How do people speak and read Russian? There are seemingly infinite long words that are almost identical or at least similar. I thought Turkish was crazy about this but Russian is another level. Большое спасибо мои друзья

Writer, podcaster, and commentator on foreign affairs and politics. Runs /dropglobalnews

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My background is in ESL and FrenchSL teaching, and yet I still have no idea how to explain the quirks of Russian as a native speaker

I’d say if you ever studied classic Latin, some aspects of Russian would come easier

I personally think there are also some random similarities with the Semitic languages (like root vowels), and any previous knowledge of any languages can be applied. Even the tones in Mandarin somewhat have an equivalent in Russian, believe it or not

My giant rec to everyone is to read something on Russian language history - understanding its “backend” logic and its evolution will help immensely. The rest will come with a ton of practice

Sorry I don’t have anything more useful for you :) Good luck!