Aidonian's blog

8 years ago I started learning Russian. Its not just a different language, but with different intonations, different way of speaking, different alphabet. Its been a wonderful journey that I’m on and I still enjoy it even though there are huge difficulties learning it.

Imperfective vs perfective verbs.Those are tricky. The difference is something easy between the two. Perfective verbs are used to describe the result of an action, done once, or a sequence of actions, while imperfective verbs are used to describe an action when its taking place, happening now,or happen regularly. I think that there are also exceptions to them.

The 6 cases. Russian language has 6 cases. Each case has a specific use and have specific prepositions that go with it and couple of them mix with other cases as well. Именительный падеж (Nominative): is used to describe stuff you see in a dictionary or when you start a sentence with “my son” or “my friend”. Родительный падеж (Genitive):is used to describe the amount something is, when you either posses something or don’t. Here you have to pay attention to the ending of words. чашка,мать, дочь, кошка, книга, can all end differnt than the rest when used in plural. Not just in plural but also the femenine gender. The prepositions used here are: без, мало, много, сколько, из, у, для, около, множество(een groot aantal), количество, немного немножко, немало, столько, несколко(, пара, десяток ,сотня ,дюжина ,килограм, грам ,самая малость ,чусть-чусть ,уӣм,куча. The endings change depending on the gender of the word. Male ends with “A” or if its neutral “я”. For feminine, it ends with “и” or “ы”. For numerals, the plural start after 5 to 20. For instance concerning years, its “год’а)” but after 5 its “лет”. ДАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (dative) is used when to make it clear to whom they are turning to concerning the subject: could be feelings, a direction, going over a place or going to someone. The most prepositions here are “к” or “по”. The endings for masculine is “у” or “ю”, with feminine its “e” and with plural its “ам” or “ям”. There are certain verbs that go with each case, ВИНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ACCUSITIVE): here you have to be careful, especially with masculine form where there is a difference between animate and inanimate. Inanimate form is the same as иментельный падеж and animate form is родительный падеж for the endings. Feminine doesn’t make that disctinction and ends with “у” or “ю”. Plural is the same as with родительный падеж. Thr prepositions used here are: в и на, за. This case is also used when talking about going to a place. ТВОРИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (instrumental) is in my opinion the easiest one. Why? You only have one preposition “c”. Basically when talking about profession, interests, playing something, been busy with something you use this case. The endings are easy. For masculine its “om” or “em” depending on the last letter. For feminine its “ой” or “eй” , ПРЕДЛОЖНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (prepositional) is the last one and here the endings are “e”. ПРЕДЛОЖНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ is used when talking about location where you are and the preposition used depends on whether it is outside or inside. “в” is used for inside but also for duration of time. “На” for when talking about outside. Also the preposition “о” is used to talk about a subject or person or place. Plural is “ax” or “ях”. There are also exceptions here where the ending changes to “у”for certain masculine forms”.

Verbs of motion The verbs of motion are tricky, because they tell you how you move and here you have to take into consideration the perfective and imperfective verbs and whether or not the motion is in one direction or multi direction. While that in itself is tricky to learn and use correctly, there are also exeption to it like when you are saying its snowing or its raining. That doesn’t change. Unless its in the past. Even then, to know the distinction is to memorize what and when perfective or imperfective verb is used. That depends on various things like duration, whether you like it or not, the use of adjective that describes whether the motion is once or multiple times like “always”, “usually” and so on. The verbs of motion like with the 6 cases are extremely important in the Russian language so practice them, memorize them.

Conclusion is learning Russian easy? The answer would be no. It’s hard because endings of words change depending on the context and which case is used. The stress on certain words also change and you have exceptions to exceptions sometimes. So yeah, it is difficult to learn Russian. Its a difficult language. The grammar is the hardest part of it. The 6 cases, the verbs of motion, adjectives whose endings change depending on which case, the use of masculine and feminine as neuter forms change as well because Russian has 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Before 2020 i only practiced once a week and other than that, I wasn’t extremely busy with it. Since pandemic started, I decided to focus more on learning Russian. I did made progress with it. I continue to make progress, sometimes slow steps. The fact that I know how the adjectives endings change with each case is progress, along with correct use of each case (sometimes) But to use it in a sentence, that is something else at this time. This take time and practice to do it. I have met wondeful people on this journey who have helped me – for which I’m eternally grateful for their help. The fact im this far is not out of luck or talent, but hard work and dedication. I love the language, its a rich and colourful language. I want to continue studying it. I have a good teacher who helps me through this process. For me learning languages doesn’t come natural. I have to work for it. Which is normal for any language of course.