I hear that! you’ll have an easier time with any Slavic language if you start with Russian though. I don’t think I’ve met a slavic speaker without at least a passing understanding of Russian. now, culturally, you might get some hate… lol

Ukrainians almost all seem to understand Russian from what i can tell… they’re pretty close! maybe on second thought, ditch Russian and use Ukrainian as the lingua franca lol. I wonder how far we’d get in, like, Slovenia with that