It is difficult to study any language without live speaking. Since my childhood I live in Ukraine, but I speak Russian. I know Ukrainian quite well, but I use it in my every day life very seldom... Come to Ukraine, if you want study Ukrainian or Russian! Tomatoes are 0,5 $ per kilo, beer is 0, 6 $ per l, meat is 5$, rent of a flat is 200$ a month. :_))))

I talk a completely different language, Turkish. And I learnt English and some Spanish. And I must say Russian is harder than these. Pronounciation is hard to make and understand :/ It just means I have to spend more time to learn it.

I'm russian and know our language well. I'd like to link my destiny to russian philology. I think, it's really hard for foreigners to learn russian, because spelling and grammar are difficult, there are many similar variations of words and words' forms... But not very difficult pronunciation and richness are advantages of our language. Really )) As for ukrainian language, it's rather like russian one, I know it a little. So, if you, Lushka, thirst for learning russian & ukrainian and have a talent for languages, I'd like to wish you good luck on russian: УДАЧИ ТЕБЕ! =)

From experience, I found it hard to learn Ukrainian at school. But my fiance is Ukrainian so I thought I really had to learn it, even just the basics. I opted for an online school called Preply.com ( http://preply.com/en/ukrainian-by-skype ) and they helped me learn fast. I am not yet as fluent as I would like to be but my now husband appreciates the effort I am putting in learning about his culture and language. I am a Filipina, by the way. :)

As for me ,studying of russian is not hard.Because it is my native language. You need to go to russia to study russian better then without real practice !