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English is the most used language if you look at the number of non-native speakers. Mandarin is gaining popularity as well, but at the moment English is considered the worldwide lingua franca. At school I was taught English and Russian mainly. I also took a year of German. Some schools in my country also teach French.

It's easier to learn languages that are widely used where you live and what you are motivated to learn. Well, in my country mainly 2 languages are spoken: Estonian and Russian. A lot of people know English too thanks to technology, the internet and using subtitles on films. So a lot of Estonians can speak 3 languages. I grew up on an island where the Russian-speaking population was really low (around 2%) and my family happened to have Russian speaking friends. So every time we visited them, I was extremely bored since I couldn't understand a word. So my first motivation was to understand what they are talking about. Later when I understood most of the speech, I realized I wasn't confident enough to actually speak in Russian. So my next goal was to speak the language. Now that I can speak Russian on quite decent level, my goal is to get it to native-speaker level.

I know that for me Finnish would be an easy language to learn since my native tongue (Estonian) is quite closely related to it. The only reason why I haven't learned it is that I don't really like that language. I think I'd also find easy to learn some other languages in the slavic language group. I mean sometimes understand those languages even though I can't speak them. I remember growing up we had Polish music television at home for some reason and after watching it for a while, I could understand some words.

I'm wondering if it's the same in Russia. Usually when I go there, I stay for a week and depending on Wifi is kind of annoying. How does it work in Russia? And what's the best operator to go for? Beeline? Or some other operator?

I'd like to add some vocabulary about the underground/subway/tube system as well. Метро/метрополитен - Subway/underground/tube Cтанция метро - Subway station Линия метро - Subway line Схема метро - Subway map And there are some phrases you'll every time you use the underground in Russia, that you'll soon know by heart. "Осторожно, двери закрывается!" - Caution, the doors are closing!

There are 3 other phrases I've used as well. До стречи! - See you! До скорый стречи! - See you soon! Увидимся! - See you! (the context is more like "We'll see each other again!") "До скорый стречи" will always remind me a song by a Russian band called Zveri (Звери).

Oh, I know how it's pronounced, but every time I have to use евро I get a bit confused if I say the total right. I work in retail and whenever I'm at касса, I wonder if I say the units right. If I have to say 14.99€, do I say it right when I say Четырнадцать евро и девяносто девят сентов? Or if the total is 53.83€? Пятьдесят три евро и восемьдесят три сент? I always end up a bit confused and end up mumbling the units I'm not sure about. So this is the part I wish I remembered better from my Russian lessons.

No language is impossible to learn. Some languages are easier to learn and others aren't so easy. So I have a couple of questions for you here. What do you think is the hardest language for you to learn? What would be the hardest challenge for you? Do you consider your native language hard to learn? What would be the hardest part about your native tongue? I think the hardest language to learn for me would be Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. I think the different alphabet and not hearing those languages around everyday would make it too hard for me to learn. And yes, I do consider my native tongue hard to learn. Estonian has 14 cases, which makes it hard to learn for people whose native tongue has only few cases. I've also read a few articles by foreign people who are studying Estonian, saying that native speakers wont let them even practice the language and tend to speak English with them.

I think that accent doesn't really matter if you can speak the language fluently, as long as the native speaker can understand what you mean. Yeah, if you manage to speak a foreign language without an accent, you will have a better flow while talking. If you don't have a native speaker to practice your foreign language without an accent, you can always turn to music and television. Watch news, TV series and movies in foreign language. Your brain will pick up the native "accent" and you'll probably adapt that to your speech. Another way of conquering the "accentless" language is thinking about the accent a person, whose native tongue is your foreign language, has when speaking your native language. I'm going to myself as an example. I've been told by native Russian speakers that I speak Russian almost without an accent. One of my Russian friend said I had a really light accent that was not so noticeable. Well, there are a lot of Estonian-speaking Russians living in Estonia and you can't help but notice that accent. Almost every single Estonian has imitated Russian accent. So whenever I speak Russian, I try to think about the accent that Russians have while speaking my native tongue and add it to the Russian I speak. I have to admit that I kind of had a Russian environment while learning Russian - the TV shows, Russian-speaking family friends and of course Russian music.

I rediscovered Tokio Hotel. I fell in love with "Durch den Monsoon" and "Der Lezte Tag" again. Also I stumbled across their other German songs too and I honestly can't pick a favorite between "Kampf der Liebe", "Totgeliebt", "Für Immer Jetzt" and "Hilf mir Fliegen".

Guten Acht! Ich heiße Luisa und Ich komme aus Estland. Ich lernt Deutsch für 1 Jahre in Gymnasium und es ist nicht gut. Dann Ich war keine Zeit für Deutsch lernen. Ich erinnere mich aus Lektion nur Phrasen wie: Wie geht es? Wollen wir ins Kino gehen? Das Hun mit Reis Das ist alle

How easy a language will be for you depends on you. It depends on how receptive you are with new languages. Some languages might just not fit you at the moment, but maybe you'll learn it later. It also depends on how similar the language is to the languages you know already, whether the languages are related or not. Similar languages are easy to learn, but there's that risk of accidentally mixing up those languages when speaking it. Another thing that is important is practice and environment. If you have foreign-language-speaking environment that forces you to practice the language you're learning, you'll learn it faster and probably you'll end up speaking it without an accent.

