<p>In high school, I've managed to balanced Chinese and Spanish very easily. I really want to learn Russian (and I've been teaching myself a little bit) but would it be too hard to take that and Chinese in college at the same time?</p>
<p>I’ve taken 2nd semester Russian at university level - thats’ equivalent to 4th semester high school level. I personally wouldn’t recommend taking both. They are basically at the end of the spectrum in terms of difficult for a native english speaker while at the same time being completely different.</p>
<p>As I’m sure you are already aware Chinese is difficult because of the tonal language and the amount of character memorization required, but it does have simple grammar. Russian is basically the opposite. You get an alphabet so within a few weeks you can sound out basically any word. With that said the grammar is intense. you have 3 genders, 6 ways to conjugate words (which isn’t bad for someone who has taken spanish) but then you also have 6 cases to decline nouns and the declination system is determined by gender as well as softness. Speaking of softness, pronunciation is easier than Chinese but still difficult. Pronouncing soft endings is VERY difficult for english speakers. </p>
<p>In the end, it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Russian will be mostly intense grammatical memorization. That same system will stop you from even articulating yourself well or understanding others for a few years.</p>
<p>For the record I am going to enroll in upper devision russian classes but then again I like learning the language.</p>
<p>Thanks for responding. I don’t doubt that it would take a while to learn but I’d say my goal is to be near fluent by the end of college (and I would love to spend a semester in Russia if I could). Maybe I could try it out and drop it if I don’t like it. Do you think that’s a good idea?</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind that language classes move a lot quicker in college. 1 year of high school language equals one semester of college language.</p>
<p>I’d say it really depends on what else you’re taking at the same time. I’m currently taking Spanish on top of physics, calculus, chemistry, and anthropology. It makes for a busy schedule. If it’s something that you’re really interested in though, it wouldn’t be as much of a burden. I enjoy learning Spanish, but it’s not really something that I’m ‘passionate’ about. It’s simply a graduation requirement for me. I do enjoy it, but given the option I probably wouldn’t be taking it because my course load is heavy enough even without it.</p>
<p>Eh, it depends on how good you are at languages, honestly. I took three languages for the past two semesters, and it was fine for me. The main problem in my opinion is that if you’re taking both languages every semester, it really cuts down on the room you have for other classes.</p>
<p>It depends on what you can do.
Technically I am studying two languages right now. I’m studying German at school and Finnish every Saturday at a Finnish school. I don’t get graded in Finnish class though, so that’s less stress for me. But I don’t think it’s that hard.</p>