What's the easiest Slavic language to learn?

**~~Treffie~~** · 08-24-2009, 10:55 AM

When I was about 15 I thought I'd give Serbo-Croat a try, followed by Czech and a dabble with Russian. I failed miserably on all 3 accounts mainly because the internet wasn't invented then.

Can you give me your opinions on which would be the easiest to learn? Also, can anyone provide any decent resources so that I could learn a few phrases on-line.

**Amarantine** · 08-24-2009, 11:20 AM

I heard on AF it's Slovak language! But I would like that you learn SC

**~~Treffie~~** · 08-24-2009, 01:12 PM

Of course my lady! So that I can visit you in CG?

**Amarantine** · 08-24-2009, 01:22 PM

No need to ask

**Nationalitist** · 08-24-2009, 03:14 PM

Can't say.. Probably Russian for me, I heard it's simmilar to southern Slavic languages..

Slovenian must be hard, it's very archaic, for example we have dual grammatical number (like Sorbs)

**Jarl** · 08-24-2009, 09:38 PM

Certainly not Polish coz it retained nasal vowels and 7 cases... and has the most ridiculously difficult orthography ever

**Nationalitist** · 08-24-2009, 10:21 PM

An American who moved to Slovenia is writting how hard it is to learn Slovene on his blog.. Maybe this will interest you

6. Speaking of which: How is your Slovene?

Catastrophic. Learning Slovene is a long, hard road into Hell. And it’s made worse by the fact that Slovenes rarely appreciate how difficult it is. They’ll tell you things like: “Yeah, it’s hard, huh? Pronouncing the ž and �? and everything. That’s tough.”

No, no, my friend, saying “ch” is the least of my problems. I’ll tell you what’s tough: six cases, endless gender declensions, formal and informal divisions, the dual grammatical form — all of it spoken in 32 dialects that are further divided into 76 sub-groups. That’s my definition of tough.

7. It can’t be that bad.

Well, let me give you an idea. Imagine that you want to ask someone if they’ve eaten something for lunch. In English, the phrase:

Did you eat anything?

pretty much covers every imaginable scenario. You can say that to a woman, to a man, to your pet hamster, to your boss, to a group of circus clowns, etc…

In a language like German (usually considered difficult to learn) you have three possibilities to express the same idea. You would say:

1. Hast du was gegessen? (informal)
2. Haben Sie was gegessen? (formal)
3. Habt ihr was gegessen? (plural)

In other words, German requires triple the possiblities to express the same idea. But note that the verb “to eat” (gegessen) remains the same in all three cases. Now let’s take a look at Slovene, in which everything changes depending on the number of people you’re asking, as well as their gender AND if you’re using formal or not. Behold the possibilities: (Many thanks to Blaž and Bojan for their help with this list!)

1. Si kaj jedel? (one male, informal)
2. Si kaj jedla? (one female, informal)
3. Si kaj jedlo? (neuter form, informal)
4. Sta kaj jedla? (two males, informal or formal)
5. Sta kaj jedli? (two females, informal or formal)
6. Sta kaj jedla? (one male and one female, informal or formal)
7. Ste kaj jedli? (plural, as long as at least one male is present)
8. Ste kaj jedle? (plural, females only)
9. Ste kaj jedla? (plural, neuter form)
10. Ste kaj jedli? (formal, singular form, gender unimportant)

That’s decuple the possibilities of the original English phrase. To be fair, sometimes things work in favor of Slovene. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers can be expressed by a single word: Stolpa. But basically, all words (nouns/verbs/adjectives) conjugate in a hellish variety of possibilities, making the language a very tough nut to crack.

8. Well, all Slavic languages are tough.

True. But not all Slavic languages have the brain-busting dual case, which is the real killer. In fact, none of them do — except for the nearly-extinct Sorbian.