To me, being fluent in a language is when you can speak, understand, write, read and think without needing a dictionary. It's when you know enough words to know that you can make yourself understood no matter what. I consider myself semi-fluent in Russian, because I know that my grammar isn't that good in Russian. Even though according to international Test for Russian as a Foreign Language, I'm on level B1. I would've gotten the B2 certificate, but I was missing 2 points in the grammar subtest. I can speak fluently and take part in conversations with native speakers, even if they speak really fast.

Hi! I also added some idioms in Estonian. There are some that are used the same way, but with different words. For example: through thick and thin - but in Estonian we use through fire and water. Also I find it funny how just before Estonian, there's Finnish column and some of the phrases are similar.

I see that your native language is German, so I'm glad to inform you that there are German loans in Estonian. For example: arst (Arzt, doctor) suhkur (Zucker, sugar) loss (Schloss, castle/palace) kleit (Kleid, dress) tass (Tasse, cup) There are many exampes. Estonian also has Swedish and Russian loans due to ocupations in the past.

I always forget which was the right way to say different sums in Russian. 1 рубль 2-4 рубля 5-20 рублей 1 копейка 2-4 копейки 5-10 копеек 1 эвро 2-4 эвро? 5-20 эвро? 1 доллар 2-4 доллара 5-20 долларов (Feel free to correct my Russian, I know I have problems with grammar)

Also what I used when I was in Russia was: Мне пожалуйста... - I'd have... *add whatever you are ordering* Можно счёт, пожалуйста? - Can I have the bill please? Also, a lot of leaflets are handed out on the street with special orders. For example I got a "buy 2, pay for 1 meal" card on the street for a sushi restaurant called Eurazia. I didn't really understand how the card worked, so I had to ask the card worked, so У меня такая карточка, как это работает? - I have this card, how does this work? Если я закажу одну, второе будет безплатно? - If I order one, the second one will be for free? Заказ - order (noun) Заказать - to order (Feel free to correct my Russian, I know I might have problems with grammar)

Hello! I'm a native Estonian speaker here and I thought that I would share some basic Estonian here. Tere - hello, hi Tere hommikust! - Good morning! (hommik - morning) Tere päevast! - Good afternoon! (päev - day) Tere õhtust! - Good evening! (õhtu - evening) Tere tulemast! - Welcome! Head aega! - Goodbye! (literal translation Hea - good, aeg - time) Nägemist! - Goodbye!/See you! Head ööd! - Good night! (öö - night) Aitäh - Thank you Tänan - Thank you Palun - Please; You're welcome Jah - yes Ei - no Minu nimi on ... - My name is ... Mina olen... - I am ... And here's an example how to pronounce letters (I found it on the internet)

Hello! My name is Luigi (Lucy) and I'm from Estonia. So my native language is Estonian. I started learning English in 3rd grade and got to choose between Russian and German in 6th grade. I chose Russian, because my family had a lot of Russian-speaking friends and my grandpa was also Russian. Each time we visited them, my parents would speak Russian with them and I didn't understand a thing. So that was my main motivator to learn Russian. The next language I attempted to learn was German in 10th grade. I took it for a year in school, but due to busy lifestyle, I didn't have time to learn it the proper way. I also tried to learn French on my own, but that didn't work out well too. The weird thing is that I tend to translate my name whenever I introduce myself in different languages. In English I usually say that my name is Lucy, in Russian say my name is Lyudmilla or Lyubov, in German I would say Luisa and in French Louise. Why? Because Estonians pronounce letters differently, so it's hard for foreigners to pronounce my name right.

I don't know any other language as rich with rude words as Russian. My native language, Estonian, is quite rich in swear words as well, but most definitely not as rich as Russians. I mean there are so many ways to say a "b****" in Russian. I know at least 5 different words for that. But there are not as vulgar words, like "Чёрт" (Chort") which means hell or the devil.

The hardest is probably the grammar. Some letters are pronounced differenly in different words like letter "o" is sometimes pronounced like "o" or like "a". It depends on where the stress is in the word. But you aren't thinking about which part of the word you are stressing, so you most probably end up writing it wrong. When I started learning Russian, I had a problem telling apart letter like з, ж, ч, ш, щ. But later when you get used to hearing those letters in words, you will get them right. I still get confused when I have to tell the time in Russian. I always go for the safer option, which is telling the hours and the minutes. I avoid phrases like "quater to/past". Oh, and the cases. I know that I speak Russian with mistakes and the main mistakes are the cases. I usually just tend to go with what I've heard people use in the same context.