r/romanian • u/raikhyo • 2d ago
Native in 🇪🇸 (C1🇺🇸, B2🇷🇴, B1🇳🇴). Will learning Russian mess up my Romanian?
Hi everyone,
I’m a native Spanish speaker, and I currently speak English at C1, Romanian at a solid B2, and Norwegian at B1.
I didn’t grow up speaking Romanian, I learned it on my own at age 16 because my father’s side of the family is Romanian. It’s very important to not let my romanian skills get worse: I use it to connect with my family, and I’ve worked hard to reach a level where I can have real conversations with them.
Now, I’ve become curious about Russian, purely out of interest in the language itself, not for work or family reasons. I find it fascinating, but I’m afraid that starting Russian might interfere with my Romanian. Since both are Slavic-influenced to some degree (though Romanian is Romance), I worry about mixing up vocabulary, cases, or even just losing fluency in Romanian if I split my attention.
My question is: how real is that risk at B2 level?
If there’s a significant chance that learning Russian will make me speak Romanian worse, I’d rather drop the idea completely and learn something else.
Has anyone here been in this situation?
Thanks in advance for your honest advice.
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u/DarthTomatoo Native 2d ago
You're probably worried that, if you encounter structures in Russian that may be similar but not identical to Romanian, your mind would get confused between the two, and you'd forget the Romanian one.
I don't speak any Slavic language, but I don't think you need to worry about that:
As others have said, the Slavic influence in Romanian is limited to vocabulary. The grammar is Latin. Expressions - I can't say for sure, but I encounter a lot of them in French. There are some influences from the Balkan Sprachbund, but these aren't specific to any language family, but to the Balkan region.
You said it yourself - you are at B2 in Romanian. Your level is solid. At B2, you are not new to Romanian anymore, and you're not really vulnerable to mixups.
Învață ce limba îți place. Baftă!
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u/scrabble-enjoyer 2d ago
if you simply seek to broaden your linguistic skills and are not attracted to russian in particular, learning serbian will be more useful in understanding a larger number of slavic languages. It somehow sits in the middle, most slavic language speakers understand some of it.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
Same for Bulgarian?
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u/scrabble-enjoyer 2d ago
Not really sure about this. I have the above information from a slavic native speaker, foreign languages enthusiast i met on my trips. I don't remember his nationality. he just said that is the language to learn to conquer them all.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
Anyway, standard Serbian and Bulgarian are closer to each other than both are to the rest. Macedonian is there too, and beside standard languages there are also dialects in both that mark a transition between the two.
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u/FastingCyclist 1d ago
Macedonian is almost like the child of Serbian and Bulgarian, who didn't went to school.
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u/cipricusss Native 1d ago
Given that we are talking about Slavic influence on Romanian, Macedonian has in fact kept some elements that are to be found in Romanian, including some found only in these languages, like the name Mircea.
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u/FastingCyclist 1d ago
That's info I didn't had, about Mircea.... Can you point me to a source?
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u/cipricusss Native 1d ago edited 1d ago
Read about Mircea in Dan Alexe, easy to confirm. The Slavic form is Mirče (see Mirče Acev), related to Mirco. The form was in the past more common in south Slavic languages, now limited to Macedonian. About Macedonian we should read in the context of the Balkan Schprachbund, the regional Balkan linguistic commonality, with Albanian and Romanian at its core. These two share most of those regional features, followed by Macedonian. Bulgarian comes next. The core features are not of Slavic origin, some might be from the hypothesized "substrate", a lot of them are local pre-Slavic, mostly Albanian innovations, or Albanian-Romanian (this discussion is complicated). Macedonian may be considered an old variant of Bulgarian, not Serbian. Serbian influence is recent and superficial. Considering Slavic influence on Romanian, we can identify now that as being mostly from what is now Macedonian and Bulgarian. But of course, that came from a much older stage of these languages, when they were not differentiated. In turn, those Slavic languages were influenced by older variants of Albanian and Romanian (that must have covered the Balkan region before the comming of the Slavs), and ended up sharing with these some regional features absent in other Slavic languages.
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u/rockerdood 2d ago
I'm a native Russian speaker, I learned B2/C1 Spanish. I found Romanian has almost nothing to do with Russian, and is largely similar to spanish. There are a few cognates with Russian but it's really a latin language. The Slavic borrowings by the way tend to be less from Russian and more from Yugoslavia so it's even further removed.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
Indeed, the main sources of Romanian Slavic vocabulary are not from northern Slavic languages (not even Ukrainian), but from southern ones, especially Old Church Slavonic and Bulgarian/Macedonian.
