If you're not familiar with the Russian language, there are a ton of fun facts and tidbits that make it unique. As the most popular Eurasian language, Russian has a deep history and lots of fun quirks. This language is known for being rich and complex, and it's especially relevant in the literary world. There are so many aspects that make Russian a wonderful choice for a second language. Read more about them below.
10 Fun Facts About the Russian Language
- Russian is the the 5th most spoken language in the world, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding someone to talk to if you’re learning. With 160 million citizens of Russia, there’s no shortage of native speakers.
- All adjectives in this language have multiple syllables. That means describing things may take longer than you think.
- Russian words are super long. Most words in the language have 10 or more letters! Many of them are even longer. They can reach up to 38 letters in length.
- Even though the words are longer (especially compared to English), there are much fewer of them in this language. There are only about 200,000 Russian words. So, you’ll have to get creative when expressing yourself in this language.
- The verb “to be” only exists in the past and future tense. That makes talking about the present a little tricky. So, you won’t use a Russian equivalent of “is” or “am.” If it seems confusing at first, don’t worry. It’ll just take some practice to get used to!
- Compared to English, sentence structure is almost meaningless in Russian. Instead, Russian places a much greater focus on conjugation.
- You may have noticed that other languages have different styles or dialects. The same is true with this Slavic language. There are three separate styles for this tongue. High Style is used for poetics and religion. For lyric poetry or science, you'll use the second one: Middle Style. Last, Low Style is for everyday speaking and in low comedy.
- Stressing different parts of a Russian word can change its entire meaning! Since the amount of words are in short supply, changing the pronunciation of one part of the word make it mean something else.
- Did you know that Russian words almost never start with the letter “A”? If you hear any, those words actually came from another language!
- Lastly, Russian is the language of astronauts! If going to space is one of your dreams, you'll have to learn Russian first. One of NASA's requirements is that astronauts need to learn the basics of the language.
Learning a new language can be like a fun puzzle. It's challenging, but so worth it in the end! Start learning Russian or help your child learn with a beginner's book.
Sources:
https://educalanguageschool.com/10-weird-facts-about-the-russian-language