The Surprising Things Russian Does Better Than English

The Surprising Things Russian Does Better Than English

I've spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of learning Russian, but in this episode I'm doing something different. I'm talking about the things my analytical brain genuinely appreciates about the Russian language.

From its phonetic alphabet to the way word endings reveal whether you're looking at a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb, I share why learning Russian has actually made me realize just how strange English can be.

If you've ever been frustrated by Russian, this episode is a reminder that every language has its strengths—and sometimes the things that seem difficult at first become the things you appreciate the most.

Спасибо, что послушали Russian One Mistake at a Time. 

 До следующей ошибки.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have always been and will continue to be a terrible speller in English. I know this because when I was in university, I used to get extra time on my tests, basically like time and a half, because of a learning disability related to sensory processing issues. Now, in order to get approved for this extra time, I had to undergo a psychoeducational assessment with a certified professional. The test confirmed that I did indeed need extra time. I tested in the 97th percentile for math, but only when the tests were not timed. As soon as there was a time restraint, my scores would drop. But what I found shocking, and to be honest, just a tiny bit hilarious, was the result I got for my spelling skills. When the doctor was sitting across from me, reading the results, I could see her paper. Even though it was upside down, one number jumped out at me. It was my score for spelling. It was seven. As in seventh percentile. When compared to other people with a similar education as myself, 93% of people would be better at spelling than me. When I saw it, I literally stopped her mid-sentence because she hadn't even gotten that far down the page yet. And I said, wait, does that say seven for spelling? So when I say I'm bad at spelling, I mean it. And spell check literally changed my life. Though there are still occasions when even spellcheck is confused and unable to figure out what I'm trying to spell. So today I want to talk about some of the things that my analytical brain truly appreciates about Russian, starting with the alphabet. Russian uses a phonetic alphabet, and though there are things that can change the sound of some of the letters, like soft signs, stress, and devoicing, most of that, once you understand the concepts, is fine. And because Russian uses a phonetic alphabet, the Russian language doesn't vary the way that English does. English has many different accents, and some are even quite difficult to understand, even as an English speaker. Russian is Russian, no matter where you go. Also, English uses multiple letters to make the same sound. For example, the sound f, what we think of as f in English can be simply f, it could be a double f, it could be a ph, it could be a gh, or even a double f followed by an e. So why do we need five different ways to make the same sound? Especially because we already have a letter F that makes that sound. I learned something recently that kind of blew my mind, but after I thought about it, it totally made sense. Do you remember spelling bees from when you were a child? I just assumed that for every child in the world, this had been part of their childhood. But when talking about them with Russian-speaking friends, to my shock, they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and basically looked at me like I was crazy. But after I thought about it, it made complete sense. One of the reasons spelling bees make sense in English is that you often can't reliably sound words out from the spelling alone. They need to be memorized. When you watch one of those high-level competitions, you will see the students thinking about their answer and then asking questions like, what is the word origin? Can they give the word in a sentence? And this is because English has so many different ways of making the same sounds. In addition, we have different words with completely different meanings that sound exactly the same. Think about the word no, as in no. If we add a W to the end, no becomes now. But if we also add a K, then it goes back to being no. So not only do we have multiple letter combinations that make the same sound, but we also have silent letters. We have words that contain letters, but we don't actually pronounce the letter. We ignore it. We make it silent. So why is it there? Now I'm sure there is some historical reason why it's there, but I still think it's completely unnecessary. So in Russian, I feel like a spelling superstar. Seriously, finally, for once in my life, I can spell like an actual adult. The only mistake I'm likely to make in Russian would be missing a soft sign or putting it in the wrong place. But this comes down to my ability to hear the difference between the soft and hard consonant, which I still struggle with. But I find the placement of the soft sign, if I know one is there, is pretty intuitive. The second thing that I truly appreciate about the Russian language is the different types of words have specific endings. If you showed me a new word I had never seen before, and you showed it to me in its infinitive or nominative form, I would obviously not know its meaning, but I would most likely know what kind of word it was without needing any context. By that I mean is it a verb, is it a noun? Is it an adjective or an adverb? Not 100% of the time, but most of the time I would know. It's because Russian words are fairly predictable. Very often the endings give you a strong clue about what kind of word you're looking at. Now imagine you're learning English and you see the word book. You think about that for a second. What kind of word is book? If you think you know, you're wrong. Because without context, there's no way of identifying which type of word I mean. I could mean book as in a noun, like I have a book, but I could also have meant book as an adjective, like I'm going to the bookstore. Or maybe I meant book as a verb, like I need to book a ticket. Imagine how confused you would be upon learning this, because you also learned that nouns like beauty change to beautiful when used as an adjective, or beautifully when used as an adverb. So why is book not changing? How do you know what words change and what words stay the same? Thankfully, that is not something I have to worry about in Russian, though Russian gives me plenty to worry about. I've spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about the things that make Russian difficult, and don't worry, I have plenty more complaints saved up for future episodes. But every now and then I stop and I realize there are things that Russian does incredibly well. For someone who has spent their whole life fighting with English spelling, Russian's consistency is actually a breath of fresh air. So if you're feeling frustrated with Russian today, remember every language has its quirks. Sometimes the things that make Russian seem strange at first turn out to be the very things you end up appreciating most. Like spelling.