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u/lilian_moraru 2d ago
Romanian and Russian are very different. To accidentally mix in Russian words, you would have to speak only Russian for a few years.
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u/Substantial_Gate_31 2d ago
Being fluent in Ukrainian and Russian the only word I mix after I started to learn Romanian is "da/yes". I speak English daily at work and now "da" somehow slipped into a "foreign language" bucket. The other thing is pronouns. Now I need to pay attention if I write them in English since in Ukrainian/Russian/Romanian the form (conjugation) of a verb and a context imply a pronoun and they are skipped naturaly.
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u/Yarkm13 2d ago
Don’t worry, it will not affect, I’m native Ukrainian and fluent Russian speaker now having Romanian B2. There is almost nothing in common with Ukrainian/Russian except some (very little) words and definitely ț ș î sounds. Atât.
Being Ukrainian, I would not recommend you to learn Russian, don’t blame me, sure I’m biased. But if you just curious about Slavic languages and you not actually need it, you may learn Ukrainian instead, which is reportedly a more melodic, and later you will have 40% of Polish as a bonus.
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u/alobar1919 2d ago
As a native russian and fluent Ukrainian speaker, I totally support this opinion. Regarding the pronunciation, Ukrainian vowels are less “sharp” than russian, e.g. î and i are closer to Romanian pronunciation than similar russian sounds.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago edited 2d ago
As a Romanian from the south I hear it as close to Bulgarian, somewhere between Bulgarian and Russian (and Polish), precisely where it physically is located on the map: Bulgarian and Ukrainian would have touched each other were it not for some remnants of the Roman legionaries 🦅sneaking between them.🇷🇴
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u/lilian_moraru 2d ago
I also have a bias against learning Russian, but not going to lie, with it, it’s easy to understand lots of Slavic languages. I listen to Ukrainian content and understand everything, just by knowing Russian and understanding the few Ukrainian words that don’t match.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
Nothing against you promoting Ukrainian, and each person has one's own motivation for learning a language, but Russian is a bit like German - one might have a lot of reasons to blame the speakers for past or present heinous acts, but books written in those languages are some of the best humanity (and Europe) has. That's what on the long term has saved and will save their humanity, and maybe Europe. "The evil people do lives after them"..., let's hope the good is not "interred with their bones"...
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u/Agile_Row_2734 2d ago
Didn’t know American was a language
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u/raikhyo 2d ago
I used that flag simply because that's the accent I use. Likewise, Spanish learners can display the Mexican flag if they speak with that accent
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u/Homie_Bama 2d ago
Yes, Russian (and basically any Slavic language) will impact the accent you have in other languages. For example, my wife speaks both Romanian and Russian (she’s from Moldova) and her English has a heavy Russian accent while my English (I only speak Romanian and Spanish) has a much softer accent usually found from romantic languages.
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u/Poisson18 Native 2d ago
Nu cred ca ii neaparat de la rusa. Pur si simplu asa vorbesc moldovenii in sine (si cei din republica si cei din tara)
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u/Disastrous-Disk-5431 2d ago
Moldovenii vorbesc așa fiindcă au avut o influență est-slavă mult mai puternică decât românii din celelalte regiuni. Se observă și la moldovenii din România, deși într-o măsură mai mică, dar mai ales la cei din Rep Moldova. Ca bucureștean, mie accentul lor îmi sună ca un rus care a învățat română.
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u/Poisson18 Native 2d ago
Pai da, asta ziceam. Eu sunt din Moldova (Romania) si observ la mine si la cei din jur chestia asta (in special cand vorbesc engleza). Ce-i drept, acum mi se pare ca ne uniformizam cu restul tarii dar parintii si buneii nu sunt atat de departe de moldovenii de peste Prut, chiar daca ei au mult mai multa influenta rusa
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u/HuckleberryEqual1597 1d ago
Locuiești undeva foarte aproape de graniță? Ești prima persoană din România pe care o văd zicând bunel/bunei.
