How would the introduction of Pimsleur Russian affect what I am doing now?

[Terence]

Hi
In my intro to this forum, I wrote that I am currently about a year into a class based/home study Polish course. There is plenty of opportunity for me to see all aspects of the language, reading , writing etc. I've also covered the first ten pimsleur polish lessons. I really do enjoy the challenge of Polish and look forward to continuing it at home and in class.

My question is however, how would the introduction of a purely audio based second language course (Pimsleur Russian) affect what I am doing now? Bearing in mind the russian course would only ever be attempted at a spoken/audio level, would the similarities be too much?

Any/all advice would be gratefully received.

[Torsten]

Hi Terence,

It's great to hear that you like Slavic languages and have even decided to take up Russian too. As you have mentioned, they are both similar which I think is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I understand that you might be afraid of mixing up both languages but I don't think this will happen. I have a friend who studied both Russian and Bulgarian at the same time at university to become a translator. (They are even more similar to each other than Russian to Polish). When I asked him if he is afraid of confusing both languages he said no -- the similarities help him memorize new vocabulary and create links between words.

Also, the good thing about Slavic languages is that they all have the same roots and there exist a great variety of dialects that are made up of two or three Slavic languages.

For example, in the border region between Poland and Ukraine people speak a very interesting mix of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian. So if you speak any variation of those languages they will understand you.

Let me know what you think and please tell me why are so much into Polish and Russian?
Poka,
Torsten

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[Terence]

Torsten

Basically , I think having a working knowledge of one of the slavic languages opens up a gateway to eastern europe in general. To the westerner, eastern europe in part is still a bit of a mystery. They (polish & russian) offer such a learning curve, that partial mastery/understanding of either can be of great reward to the student.

As I previously mentioned, I will only attempt the pimsleur russian if I'm sure it won't sidetrack me from my main goal. I wouldn't be attempting to learn the cyrillic alphabet, purely speech and the ability to be understood and to understand. I think the pimsleur russian would take me only so far down that road.

[Heropsychodreamer]

Hi Terence... i've been doing French for a while, and i moved into a bit of spanish and a bit of italian after a while... i didnt get confused but as said before, as they are from the same family, it is easier to understand rules etc, and link words to learn more vocab.

Great to hear you are expanding as well... i think learning, understanding multiple languages is absolutely fantastic

[Terence]

Thank you for your advice Heropsychodreamer, its greatly appreciated. Good luck with the Spanish & Italian too ;-)