Your average westerner would not survive a year even in the Moscow burbs.
Not to mention that government policies,visas, and residency requirements regarding foreigners change every time the winds blows. And those changes come in official Russian language documents only.
The US foreign service classifies Russian language as a category 4 difficulty for English speakers on a scale of 5. Don't believe the bullshit you've heard, there is no English spoken or written in Russia outside of a few urban neighborhoods.
The US foreign service classifies Russian language as a category 4 difficulty for English speakers on a scale of 5
To put this in perspective for those who haven't ever learned a non romance or germanic language, it takes approximately three times as long for a native English speaker to learn Russian as it does to learn Spanish. Now, things like passion for the language, high motivation, etc can make the extra difficultly feel like a small bump in the road, but I think many normies who have only ever been exposed to learning Spanish, French, or German don't truly grasp how much more difficult it can get.
I am learning Polish, which is even more grammatically complex than Russia--albeit not by much. I've been learning Polish for 7 years, immersed and speaking everyday and I still have only just now made it into the C-level. Slavic languages are HARD for english speakers. I only needed 2 years to get to the C-level in German.
Most Americans and Brits are completely ignorant of how complex a language can actually be and wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of learning Russian.
The US foreign service classifies Russian language as a category 4 difficulty for English speakers on a scale of 5
Weird, the DoD had it as a 3/5 along with Farsi and Korean (North); Pashto, Arabic, and Chinese were 4s, Tagalog was a 2, and the Romance languages were 1s. I dont' think I even saw a 5, so perhaps they're using a different scale entirely, or they re-scaled things at some point.
We lived in Russia for years, 2003-2008.
Your average westerner would not survive a year even in the Moscow burbs. Not to mention that government policies,visas, and residency requirements regarding foreigners change every time the winds blows. And those changes come in official Russian language documents only.
The US foreign service classifies Russian language as a category 4 difficulty for English speakers on a scale of 5. Don't believe the bullshit you've heard, there is no English spoken or written in Russia outside of a few urban neighborhoods.
To put this in perspective for those who haven't ever learned a non romance or germanic language, it takes approximately three times as long for a native English speaker to learn Russian as it does to learn Spanish. Now, things like passion for the language, high motivation, etc can make the extra difficultly feel like a small bump in the road, but I think many normies who have only ever been exposed to learning Spanish, French, or German don't truly grasp how much more difficult it can get.
I am learning Polish, which is even more grammatically complex than Russia--albeit not by much. I've been learning Polish for 7 years, immersed and speaking everyday and I still have only just now made it into the C-level. Slavic languages are HARD for english speakers. I only needed 2 years to get to the C-level in German.
Most Americans and Brits are completely ignorant of how complex a language can actually be and wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of learning Russian.
Weird, the DoD had it as a 3/5 along with Farsi and Korean (North); Pashto, Arabic, and Chinese were 4s, Tagalog was a 2, and the Romance languages were 1s. I dont' think I even saw a 5, so perhaps they're using a different scale entirely, or they re-scaled things at some point.
The DoD must be saving 5 for the extraterrestrial languages.