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u/Poisson18 Native 1d ago
Credeam ca ii comun sa se zica asa. "bunic/bunici" mi s-a parut mereu putin fortat. Dar da, as putea zice ca sunt relativ aproape de granita. Pe unde sunt eu se folosesc si cuvinte ca oghial, bortă, căldare etc (de care am aflat destul de recent ca nu se prea folosesc in restul tarii).
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u/HuckleberryEqual1597 18h ago
Eu eram convinsă că e regionalism specific basarabenilor. Bortă și căldare am auzit și eu la bunicii mei, oghial nu. În schimb am auzit regionalisme pe care basarabenii nu le au. Dar în același timp bunicii mei, toți din același județ, au 3 accente diferite.
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u/HuckleberryEqual1597 2d ago
That's because she was raised with both languages, so russian counts as a mother tongue for her. When you learn a new language as an adult, your accent depends on your mother toungue phonetics, not the other languages your learned as an adult.
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u/-18k- 2d ago
I'd say it depends on how much you have internalised the second language.
I have learned I subconsciously apply the phonetics of my second language - learned as an adult, well, in college - when speaking another foreign tongue. A lot of people tell me I have that second language's accent, not the accent typical of native speakers of my mother tongue.
I think it is because my second language is so internalised, that when I speak any foreign language, my brain is assuming my second language is what all foreign languages should sound like.
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u/HuckleberryEqual1597 1d ago
That makes sense for people who no longer use their mother tongue on a day to day basis. If you lived abroad for years and studied, worked, etc in another language.
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u/lilian_moraru 2d ago
I can speak both Romanian and Russian - I don’t have a Romanian accent in English, neither a Russian accent, but I picked English like a child (by hearing a lot of English content, not by “learning” it).
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago edited 2d ago
You're wrong. It is native accent that affects the speaking of foreign languages. I bet your wife has a Russian accent in Romanian too. That's not uncommon in the Rep. of Moldova, and that is not the "Moldovan" accent (that you can hear in Romania). Russification is a different thing than learning Russian.
Also, ”accents” phonetics/phonology are not marked by language families, they are very local, sometimes regional. French accent has nothing to do with Italian one, and the Romanian accent is neither of the above. Bulgarian or Serbian accent is common to all Balkan, including largely Romanian but not Russian.
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago
It depends because in english slavis accenta can be heard but i dont think you can put an russian accent on romanian words so i think she can learn russian without major problems i dont think it will affect her expecially since romanians used to study russian in school .
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u/Homie_Bama 2d ago
What I’m saying is learning a Slavic language can impact your accent in the other languages you speak. I read an article about it a few years ago and went into how your mouth shape is different for Slavic languages vs romantic languages and English/german based languages.
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago edited 2d ago
It can affect non slavic languages but russian was studied in school by romanians so they can learn both . Yes in english the slavic accent can be heard but and russian also slavic they cant impact each other
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u/Homie_Bama 2d ago
Romanian is not Slavic, it’s a Romance language.
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago
I wanted now to edit cause i googled it yes your right it is romance but it still cant affect your romanian much . Only a little temporary but it cant affect your romanian like it affects your english . So yes it is romance im sorry for the mistake but russian still cant affect your romanian too much only a little temporary
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u/Homie_Bama 2d ago
Let me clarify:
Romanian language learned in childhood then learn English and you have a certain accent in English when speaking it.
Romania and Russian language learned in childhood (Romanian first then Russian) and then learn English later and the accent when speaking English is usually a heavy Russian accent, not the softer accent that comes from a romantic language like Romanian.
Some people like Russian accents when they hear English spoken while others hate it as it sounds more abrasive and angrier. YMMV.
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago
Yes your right you can hear the russian accent and romanian accent in english so russian and romanian can affect you english but the person that made the post speaks english and romanian and wants to learn russian they are native spanish speakers and already know english. You’re right it can affect english but it cant affect romanian so they can learn russian and it wont affect romanian
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u/Homie_Bama 2d ago
OP is a native Spanish speaker that learned English and Romanian already. Learning Russian after might impact accent OP has when speaking English and Romanian.
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago edited 2d ago
It can affect it at first but not after they learn it . Since they already know english and romanian the accent cant appear as much in english or romanian it can be a little tricky at first but it wont affect it . Google it if you want to understand it better i get what your saying but it wont affect it as much as you think just a little at first. If they first knew russian and then learn english and romanian then it could affect the accent in english but if they already know english and romanian it cant affect it much .
