Russian - is it difficult?

[Luke]

I am studying English as a fresher this year, but I am considering taking Russian and maybe even Arabic as well if possible. Could anyone tell me (honestly) is Russian a difficult language to learn? What about Arabic?

Thanks
Luke

[POOtin]

For native english speakers, russian is difficuly level 4 (out of 5) and Arabic is level 5 (and one of, if not the hardest language in the world to learn). The St Andrews russian department is very very good and the begginer course is not too intensive (you have time to do brief history and perhaps lit as well). Russian is a very beautiful language (esp when women speak it, the men tend to mumble it a little) and really not as daunting as it first looks to learn. It is an inflected language, meaning words have to agree and the endings change accordingly (sim to latin with acc, gen, inst cases etc) but tenses are easy as there only three. I find that i can understand a lot more russian than i can speak and i think this is not uncommon for russian students, so it is hard to become fluent (though there are different levels to fluency). I dont know about the arabic dept.

[ARTooD2]

Arabic isn't THAT difficult to learn...I mean I can still read arabic (not that I know what any of it means) and I haven't learned any of it since I left primary school. Anyway You cannot take Arabic and Russian together becaus they clash...

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Many Bothans died to bring you this information...

[Luke]

Quoting ARTooD2 from 11:24, 8th Sep 2005
Arabic isn't THAT difficult to learn...I mean I can still read arabic (not that I know what any of it means) and I haven't learned any of it since I left primary school. Anyway You cannot take Arabic and Russian together becaus they clash...

[hr]

Many Bothans died to bring you this information...

Well thats good that I know that they clash, I'm not really sure why I was considering it, maybe just for good ol'pretentiousness. Thanks.