Everything You Need To Learn Belarusian
Belarusian (also known as White Russian) is a language spoken by about 9 million people in Belarus, Russia and Poland.
It’s an East Slavic language and is the official state language of Belarus, where it shares equal status with Russian. It’s also recognized as a minority language in parts of Ukraine.
The similarities between Belarusian and Russian make it easy for those who speak Russian to at least understand some Belarusian. As such, if you know Russian, learning Belarusian shouldn’t be too difficult.
Unfortunately, while Russian learning materials are abundant, the same cannot be said for Belarusian. Outside of the countries in which it’s spoken, there simply isn’t a large enough contingent of people wanting to learn it.
This means that not many native speakers have deemed it necessary to create Belarusian learning materials or make native language resources available internationally.
That said, we have been able to find a handful of products that should be more than enough to get you started in learning Belarusian.
Belarusian Language Learning Books
To learn Belarusian, at some point during your journey, you’ll need a comprehensive Belarusian course book that teaches you the grammar and sentence structure of the language. This will become an invaluable resource once you really get going in the language, as it will take you from absolute beginner to more advanced learner, and beyond.
As Belarusian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and as the rules of this alphabet differ from those used in English, a book teaching you how to pronounce, read and write the Belarusian should be high on your list of Belarusian learning resources.
Belarusian Children’s Books
For those of you at the start of your Belarusian learning journey, reading children’s books is perfect for putting into practice what you’ve learned. These books tend to be short and simple, presenting new words in an easy-to-understand format.
Though this selection is limited, you can still get a lot out of them. What’s more, all of them are bilingual English-Belarusian stories designed for young learners. This means you’ll have the English version of the story right there to guide you.
Belarusian Fiction
When you’re ready to advance, fiction intended for adults is a great way to improve your Belarusian reading comprehension, and you’ll pick up a bunch of more relatable vocabulary.
As you’ll be able to absorb more complex, natural language, it will also help with building up your speaking and listening skills.