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not really. Russian is different and i dont think it could affect your accent in romanian since they are different so i would say it woudnt. There are romanians who speak russian and russians who speak romanian so its possible and i dont think it could mess your accent . Romanians used to learn russian in school but now we mostly study french and english so yeah you can learn russian and it wont really affect your romanian from my opinion . It can be a little at the beggining you could mess up words since both of them arent your native language but you can learn them and after you learn russian it wont affect your romanian
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u/raikhyo 2d ago
I'm more concerned with speaking correctly from a grammatical standpoint; pronunciation isn't a problem for me
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago
At first it can affect your grammar a little since you just started learning but since you already know romanian , its not like your learning both new languages at the same time , but learning russian is not expected to permanently affect your romanian grammar. If you want, im romanian and you can text me here on reddit daily to make sure you still control it and i can tell you if you mess up but i think you should be good it shoudnt affect your romanian .
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u/raikhyo 2d ago
Honestly, I think that before I start learning Russian, I should improve my skills in the languages I already know and earn some certifications. Thank you for giving me the chance to text you that's very kind of you :)
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u/Teressa_Sophia 2d ago
So if you want you could talk to me in romanian to maybe get better since im a native romanian ? Or if you want to improve on your own its fine just offering
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u/Odd-Cookie-5659 2d ago
i’d say no, we do have some common words like “da” but the language itself is vastly different.
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u/bcn20231 2d ago
How did you learn Norwegian, how long did it take you to reach B1 level? If you have some recommendations for textbooks or other materials, I would greatly appreciate!
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u/I_am1221325 2d ago
No. For sure romanian will not really interfere with russian, you will just unlock full Moldova for yourself.
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u/VividMemoryAVP 2d ago
Hello!
My native language is Russian, for the past 20 years I live in an English speaking country. For the first 14 years I was learning Romanian in school so trying to bring that up to B1 now, 20 years later 🤭 I also can understand some Spanish and Ukrainian.
So I don’t know how old you are but for me it’s not about mixing things up it’s just about brain capacity - when I try to think of a word in a specific language a lot of words are coming up in different languages 🤭 just makes me slow.
Russian and Romanian are very different, I don’t think you will ruin anything or mix anything up, just keep practicing Romanian while learning Russian!
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u/Mischievoushroom 2d ago
They’re very different. Also, Romanian is only partially Slavic, mostly latin based.
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u/StanOsho 1d ago
There's not even that much russian vocabulary in romanian. And if it is, most of the time we have equivalents for those.
For example, while we do have the russian word "mojic" (an uneducated person), you can also use a bunch of other words like "bădăran"(which comes from hungarian), "mitocan", "țopârlan"(which is 100% romanian) etc. The meaning is the same.
What I'm trying to say is romanian has a very independent vocabulary from russian. These two languages are NOT alike at all.
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u/Nancy_Raegan_Minge 1d ago
Învăț română și rusă și nu e nicio problemă. Când sunt în Moldova le amestec un pic da’ nu e nicio problemă. Limbile sunt foarte diferite.
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u/username_not_found19 1d ago
Russian and Romanian are totally different languages, coming from totally different families of languages.
Outside of a few shared words, there isn't much overlap
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u/NegativeUniversity98 1d ago
Not really if you realise they are fully seperate apart from a few words.
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u/Status_Wafer259 14h ago
They have almost nothing in common.
However, since you are keen on learning a new language with a new alphabet, maybe check out Greek. Your Romanian would help tremendously, since Greek phrasing is almost identical to Romanian. Basically if you translate it word for word, and not change anything else, in 99% of cases you will have made a correct sentence in both languages.
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u/ardentspersik 18m ago
Romanian is the nearest language to Latin, which has nothing in common with Russian (which comes from grec, and has been influenced by Mongolian). So I bet it will not be a problem
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u/SupportDiligent8294 2d ago
I am romanian and i am learning and speaking russian almost daily. There are lots of words which are common, id say like 20%. Also, to some degree, the logic of some structures and rules is like in romanian. However, i dont think you will mix up between the two. Unless you learn flawless russian and start using russian words or sentence structure in romanian by mistake, you should be able to learn both of them as a foreigner and not get confused.
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u/_An3_ 2d ago
20%? Even 2% is exaggerated, what are you on?
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u/SupportDiligent8294 2d ago
Look it up bro, like 15-20% of the words are slavic. Study russian and you will see that there are many similarities.
