How does Russian compare to other Slavic languages in difficulty

Russian is considered one of the more challenging Slavic languages to learn when compared to other Slavic languages. This is due to several factors including its complex grammar, extensive use of cases, rich morphology, and variable word order. While all Slavic languages share some common features such as the use of cases and verb aspects, Russian is often noted for its relatively high level of syntactic complexity and lexical richness. Additionally, Russian has a significant amount of inflectional morphology affecting nouns, adjectives, and verbs, creating a steep learning curve for non-native speakers.

Compared to other Slavic languages:

• East Slavic languages (e.g., Ukrainian, Belarusian) are somewhat similar and generally easier for Russian speakers to learn due to shared vocabulary and grammar.
• West Slavic languages (e.g., Polish, Czech) and South Slavic languages (e.g., Serbian, Bulgarian) differ more substantially in pronunciation, grammar, and syntax, potentially making them harder for speakers of Russian, but this depends on the learner’s native language and linguistic background.
• Russian’s complexity also comes from its flexible word order, a feature that is common in Slavic languages but particularly pronounced in Russian.

In general, Slavic languages are more difficult for English speakers, with Russian often ranked higher in difficulty among them due to its morphological and phonological complexities as well as its Cyrillic script. However, the difficulty of learning any Slavic language will depend on an individual learner’s prior language experience, exposure, and motivation. ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

References

• Introduction: Teaching Slavic Languages and Cultures

• Insights from Russian second language readability classification: complexity-dependent training requirements, and feature evaluation of multiple categories

• Russian

• Slavic languages – “SVO” languages without SVO qualities?

• Linguistic complexity of South Slavic dialects: a new perspective on old data

• Succeeding in Foreign Language Study: Teachers and Students Standpoints

• Psychological and linguistic features of the Russian language acquisition by international students

• Intermediary languages at the stage of pre-university training

• Problems of learning Russian as a foreign language in a distance format at the pre-university stage

• The syntactic complexity of Russian relative clauses

• A new life with a new language: Russophone immigrants’ reflections about language learning

• MODERN ASPECTS OF STUDYING RUSSIAN TERMINOLOGY BY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AT THE PREPARATORY DEPARTMENT IN A TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

• Synergetic Approach to the Formation of the Normalized Tempo-Rhythmical Organization of Speech in the Russian Language as a Foreign Language of Bilingual Children

• Overcoming non-linguistic barriers to effective speaking in Russian adult ESP classroom

• Lexical production and innovation in child and adult Russian Heritage speakers dominant in English and Hebrew

• Diagnosing Barriers In Foreign Language Acquisition

• A Comparative Study of Educational Texts for Native, Foreign, and Bilingual Young Speakers of Russian: Are Simplified Texts Equally Simple?