German or Russian?

Im Interested in both and will learn both eventually but which one to start off with?

The one that looks more interesting to you.

To put it bluntly, it’s difficult to give a detailed answer without knowing your interests, knowledge, and other reasons. I learned German when I was younger because family reasons and my grandparents escaped the Soviets and survived the Nazi regime.

Today I am learning Russian because it just clicked and made sense to me, and there are quite a few people from the former USSR settled in my city.

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If you’re 100% committed to learning them both…well…I guess it doesn’t matter so much which you start with?

You could start with the more difficult one first (that’d be Russian!) so that German would be easier by comparison when you get to it.

Or just pick one out of a hat! :slight_smile:

If I lived in the US, I think I’d definitely concentrate on learning Mexican Spanish - just to annoy the hell out of big bad Donald! :smiley:

Questions…are you skilled/experienced at learning languages? Which has practical use for you soonest? German is easier for an English speaker, but not easy compared to Spanish. Both Russian and German decline nouns. The Russian alphabet adds another layer of complexity.i played with Russian and German, and decided on Italian for travel, (already speak French and Spanish), reached A2, and will start on German in a month. Use Duolingo with both, do some lingq lessons, see which you like best. Motivation is the most important factor in your success.

Watching Narcos on Netflix is a much better reason, besides the latest wave of Oaxacans don’t always speak Spanish.

German is closer to English and has two fewer gramatical cases with ending to remember. But it depends on interest and whether you like diving in at the deep end.

I think all North Americans who call themselves polyglots should at least develop a passive understanding of French and Spanish. It’s so easy to use one or the other basically anywhere. Tired of people comparing the US/Canada to Europe and saying we’re disadvantaged at becoming polyglots.

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German

It’s easier, the contemporary culture isn’t a big leap from our own, and it’ll let you know if learning languages is the hobby for you.

I’m a bit tired of the myth of European polyglottery. For example,

I don’t see anything like this anywhere I have been in Europe.

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My parents are from italy and I speak italian welll i work in fashion marketing and already picked up some french so logically i would would want to learn german for business in europe but there are alot more russians in my town plus russian is cool

Seems to me Russian would suit you best, since it’s a frequent spoken language in your town and you think it’s cool ^^

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Before you said you speak Italian, I was going to suggest Esperanto. The (disputed) fact that learning Esperanto+L2 is faster than just learning L2 should easily be the strongest motivation for most to learn it, imo. At this point I personally have very little motivation to learn it, since I’ve already learned a language to a high level.

What’s more important to you, business or the cool factor?

Also, neat you speak Italian. I don’t hear about Italian being spoke very much in the States, due to most of the Italians rapidly assimilating.

Season 2 tomorrow :slight_smile:

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They are both pretty hard in my opinion, but both are great languages and very useful. They are not related so learning one won’t affect the other.

I’ve never been to russia but germany is pretty much my favorite country ever.

One thing I would advise learners of either language to do (based on my own past experience as a full time student of German, and more recently with some private Russian study) is to LEARN THE CASE PATTERNS BY HEART!

In the case (pun intended!) of Russian, this means learning the adjective and noun endings together. Preferably it should be done in an audio-only way by listening over and over to recordings by a native speaker, IMO. It might be pretty painful, but the dividends will be huge!

I know this isn’t the Steve K way of doing things. But I personally have found that heavily inflected languages just become so much more transparent if one has a “hard core” of basic grammatical knowledge to stand on.

I realise also that this isn’t how native speakers learn. However they are starting with a linguistic blank canvas, so to speak. And they have years of complete immersion in a family environment before they even start speaking - and years more of immersion among sympathetic adults at kindergarten, etc, before they reach any kind of proficiency.

As an adult learner, these languages (and any other complex case-inflected language) would surely remain horribly foggy and obscure for a very long time, if one would attempt to assimilate this grammar purely through passive learning!?

for some reason russian has become a very chic and fashionable language to learn .german does not have the same appeal to many people but that should not be the reason you choose one over the other choose. the one you see yourself speaking

Another real point of difficulty about German (one perhaps often overlooked) is getting to grips with the word order - especially in subordinate clauses. During my first months in Germany, I remember going through a phase where I had the cases pretty well at my fingertips, but still couldn’t fluently spew out stuff like: “Er hat es ihr nicht gesagt, weil er es ja zu dem Zeitpunkt nicht hätte wissen können”.

It does come together eventually (well ALMOST anyway…! :-0)

Burn him at the stake!!!

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Huh?..Ach so!..Du meinst wegen Ketzerei…?

(It actually took me 3 or 4 seconds to get that! :-D)