Do Not Study Russian Grammar!

You might not believe me but I am testament to the fact that if you want to learn Russian, throw away the grammar books and you'll make massive progress very quickly. Grammar holds you back in the beginning of your language journey so hold off until you are much further down the road towards Russian fluency.

[bennysshenanigans]

Englishman walks through Belarusian city with an israel t shirt on talking about the russian language.

[kingapri]

As a native Russian speaker I agree about focusing on vocab. The language is very flexible. The different ends you put on most words are the same, but like he said there are a few. You can talk like Yoda and sound normal in Russia

[IgorRyltsev]

Only a British lady got mad at me for asking for a tissue instead of napkin.
Russian speakers really don't care about grammar when talking to foreigners. Maybe if you were to meet a PHD in linguistics and Russian literature... Those guys get upset, the only thing they know in life is grammar 😆🤣

[andrejmucic]

True that! A foreigner that knows perfect grammar is spy!

[karimfrmrussia]

I am Russian, and I approve this message!

[tonyandcathie]

I am a retired 76 year-old and this guy reminds me of the years I spent at school learning Russian. After all that time, the only thing that remains with me is the vocabulary, and I can more-or-less follow the conversations. Which proves his point. For all sorts of reasons over the years, I have studied and lived with French, Spanish, Arabic and Afrikaans, all in addition to the Russian, and I think the main lessons have been: 1. Not knowing the right word will kill a conversation, while not knowing the grammar adds to your attraction as a foreigner. 2. No-one composes a new sentence from scratch - it’s all mostly cliches. If you are tying yourself in knots trying to work out the grammar of a sentence, you are not speaking the language as a native as they mostly avoid complicated constructions. Just learn the cliches and exclamations and you will be right 90% of the time. If you learn to say some quotations, words of songs or proverbs reasonably well, no-one will know how much you know of the language. 3. Don’t be afraid - open your mouth and speak! Hesitate, mumble and stutter if you must, but try to keep going. In the end you will get the rhythm of the language, and once you have that, the words will sort themselves out. Repeat what people say to you all the time - always repeat the question. 4. Use your body to supplement your words: point, make faces, act out the point you are trying to make. It’s a bit like doing your own sign-language while you talk, and it helps people understand you better.

[fullboreraw]

Another top tip here that may help the discouraged...I've been living in Ukraine, Russian-speaking part - for 12 years. I'm a Brit. Me Russian is more than conversational but definitely not 'accurate'. I've not studied it academically but I did casually study it to some extent, early doors when I moved over. What I'd say is that the extent to which you need to worry about grammar depends on your aim and your 'pride' in not sounding weird, but mostly to avoid ambiguity. In Russian the ending changes help to pin point precise meaning so without changing them, or by changing them wrongly, it can sometimes cause ambiguity - but mostly not, since the context and accompanying gesticulations are usually enough to clear that up! But for example they are used to distinguish between object and subject in a sentence and if you don't do it, it makes it difficult for them to get what you mean. The good news is that there are some aspects of Russian that are easier than English - no articles, fewer tenses, largely phonetic and basically no fixation with the verb 'to be' most of the time. Also they have a lot of borrowed words from French, German, Latin/Greek which can help out. If you learn the alphabet, not difficult as Bald says here, it's surprising how many words you'll recognise when you start reading directions, public notices and so on. The words for things like toilet, bus, shower, hotel room, telephone, cafe, coffee, tea, sugar and so on will all be familiar to speakers of European languages. The bigger issue, if you have the vocab you need, is the pronunciation - by which I'm specifically referring to the stressed syllable. This is close to critical. Getting this wrong renders your language very difficult to understand, as it does in English actually. But my top tip vis a vis the endings, once you're reasonably confident you have the right word and, hopefully, the right stress, is to mumble! I'm not kidding! When I started mumbling in the shops, early doors, rather than trying to articulate perfectly, the number of times I had to repeat myself dropped dramatically! Just let the ending of the word tale off into the ether and they'll fill in the gaps in their mind! That's another slight issue with the way foreign languages are taught...there's a kind of 'model' pronunciation that's held up as sacrosanct but actually that's not how people speak!

[bmodby]

"There's one reason russian is considered difficult to learn, and that reason is... Russian Grandma."

[MrMitror]

I am a native Russian.
And I approve it. Hi is right. Listen to him guys.

[bohm]

Me as a Czech, I have absolutely no problem to learn russian grammar...It's very similar to what we use in the Czech Republic :) That's one of the good things, when you are a native slavic language speaker, then you will find all the other european languages very easy and not that much complicated. Not counting hungarian, finnish, basque though :)

[alrumuller]

He has a point. Take English as an example.
“The boy throws the ball” is the proper way, but if you’re not a native English speaker or starting to learn English, saying “boy throw ball” would be perfectly understood.
Language interpretation comes down to contextual factors as well.
In my native language of Afrikaans, we have a saying that roughly translates to “A good listener only needs half a word”, and that really rings true when someone is speaking a broken language.

[lerymisandari]

Yes. If you don't know grammar we realize that you are a foreigner. But we will understand 95% of what you say)) grammar just allows you to put words wherever you want and not to depend on sequence of words in your sentence.

[warrioromarzthefirst]

I’m from Scotland
Plan is learn Russian
Go to Russia and drink with the locals
5year plan

[jointscript]

Can we take a moment to appreciate how wonderful and cosy residential area he is walking thru

[part]

For me there is just one rule when learning a language. "Do it like a baby". Listen to music, watch movies listen to people and try to repeat what they said. This way you will be able to use grammar more intuitively and it'll work out just fine. (thats how i learned english and russian. I don't know anything about english grammar btw. and i'm austrian!)

[CraftVader]

you ever just walk around wearing a shirt with the Israeli flag and nothing else?

[vladmakarov]

I am fluent in both Russian and English language and I would give you a pass as a gopnik

[tryingtodogood]

Person: English
T-shirt: Israel
Country: Belarus
Language: Russian
Hotel: Trivago

[BL-ziwb]

"The luxury of moving to Belarus" Only Bald would describe that as a luxury lol

[kaba_me]

This is actually the proper way to learn a language.
Think about it... Do 5 year old children know grammar?