Start

This is the first post in this series on the topic of my journey of learning Russian

Previous experience

I learned the Russian alphabet as a teenager. Planning to learn it I continued with some basics. Over time I left it as other languages and ventures occupied my time.

Later as a young 20 year old I learned to write Russian cursive and again attempted to learn it once more. Same story.

That is I’ve had some exposure to Russian before this venture.

Now

Now, I have a Russian partner and thus plan to make a more serious attempt at learning it. I started some time ago with various learning activities, but only now start to seriously go into it.

I also signed up for a one year course covering history, litterature and basic language skills at the University of Tromsø for the class of 2024-2025. This will give me access to professors and materials that would otherwise be hard to obtain.

Lithuanian

In terms of advantage it must also be mentioned that I did aquire a relatively high level of competency in the Lithuanian language years ago. Some of that still remains with me, although most of it in a rather dormant state.

One might ask why Lithuanian is relevant to learning Russian at all. A fair question. The fact is that both languages belong to the Balto-Slavic sub group of the Ind-European languages. Lithuanian in the Balto part, and Russian in the Slavic one.

Reality is that as languages come, the two are very different, and not at all mutually comprehensible. But structure wise there are similarities and quirks that work the same way.

I have already noticed some and will throughout these notes make ample use of comparisons with Lithuanian. I believe this will be an important tool for learning.