About the Russian Language

Russian is the official language of Russia, and is spoken as the first language by over 160 million people (including those living in the former Soviet Republics). Many people also learn Russian as a second language in schools located in the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In addition, Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations (along with English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic).

The Russian language belongs to the East Slavic branch of the Slavic subfamily of Indo-European languages. Other languages in this group include Ukrainian and Belorussian. Linguists believe that the Slavic languages have retained the features of the original Proto-Indo-European language to a much greater extent than have the Romance and Germanic languages. The spoken Slavic languages show a great deal of similarity to each other, although some are written in the Cyrillic alphabet and others in the Latin alphabet.

Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is based on the Greek alphabet, with the addition of several letters borrowed from Hebrew to represent sounds that do not exist in Greek. The Cyrillic alphabet is thought to have been introduced by the Greek missionaries Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century. The original written language in those early times was called Old Church Slavonic.

The first documents written in Russian, rather than Old Church Slavonic, date back to the 11th century. By the 13th century, one can notice differences between Russian and Ukrainian; and by the 16th century, Belorussian appears as a separate language.

Many Russian vocabulary words have entered the English language-- politburo, vodka, borshcht, tsar, steppe, and tundra, to name just a few.

False Friends!

When you are trying to learn Russian, one thing to watch out for is false cognates. Cognates are tricky, because they are words that have almost the same spelling and meaning in two different languages. There are a handful of Russian vocabulary words that can fool you because they resemble English but contain very different meanings. False cognates are common when one attempts learning German as well.

Here are some examples: the Russian word replica means "report" or "stage cue." The word is actually means "from" in Russian! And the Russian word sam is pronounced just like the English word "some," but means "by himself."

Formal and Informal Address

There are two forms of address in Russian, the polite second person plural vy and the familiar second person singular ty. Unless the person you are addressing is a small child, it is considered rude to use the familiar form when first meeting someone. Always use the polite form of address until you are invited to switch to the familiar. The invitation to do so is a sign that your friendship has reached a warmer, more intimate level.

Russian Grammar Stumpers!

Many people who are learning to speak Russian agree that one of the most difficult aspects of the Russian to master is the correct placement of stress within words. The stress is mobile, and does not follow strict rules. In the Russian language, nouns (as well as adjectives, and most pronouns) decline in six cases. Because Russian is highly inflected, the word order in sentences is fluid (unlike in English). The declined endings of Russian nouns identify the subject and the direct and indirect objects, as well as other meanings.

Russian verbs possess a feature called "aspect." The aspect can be perfective or imperfective, showing perpetual action and action that is completed. A variety of prefixes that help create perfective verbs can let a single Russian verb convey shades of meaning that frequently require several words in an English translation, or defy translation altogether.

Because the Russian alphabet is so different from the English letters, and because Russian pronunciation is fairly difficult to master, regular practice is necessary to learn to speak Russian well. It's easier than ever to learn Russian and to begin to speak Russian with the language resources and software from Transparent Language. With Learn Russian Now!, Complete Russian, and our other language learning products, you will speak Russian, learn Russian phrases, conjugate Russian verbs, understand Russian grammar, and master Russian pronunciation quickly. Good luck with your Russian language learning!