture without knowing its language.

Answer 6

The Cyrillic alphabet is easy.  You already know a lot of the letters because they are similar to Latin letters (like we use in writing English) or similar to Greek letters (like we use in math, science, fraternities and sororities) for example the letter for "G" is like the Greek letter Gamma: "Γ".

"Γ" is always hard, like in golf or girl.  never like giraffe.

The "C" is always soft, like in scissor, cyst, cede, cycle.  Use "K" for the hard sound, like car, cake, king.  Now you've got the soft sound covered by "C", so you don't need the "S".

For the "P" sound use something that looks like the Greek "Pi" or "π".  Now you don't need "P", so use "P" for the "R" sound and you can get rid of "R".

Use a backwards "R" for the "ya" sound that often occurs at the end of country names like Russia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, etc....

It wont take long at all to learn the alphabet.

By the way, in eastern Europe countries where Catholicism is strong, they use the Latin alphabet (like us).  In countries where the Eastern Orthodox religion is strong, they use Cyrillic.

Answer 7

Russian actually is one of the hardest languages to learn but it's possible and not EXTREMELY difficult.

Native Russian:)