You might assume that as Russian isn’t one of the most widely spoken languages throughout the world, there isn’t much interesting to know about it. However that is not the case at all. In fact if you know any Russian or decide to learn it then you’ll soon see that there is lots to know about this language.

The History of Russian

It is only quite recently that we were able to date Russian back as far as the 11th century. In the year 2000 we discovered the Novgoord Codex was discovered. This ancient Russian book was just 4 wax pages long and it allowed us to date back the use of the Russian language to the 11th century.

Speaking Russian

You might assume that not many people speak Russian just because it is not a language that you hear talked about every day. However when you consider that the Russian Federation speaks Russian as its official language and has a population of over 140 million people, you’ll see that it is actually much more popular than you think. This language is also spoke in places such as Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Tongue Twisters

Much like other languages there are a couple of fun and popular tongue twisters in the Russian language. Whether you’re just learning Russian or you can already speak it fluently you’ll have fun trying to pronounce these without any mistakes. Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку meaning

Sasha walked down the avenue and sucked a biscuit and На дворе трава, на траве дрова; не руби дрова на траве двора meaning there is grass in the yard, there are logs on the grass, don’t chop the logs on the grass of the yard.

Politeness in Russian

In Russian it is important that you know the difference between a formal and an informal you, as this is something that is quite important to them. When you are first introduced to someone you should use the more formal word for you Вы and after that you can switch to ты when you know them much better.

Russian uses a different alphabet to English which means that it can be harder to learn compared to languages such as Spanish and Italian but that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Simply put the hard work in and you can learn it without too much difficulty (hopefully)