Discussion
I had lessons for 3 years when I worked in Baku - its not as difficult as you might initially think, once you've learned to read the alphabet some of the words "sound" similar to English.
I guess like with all things its about how much effort you make and the quality of the teaching.....
I guess like with all things its about how much effort you make and the quality of the teaching.....
zac510 said:
Kak dela.
Zdravstvuitye. Dela u menya otlichny. 
OP, it's complex but not ludicrously difficult gramatically; the alphabet is a challenge at first but is broadly phonetic - so once you know what sounds the different letters stand for, you're sorted.
The real problem for me when I started learning it was that it's an inflected language - similar to German in that nouns have 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), 2 numbers (singular and plural) and 6 cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional) so adjectives, verbs etc. have to agree on all 3 of these dimensions... This is all conveyed by changing the ending of the words. As a native speaker of a mainly non-inflected language like English, sorting that out was a major headache!
Ultimately though, if you speak German you'll have a head start on understanding the basics of the grammatical structure. In fact, if you ever did Latin at school you'll recognise some of the concepts.
Probably not the best idea.
Lefty 200 Drams said:
So...anyone here speak it? Is it as difficult as it looks? How complex is the grammar?
Spasiba tovarish
Did it at school for two years and got an A at GCSE.Spasiba tovarish
It's not too bad, but being Greek I was already used to a different kind of alphabet so that certainly helped. Once you have gotten over that I wouldn't necessarily rate it as any harder than German or French (which I also did to GCSE level - A* in both).
I really enjoyed doing Russian and it's certainly a bit more interesting than the standard stuff done at school. If you get the chance - give it a go!
As with all my langauages (apart from Greek which I did to A Level and continue to speak to this day), I think it's a real shame that I didn't keep them up in some way or another. A recent trip to Paris allowed me some practice at VERY rusty French and that was quite enjoyable (same with Morocco a few months earlier).
- considers getting out old school books for refresher*
rhinochopig said:
My wife did it at school, and spent some time over there on an exchange. It's a very useful language to know if you're ever in Greece - helps you read the signs apparently 
There are a few shared characters, but not so many that imo it would be a great aid. But then again, if you are comparing it to a baseline of no knowledge, I suppose 'every little helps'.
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