Voice over Sydney: Russian is one of the most widely spoken native languages in Europe. It belongs to the Slavic group of the Indo-European language family. The Slavic group of languages is divided into West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Sorbian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, and Slovenian), and East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian).
Russian is one of the five official languages of the United Nations, and ranks as the major world language along with Chinese, English, Spanish and Hindi. It is the native language of 142 million citizens of the Russian Federation, the world’s largest country.
Voice Over Sydney: Russian Geographical Spread
The geographical spread of the Russian language goes far beyond Russia, as it is spoken (or at least understood) in many countries of the former USSR and it remains the key language across all of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The total number of Russian language speakers around the world is estimated to be from 255 to 285 million.
Russian has proven to be a popular language of study both because of its international prominence and its famous literature works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov, and other famous writers.
Voice Over Sydney: Where is Russian spoken in?
The majority of Russian language speakers live in the Russian Federation. Russian is also spoken in the countries of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine).
Russian is presently spoken by emigrant communities from around the world speak Russian, including the immigrants living in Israel, United States, Canada, and other countries. Besides that, Russian was historically taught to some people in Eastern Europe under the Warsaw Pact, including Bulgaria, Hungary, German Democratic Republic, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.
Is Russian language difficult to learn?
Voice Over Sydney: Is Russian difficult to learn?
Russian has the reputation of being a very difficult language to learn, and it is indeed somewhat more difficult for native English speakers than the Western European languages. Nevertheless, Russian is still easier to learn than Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic. You can either learn Russian in Russia or study individually with textbooks and free Russian lessons.
Voice Over Sydney: Is Russian difficult to learn?
The Russian alphabet may initially seem intimidating because of the Cyrillic characters it contains. The alphabet originated from the 9th century. Its creators were two missionaries from Greece, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who based it largely on the Greek.
Apprehension about the Cyrillic alphabet is, in fact, one of the most frequently given reasons for not studying Russian. Of course, the Russian alphabet differs from the English one a lot, but it is not at all difficult to learn. By the way, a number of letters are written and pronounced approximately the same as in English. The alphabet can be mastered in under a week or less. Besides that, Russian spelling system is far more straightforward and simple as compared to English.
