Hi! So far I have only been learning Germanic and Romance languages, but I would like to also start studying Slavic languages.
My question now is: Which is the best Slavic language to start with, if you have a background of Germanic (English, German, Dutch etc.) and/or Romance (French, Spanish and so on) languages?
I do not only refer to the alphabet - Latin (Polish, Czech, Slowak, Croatian, …) versus Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian,…), but also to grammar (not too many difficulties and exceptions with conjugation and declination) and to vocabulary (good basis to understand and learn other Slavic languages).
I read somewhere that for that purpose the Slowak language was the best and Polish the most difficult? Can you confirm that or do you have another opinion?
Meiner Meinung nach ist es eher egal, welche slawische Sprache man als Erste lernt. Was den Wortschatz angeht, kann jede slawische Sprache eine gute Basis sein. Was die Grammatik angeht, finde ich persönlich Polnisch oder Tschechisch etwas komplizierter als Russisch oder Serbisch/Kroatisch, aber ich halte es nicht für einen entscheidenden Unterschied.
Man sagt zwar, dass Slowakisch das “Esperanto” der slawischen Sprachen sei (weil es jeder anderen slawischen Sprache einigermaßen ähnlich ist), aber es gibt nur eine begrenzte Anzahl von Lernmaterialien für Slowakisch. Zumindest in Deutschland ist es viel einfacher, Materialien für Polnisch oder Russisch zu finden.
Man nennt auch oft Bulgarisch oder Mazedonisch als eine leichtere Variante, weil diese Sprachen Fälle verloren haben (dafür gibt es aber mehr Zeitformen von Verben als in anderen slawischen Sprachen). Aber wenn man später auch andere slawische Sprachen lernen will, dann muss man sich irgendwann an Fälle gewöhnen. Da wären Bulgarisch und Mazedonisch nicht die besten Ausgangssprachen, denn man kann dabei keine Fälle lernen.
Foreigners in Czech Republic say czech is killer.
Polish friends say, foreigner is able to understand spoken language but to correctly write is another level.
Ukrainian folks say slovak language is better than czech
I’d say alphabet is still the starting point here and a Latin-based Slavic language would come relatively easier to a Germanic-Romance learner. Then I’d look at reading rules and phonetics, the number of hard to pronounce digraphs (cześć, Polski, patrzę na ciebie ). Conjugations, grammar exeptions and vocabulary closeness to other languages should be the last concern, as those are matters for more advanced learners.
I only have experience with Czech and some Russian, but I wanted to share the fact that Czech feels much more difficult to me. I don’t really know why, but my impression is that it has more complex grammar and more exceptions, and is spoken less clearly. I didn’t get deep enough into Russian to say this is valid also when getting into more advanced levels. So to me, that would suggest Russian is better. It’s also much more useful than any other Slavic language, with a lot of both native and secondary speakers.
Then another thing to consider is the amount of material there is for Russian, that doesn’t exist for other Slavic languages. This makes a language much easier to learn. For Russian there is tons of good resources.
Another thing to consider is that the first one you learn will affect the others. Most other Slavic countries don’t really like Russian. And it might be better to, say, speak Russian with a bit of a Czech touch, than the opposite. If you make Russian mistakes in Czech, some people might not like it, I guess because of history that is ingrained in the general consciousness. I wouldn’t personally care too much, but it’s something I’ve thought of.
Personally, I would probably still go with Russian, because it’s useful, I find the culture and history interesting, and I like the fact that it has a different alphabet.
I would say Polish of course Seriously I wouldn’t recommend Polish. It is often considered as one of the most difficult Slavic languages. Grammar is a bit complicated, a lot of exceptions. I suppose you would have a really hard time especially with verbs, but of course it is doable. On the other hand, once you have done Russian, Ukrainian would be a piece of cake.
I’ve studied some Russian, Croatian and Polish. The thing I like about Slavic languages is that there seem to be more loan words than there are between romance or Germanic languages.
I found that Croatian has a good orthography, whereas Polish doesn’t! In Polish you can have two differently spelled words that are pronounced the same, e.g. morze (sea) and może (he/she/it can). Also, Polish has lots of combination letters, like dz, cz, sz which I found difficult at first. The equivalents in Russian would be one cyrillic letter. In Croatian, there is never any variation in pronounciation when reading (like German for example). However, I love Polish. There are lots of resources. It’s useful as there is a big Polish diaspora. It sounds great! And you can practise the tongue twister: “W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie…”
Neither Bulgarian nor Macedonian. I am learning Macedonian, my 15th language, but my 1st Slavic language. (Although I have very basic knowledge of Polish and Croatian, I find Macedonian extremely easier, like Bulgarian.)
I could say a lot about grammar and pronunciation and whatnot…but honestly, the answer is whichever you’re passionate about. Don’t learn a language for the sake of learning it or of learning other languages
First of all, I am not expert on slavic languages although I did dabble in some in the past.
I understand your questioning but frankly, I think that there is not better slavic language to start with, as Israel Lai said, it all comes down to passion and personal preference. You might have better answers by asking yourself what is the slavic country I’m most passionate about, the culture that strikes most my attention. Maybe from that perspective, you’ll see the things differently and you’ll be willing to start your new language undertaking.
During a long time I was caught by the idea to learn the most spoken slavic language, which is russian because it could bring me more possibilities and so forth. The point is that I didn’t develop at this stage any particular interest of it. (it was mere calculations). Years later, it turned out that my interest for slavic language drew me more around the Balkan region (I’ve developed personal preferences for those slavic languages).
They all have their specificities, their difficulties and their charm.
It’s a difficult question really! I would say with any language, you need to be also interested in the wider culture…and have a clear aim as for the language learning.
My background is that I took a degree in Russian with Czech. By the time I started Czech I was probably B1 in Russian. However, I found it tricky to keep them separated and in the end I dropped Czech for 2 years and only restarted it once my Russian was at (C1) level.
I never spent more that a week or so at a time in the Czech Republic, however then I moved to Slovakia for a year to work. Slovak was therefore pretty simple to pick up, as I already had a solid basis in Russian and Czech. iIwould say that for an English native-speaker, Slovak pronunciation and grammar are more accessible than Czech (but I still love Czech too
As for other slavic languages, well it’s now not too hard for me to get a gist of others, such as Ukrainian, Polish, Croatian… with a solid basis of Russian/Czech/Slovak. I wouldn’t, however, want to try learning another ‘properly’, as I can imagine Russian just creeping in there all the time. I’m just happy to be able to understand the general gist.
Russian has also been useful for me in terms of studying Armenian and Georgian (my two little faltering projects:) as there are more resources for these via Russian, also I have been able to use Russian as a means of communication in Georgia. This was mainly with the older generation though.
). Conjugations, grammar exeptions and vocabulary closeness to other languages should be the last concern, as those are matters for more advanced learners.
Seriously I wouldn’t recommend Polish. It is often considered as one of the most difficult Slavic languages. Grammar is a bit complicated, a lot of exceptions. I suppose you would have a really hard time especially with verbs, but of course it is doable. On the other hand, once you have done Russian, Ukrainian would be a piece of cake.