... in response to how russian ukaine language , posted by kevin c on Nov 3, 2003Russian is indeed a very difficult language. It has grammar up the ying-yang... including tons of grammatical concepts that English doesn't have.
If you were to *live* in Russia and use it full-time, you could probably speak it poorly after three months, good in six months, and really well in a year.
The best single investment you can make is "How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own" by Barry M. Farber. He speaks many languages fluently and says some things about learning languages that I have found to be right on the mark.
If you're going to study on your own in the USA, plan on devoting at least an hour a day it...and don't skip any days. If you do this consistently, you can probably have a pretty good grasp of the language in a couple of years.
The best place to get started is Pimsleur. It's a series of audio courses available on tape or MP3. There's 90 half-hour lessons in all, and you'll need to do each one two or three times (unless you learn faster than me). If you can devote 60 to 90 minutes a day on this, you'll be speaking a significant amount of Russian in only three months. Pimsleur is a little expensive, though... if you buy all 90 lessons (three courses of 30 lessons each) at once, you can get them for around $700. However, if you're less than ethical, there are people on the internet that sell pirated versions of Pimsleur in mp3 format for about $25. Even if you pay the full price, Pimsleur is worth it. You'll be amazed with your progress. I had only done Pimsleur when I landed in Russia the first time and could get around OK, buy tickets, talk to the desk people at hotels, argue with the dumbass immigration people at the airport, etc.
Especially if your time is limited... doing the 90 days of Pimsleur will help you out a lot in Russia.
Pimsleur doesn't do a good job of teaching you to read or write, though.
DON'T take a class. Classes are a waste of time. It is better to study on your own than take a class.
I agree with AJ277 that learning Ukranian is probably a waste of time. I've never been to Ukraine (only Russia), but I have heard that Russia is the main language in most big cities, and even in the places that speak mainly Ukranian... you can get along fairly well with Russian.
I spent a month in a language immersion program in Moscow that helped me out a lot. Immersion is really the way to go, but few people can take time out of their lives for three to six months to really learn to speak it. If you can do it, though, that's the way to go.
I've been studying Russian for about a year and I can have simple conversations about simple concepts. I have a vocabulary of around a thousand words. I make a lot of grammatical mistakes and use incorrect noun and verb forms a lot, but native speakers can figure out what I am trying to say.
Russian is really a beautiful language and it gets even more fascinating with time... but it is not a simple undertaking.
