RUSSIAN
Russia is one of the leading world economic powers so whatever your reasons are, it’s time to learn Russian!
Due to the size of the country and its natural resources, the Russian market is of great interest to foreign businessmen and Russian entrepreneurs are well-versed in international economics and willingly establish business relationships with partners from abroad.
WHERE IS IT SPOKEN?
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE IN Russia
Belarus
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
NUMBER OF SPEAKERS
AROUND 260 MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE
LANGUAGE FAMILY
INDO-EUROPEAN
THREE FUN FACTS ABOUT RUSSIAN
1. BLUE, BLUE, AND BLUE
The Russian language has more expressions for shades of blue than most other languages. It splits the descriptions into light shades (голубой) and dark shades (синий). Russian eyes aren’t better at distinguishing shades of blue, but their language appears to be more adept at expressing them. This is interesting as some languages don’t even differentiate between blue or green.
2. MIDDLE NAMES VARY WITH GENDER
Russian middle names are patronymic and vary by gender. The body of the name remains the same, but a gender-specific suffix is added. The suffix ovich or evich is added for boys, and ovna or evna for girls. So, if Mr. Ivan has a son, his middle or patronymic name would be Ivanovich or Ivanevich, and if he has a daughter, it would be Ivanovna or Ivanevna, followed by the surname. Interestingly, surnames only appeared in Russia in the 18th century.
3. WORDS FOR THE RUSSIAN MARKET
Russia has a population of over 170 million people. Runet, the Russian-speaking internet, has over 100 million subscribers and is certainly worth focusing on.