Russians are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. They take hospitality seriously ("You like the chair? Please, take the chair! It's yours!") and will do anything to help you day or night once you make their acquaintance. One of my favorite things about living in Russia and learning Russian is their patience with language learners. I have friends who have studied other languages and studied abroad in other countries who have had mixed reactions on this front. Certain countries are notorious for demanding an extremely high level of language proficiency from foreigners else they get the stink eye--though we shan't mention them here; that would be très gauche.
I promise you will experience no such problems in Russia. Russians are well aware of how crazy hard their language is, so they're mostly just thrilled you're taking the time to learn it. As long as you attempt to string together some words, no matter how grammatically or phonetically incorrect the end result might be, your conversation partner will compliment you on how well you speak nine times out of ten. In my experience, this is especially true of older women, who invariably speak some of the cleanest Russian around and are always more than happy to converse with you and gently nudge you in the right direction should you make a tiny mistake here or there. It all makes for an incredibly rewarding experience and serves as a real incentive and motivator to get out there and do some talking. What I'm trying to say is, if you're out there reading this and haven't started learning Russian by now, get off the fence, will ya! It's fun, trust me. I'm a doctor.*
*I am not a doctor.
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