I know learning Russian was compulsory at school during Communist times but just because it was compulsory to learn it doesn't mean a person was any good at it and even though someone learnt it at school doesn't necessarily mean they'll still have a good understanding of the language today.
Oh definitely... I had Russian classes at secondary school (my school was probably the last one to have them lol). Our classes consisted mainly of reading texts aloud from our textbooks and I remember I was making cribs with phonetic transcription for other students because they couldn't even read the text as they didn't learn the alphabet lol I think I can recall one single grammatical test and it was a farse... And I really disliked the teacher, she was horrible... ;/
I enjoyed studying Russian language, I had good grades, but I remember I wanted to learn English back then, nobody wanted to study Russian at that time... However there weren't enough English teachers yet lol
And of course soon I could remember only "Kak tjebia zawód", "Spasiba" and "Haraszo" lol
It's good that at least I didn't forget the alphabet :)
Btw, some Poles regret nowadays that they didn't put too much effort in studying Russian during commie times.
I can't say I dislike Russian language, it's more about the melody of the speach that is borat like, sounds backward to me.
It doesn't sound backward to me. It's softer and probably more melodious than Polish.
Ukrainian is far more understandable and nicer
I've seen a documentary not so long ago probably on TVP Polonia or TVP Info about some Ukrainian festival in Poland and almost everybody spoke in Ukrainian there and I must admit I had to read Polish subtitles all the time so I don't know if it's far more understandable than Russian (but maybe it's because I know some Russian).
I don't know, you can compare yourself:
Ukrainian ("Przegląd ukraiński" on TVP):
Russian ("Rosyjski ekspres" also on TVP):
Ukrainian does have more words similar to Polish ones.
What language sounds beautier to you Polish, Russian or Ukrainian?
Ukrainian sounds like a mix of Czech and Russian lol
Dunno, there's something I like about it...