If you have just started learning English, then you need to clearly understand the difference between the structures of your native language and a foreign one. To facilitate this process, our article will compare Russian and English at different levels. And by finding out how they differ from each other, you can avoid many common misconceptions.
Which language is better - Russian or English?
Many people ask this question. But it is initially incorrect, since each language is interesting and unusual in its own way. And you can't judge which one is "good" and which one is "bad".
English is foreign to a Russian person. Therefore, at the first encounter with it, most are afraid of difficulties and give up studying at the very first stage. But if we compare the two languages mentioned, then the differences that occur at almost all their levels arewill no longer scare you so much.
What is phonology
The first structural level is phonology. This is a branch of linguistics that studies the sound structure of a language. The basic unit of this stage is the phoneme, which exists and is realized in real-life sounds, which are called backgrounds.
Comparison of languages at the phonological level
Turning to the comparison of the phonological systems of Russian and English, you need to understand that they belong to the same Indo-European language family. This explains their similarity in the systems of vocalism and consonantism (the ratio of the number of vowels to consonants). But the Russian language belongs to the East Slavic group, and English, in turn, belongs to the Germanic one. And that explains their difference.
The Russian language is a typical representative of the consonant type, since it has 36 consonants and only 6 vowels. While in English the number of consonants and vowels is almost the same: 24 and 20.
The next difference at this level is the system of vocalism, that is, the vowel sounds of the language. In English, the named group of sounds can be divided into three classes:
- diphthongs;
- monophthongs;
- triphthongs.
In the Russian language, only monophthongs form a group of vowels.
What is lexicology
The next level of language is vocabulary. Vocabulary is all the words that it uses. The branch of linguistics that deals with the study of vocabulary is called lexicology. Lexicology is interested in the meaning of a word and itsmeaning.
Number of words
The first significant difference when comparing the lexical systems of Russian and English is the number of words. If you do this, relying on official sources, and look in the Great Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language, then you can count 150 thousand words in it. While the Oxford English Dictionary will show a figure several times larger - 600 thousand. But one must take into account the fact that the Russian dictionary includes words of the modern literary language. The English dictionary includes the words of all dialect dialects and archaisms (already out of speech communication), starting from 1150. That is, most of the words given here have not been used for a long time.
If dialectisms are added to the Russian dictionary, the figure will rise to 400 thousand. And if other categories of words that are used in English would appear in it, then the figure would be much larger.
Linguist Mikhail Epshteit claims that in the 19th century, for example, only about 150 words with the root "love" could be counted, which shows the richness of the Russian language.
Parts of speech
In Russian there is a clear classification of parts of speech. If you take a word without context, you can easily determine which group it belongs to - a noun, an adjective, and so on. In English, this is not possible. Here, words can easily move from one part of speech to another. For example:
- like - like (verb) and similar (adjective);
- book - book (noun) andbook (verb);
- need - need (verb) and need (noun);
From everything we can conclude that the meaning of English words, unlike Russian ones, strongly depends on the context. Outside of it, it is usually very difficult to guess what part of speech is meant.
Polysemy
Polysemy is the polysemy of a word. In this aspect of lexicology, the languages are similar to each other. After studies of the comparison of Russian and English languages, it was found that on average there are about 5 meanings per word, both in Russian and in English.
For example, if we take the word "key" and consider all its meanings used in these languages, then the Russian version of the word has six meanings, and the English one has seven. This implies that in these two languages, without context, it is almost impossible to determine the intended meaning of the word.
Grammar structure
Grammar is a branch of linguistics that studies the change of a word and its combination with other words in a sentence. When comparing Russian and English, several grammatical differences can be distinguished. Let's take a closer look at them.
Endings
In the course of its historical development, the Russian language has developed a certain system of endings that is needed to connect words in a sentence. For example:
- The book is on the shelf.
- The book is not on the shelf.
- The book was found on another shelf.
In Englishlanguage, the role of endings is performed by various forms of the verb. Therefore, when constructing a sentence in English, native Russian speakers will not need to think about choosing the right ending. In the examples above, the book will always be book. Only the verb will change, which will play the role of the predicate.
Main sentence members
In English, a sentence cannot be considered grammatically correct without two main members - the subject and the predicate. While in Russian one can count thousands of such sentences. This is because there are no endings in English. Therefore, here the words are grouped around the predicate, which, in turn, cannot exist without the subject:
- I am a teacher - Russian version.
- I am a teacher (I am a teacher) - English version.
Word order
In Russian, words in sentences can be placed in any order, depending on the speaker's intention. There is no such thing in English. There is a clearly fixed word order that cannot be violated. The classic scheme looks like this:
- Character.
- Action performed by a person.
- Indicating this face.
- Indication of conditions.
An example would be the sentence:
The bird caught the insect in the yard
If you change the word order in it, you get a completely different meaning:
The insect caught the bird in the yard
WhenWhen translating some sentences, teachers are asked to start from the end of the sentence. This is explained by the fact that in Russian sentences in most cases begin with a description of the situation where the action took place.
Comparison of phraseological units of English and Russian languages
Phraseology is a branch of linguistics that studies established expressions. Another name for phraseological units is idioms. Each language has its own special phraseological units that cannot be literally translated into other languages. So, in Russian there are idioms:
- hang nose;
- without a king in my head;
- the soul went to the heels and the like.
There are no analogues of these expressions in English. But with a careful comparison of the idioms of the Russian and English languages, one can find similar ones in meaning and structure. For example:
- to play with fire;
- to burn bridges;
- there is no smoke without fire.
However, in English there are idioms that, when translated literally, will not be understood by a foreigner. More explanation is needed to understand them.
For example, the famous idiom It is not my cup of tea. If you translate literally, you get the sentence "This is not my cup of tea." Of course, such a translation may exist in a certain context. But for the most part, the sentence is used precisely as a phraseological unit and has the meaning: "I'm not interested in this" or "I don't like it."
Other, nota less popular idiom is against the clock. If you translate literally, you get the combination "against the clock." Basically, it doesn't make sense. But in English, this phraseological unit has the meaning: "to do something very quickly, in a very short time."
From this we can conclude that when comparing English and Russian languages, similarities can be found in this aspect. Because both in one and in another language there are individual phraseological units that do not have a literal translation into another language.
To summarize all the information described here, we can say that the two languages described are different from each other, although they are representatives of the same language family. But you can still find some similarities between them. But answering the question of which language is more difficult - Russian or English, will be problematic. Since they have their own individual characteristics, each of which either makes it difficult or easier to study them. But if you have the opportunity to learn English, use it.
