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Greek was (still is? I don’t know modern Greek) characterized by a huge number of different set of conjugation patterns. I’m going to write in Latin characters rather than Greek because I do not have a Greek keyboard or translit program. There are the -ein verbs (like “luein” above, “to loosen/free”), which become “esthai” in the middle voice, e.g. luesthai, “to be loosened or freed.” Then there are the -emi verbs, like hiemi (I send), didomi (I give), istami (I stand), etc. And then a whole bunch of others. When I get home I might actually try to tally up all the declension patterns — however boring this might be to ecerybody else. I wonder how they would compare to Russian.

говорить, работать, показать, чувствовать, брать, взять, вести, мять, исчезнуть, давать, продать, and so on…all conjugated differently

Har! Look at a complete Classical Greek conjugation,list sometime, just for a boring verb like “luein.” (Seemingly the only completely regular verb in Athenian dialect.) Russian has usually two infinitives for every verb. Greek has at least 6 (luein, lusai, luesthai, lusasthai, lelukenai, luthenai, and I’m sure I’m forgetting the passive plusperfect infinite at least).

luo, lueis, luei, luomen, luete, luousin
luomai, lue, luetai, luometha, luesthe, luontai
eluon, elues, elue, eluomen, ulete, eluon
elusa, elusas, eluse, elusamen, elusate, elusan
luoimi, luois, luoi, luiomen, luoite, luoien

Etc. etc, etc, etc.

I find it’s more than just aspect that’s the problem. I once sat down and tried to figure out exactly how many ways there are to conjugate a Russian verb. I came up with upwards of 10 different conjugations, and that’s just my informal count.

This is why Macedonia doesn’t have an embassy in Canberra: the Greek dispora has prevented it.

Incidentally, Russian verbs are okay until you get to the perfective and imperfective: when you use which is completely beyond me and, I suspect, anyone.

I studied a little Hebrew too!

Лжедмитрий´s last blog post..Yuri Luzhkov at Telman Ismailov’s birthday party

French
English / German
Russian

Sublime Oblivion´s last blog post..The Approach of the New Persian Empire

If “big,” it’s a malformed one at that.

Anyway, keep up the good work, Andy!

Unfortunately, Russian has occupied that part of my brain that controls foreign languages and it takes me great effort to actually speak anything else. I’ve started putting the direct object into the genitive if it’s an animate object in Greek…

Spanish, French – easiest
German – harder
Russian – harder still
Czech, Polish – even harder than Russian, though not by much
Lithuanian – even harder than the Slavic languages
Japanese – hardest

This list leaves out Yiddish, which is hard for me to rank because so much of it comes from German, which I already knew; and Latin, which I only studied in desultory manner. I also had a few Finnish lessons; it was obvious from the beginning that was a hard one.

Of the languages I’ve studied (not that I can speak all of them), I would put French as easiest, then German, then Russian, then Latin, and then Greek.

“Like French, Russian is one of those languages people like to pretend is really, really hard, but actually isn’t.”

Not generally true, for English speakers at least. The Defense Language Institute (which trains US Army linguists) puts languages in four categories, based on how long it takes English speakers to learn them. French is in Category 1 (easiest), along with other Romance languages. Russian, as well as other Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages, is in Category 3. The hardest category (4) is reserved for languages like Japanese and Chinese.

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Have you caught the OUTRAGE!! in Greece over Macedonia renaming its main highway the Alexander the Great Highway?

Talk about living in the past.

Like French, Russian is one of those languages people like to pretend is really, really hard, but actually isn’t.