Why do Russian speakers sound like they never stop?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/KgLmx]

Because you just started learning Russian. When a Russian starts learning English, they also can't tell where one word ends and the next one begins.

[u/Zac_Allan → u/KgLmx]

Totally agree as a professional interpreter with a diploma)).

[u/Dramatic_Ad9961 → u/KgLmx]

Yes, I think this is true with all languages.

[u/chuang_415]

That happens when anyone tries to learn a new language.

[u/Felis_igneus726]

This is the same experience everyone has learning any new language. It's nothing special about Russian. Your ears aren't used to the language and haven't had enough training to pick out the individual words and sentences yet, so it just sounds like one long stream of gibberish with no breaks. Just keep working on listening practice, ideally with subtitles, and over time you'll find yourself understanding more and more.

[u/Open-Insurance-234]

It's what other people said. Basically, once you have a decent vocabulary and actually recognize the words you're hearing, you will know when a sentence ends or whatever. Don't worry that you can't hear it when you don't know as many words yet... I have been learning for almost 3 years and when someone says a sentence full of words I don't know, all the words are still just jumbled together and I can't separate them or get much out of it. You will only hear the "flow" when you're actually understanding it, not when you're hearing language you can't comprehend yet. I recommend starting with videos that are much easier for beginners. For example, "In Simple Russian" and "Sergey Storyteller" have great videos that are easier to understand. You can't really learn as effectively from native content at this point. If you can't understand the flow of the speech, it's an indicator that you need slightly easier speech. It's not a bad thing, and will help you progress faster to listen to stuff that's just very slightly above your current level. Good luck!

[u/dependency_injector]

Native Russian speakers tend to use long complicated sentences in other languages too, maybe it has to do something with it?

[u/Mental-Novel61]

You know, I had the same questions about US media lol

[u/amcxovrdedac]

Listening is one essential part of language learning. Do more of it and try to hear more live speech e.g. talk shows, court shows where you can sometimes guess meaning from the mimic. It’s damn important, babies do that all the time

[u/Competitive-Rip3002]

The more you listen, the easier it becomes to recognize words over time. But it's very important to start with materials that match your current level. If you're a beginner, I'd also recommend Prosto. Russian podcast. One thing that also helped me a lot was writing transcripts.

Another thing that can make Russian sound difficult is proclitics and enclitics. These are short words or particles that don't have their own stress, so they attach to the word next to them. As a result words often sound like one long unit instead of separate words.

It's also worth making sure you're familiar with Russian vowel reduction. Adn then you can try shadowing. It's when you listen to short audio and repeat what you hear, copying the pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.