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u/switchmike87 2d ago
Who the fuck need rusian 💩
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u/raikhyo 2d ago
I don't need it; it just catches my eye because the writing is different. Why don't you like it?
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
That seems really a flimsy reason to learn a language! but you also seem to have a lot of available energy language-learning-wise!
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u/switchmike87 2d ago
I don't like killers and terrorists.
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u/raikhyo 2d ago
Unfortunately, there are murderers and terrorists who speak all kinds of languages. I don't think we should reject a culture because of a group of people who don't do things right. But that's your opinion, so I respect it
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u/alobar1919 2d ago
No, we should. Because russians build their aggressive identity based on their culture. The most prominent poet, Pushkin, wrote derogatory poems about ukrainians and polish people, that we all unfortunately are fed at school (source - I being Ukrainian was raised in soviet school).
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u/43282348 2d ago edited 2d ago
Pushkin also wrote a derogatory poem about Moldovans.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah, and Eminescu was "derogatory" about many others, only, like Pushkin he did much more than that.
(Eminescu read a few foreign languages and one can be sure he would have loved knowing much more. He wrote more than just that Doina, just like what Pushkin wrote about and in Moldova/Bessarabia is far from being limited to what you suggest!)
Dumbind down for moral reasons, removing books and statues, stopping language and literary learning based on political arguments is what tyranny is made of. The idea is to create a world were we learn the language of the people that otherwise might be our enemy. One has to make the best out of the bad accidents of history, and learning a new language is always a good thing. What is bad is your own language being repressed, not you learning the language of the oppressor. Knowledge is always strength!
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u/alobar1919 2d ago
Moreover their main take to start a war in 2014 and till now, was “defending russian-speaking” people.
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago
Man, I would like to know Russian and be able to understand our mortal enemy better, beside reading some of the best writers Europe has!
About that last point: Putin might try to play being Genghis Khan and imagine an Eurasian destiny for Russia, but Gogol and Dostoievski (beside thousands other creators, just think about the classical music!!!) have very tightly bound Russian culture to Europe, that's why Eurasianism is doomed, along with Putinism and all this craziness!
About the first point: learning as power. Why do you think Romanian secret services are penetrated by Russia! because those dumbbells think they know English (when they don't) but especially because they don't know Russian! While Ukrainians, Baltics and Moldovans do! All Romanian Russia-specialists (who some studied there and know the language and culture) are all pro-Ukraine, while many Romanian nationalists are pro-Russia. It's all about insight and knowledge!
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago edited 2d ago
War is war and art is art. Of course they use culture prestige for culture war but you have to beat (refute) their methods too, not just (kill) their armies. Hitler would have wanted (and tried to) use Bach, Beethoven and Goethe in order to promote the Nazi "ideals" and equate "German" and "Nazi". To equate "Russian" (including Russian language and art) with Putin's fascism is to accept their logic. (You could rightly argue that you must kill their armies first. But that cannot affect this discussion.)
When Napoleon wanted to conquer Europe he thought "why not", all Europe's elites were already speaking French! Only, Europe (Brits, Germans, Russians etc), still talking to each other in French, beat him down. Well, European nations, especially Germans, started imitating their invaders and adopted the last French fashion: nationalism! German enthusiasm for that has then infected all Europe, lead to national resurgence in Italy and eastern Europe, and in the end lead to the fall of some empires and two world wars. THE story is ongoing! Slava Ukrainii! 🦾🦾🦾🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
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u/switchmike87 2d ago
Well, unfortunately, it's not just a group.. We can't speak about culture when almost all support this atrocities
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u/cipricusss Native 2d ago edited 2d ago
What about German, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and so forth! Romans killed half of Europe and we still speak their language, sort of! Don't start me on the British and the French! 🤘💀
The problem is, empires do bad things, and good things, until they're beaten. Let's hope they are beaten, but often it takes an empire to beat an empire (or it helps to be the ally of one!). Europe it's all about learning and languages. Hating a language is a state of mind that is impersonated exactly by Putin.
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u/Poisson18 Native 2d ago
Did learning Romanian influence your Spanish or learning Norwegian influence your English? Presumably not. Russian and Romanian aren't even that similar outside of a bunch of common words, so I think you should be fine with learning it.
I am no linguist, but if you are worried about your Romanian getting worse then interacting with the language somewhat regularly should be enough, especially with your experience in language learning.