Is Russian more difficult to learn than French or Spanish? Why?

Answer 1

Hello!

The argument that I have heard relating to this topic is that for those of us that have English as our primary language, the letters and phonology (the sound of the letters) are much more similar in Spanish and French to English than they are in Russian. The Russian language uses its own alphabet (known as Cyrillic) which has "characters" which are typically made of combinations of sounds found in English. This usually means that more time needs to be taken to learn the alphabet, whereas in Spanish and French, you can typically move on to pronouncing words and learning vocabulary. Very possible to learn either one, but be prepared that Russian is usually the harder choice!