Off-Topic /
Russian or French? Learning another language besides Polish [12]
@Chemikiem
I will always learn some Polish.
But I am usually learning more than once at the same time. In my family everyone speaks Russian, my grandmother is as fluent as a native speaker and even worked as a translator in the soviet union. ( All of them had to learn it at school ). I had Russian friends and always understood one or the other Russian word, while I always had struggles learning French. I still learn much faster than most, but even I need motivation, same as you and other people.
To me, Russian makes more sense.
1. Because I can already read and write Russian, why not using this knowledge to actually learn the language?
2. Russia is spoken in quite a few countries. Russia,Belarus,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and in many other countries it is used as a second language like for example Armenia,Mongolia or Estonia. And so far, I can myself visiting countries where Russian is an official or even secondary language rather than visiting African countries where French is spoken a lot ( of course I will visit France, but I've been there a lot and always could use my basic French and some German to communicate ).
3. Because I feel like I have way more connection to Russian speaking folks. I could always find friends along the Russians, while I could mostly find hate along the French ( I know it sounds generalizing, but this was my experience so far ). Besides that, my family says they are pretty sure I have some Russian ancestors more than I have French ancestors. ( but this might not be a reason to learn a language ).
4. Russian has similarities with Polish and I found quite some Poles who claim to speak some Russian.
5.I've always been interested in Russia,Ukraine,Kaz & Belarus. The chance I might even live in a Russian speaking country or even a country that uses Russian as a second language is quite high.
So now I decided to continue my Russian studies. It just seems to be more effective for me, and it definitely is a useful language, especially in times of permanently changing politics and Russia being one of the superpowers. Who knows..maybe all of us have to learn Russian in a couple of months :-)))
V/R
Labrador.