Breakdown of Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
Questions & Answers about Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
The preposition is basically с (with, from), but Russian has a special rule: before some consonant clusters, с becomes со to make pronunciation easier.
- с
- в → со временем
- с
- встречи → со встречи
- с
- мной → со мной
Saying с временем is not wrong phonologically, but the fixed expression meaning over time / as time goes by is almost always со временем. It’s a set phrase.
Мне is the dative case of я. In this sentence, Russian uses an impersonal construction:
- Кому? (to whom?) мне
- Что делается? (what is happening?) становится легче говорить по-русски
Literally: To me, it is becoming easier to speak Russian.
So:
- There is no active subject I doing the action.
- Instead, the situation “it becomes easier” affects me (dative).
This pattern is very common in Russian for feelings, states, and changes of state:
- Мне холодно. – I am cold. (Literally: To me, it is cold.)
- Ему стало скучно. – He got bored. (To him, it became boring.)
- Нам трудно говорить. – It’s hard for us to speak.
Становится is 3rd person singular of становиться (to become):
- он / она / оно становится – he / she / it becomes
The sentence is impersonal: there is no explicit subject like он or это. Grammatically, you can think of an invisible это:
- (Со временем) (это) становится мне легче говорить по-русски.
Over time, it becomes easier for me to speak Russian.
So Russian uses становится with an implied neutral “it”.
Становлюсь (1st person я становлюсь) would mean I become something:
- Со временем я становлюсь увереннее. – Over time I become more confident.
That is a different structure: there I am the subject. In the original sentence, the difficulty of speaking is what is changing, not you as a person.
Становиться (imperfective) focuses on an ongoing process or repeated situation:
- Со временем мне становится легче…
Over time, it keeps getting / gradually becomes easier…
Стать (perfective) would focus on a single completed change:
- Со временем мне стало легче говорить по-русски.
After some time, it became easier for me to speak Russian (at some point and now that change is done).
So:
- Talking about a general tendency / ongoing change → становится
- Talking about a completed change in the past → стало
Легче is the comparative form of лёгкий (easy, light). Russian very often uses synthetic comparative forms:
- лёгкий → легче (easy → easier)
- тяжёлый → тяжелее (difficult/heavy → more difficult/heavier)
- интересный → интереснее (interesting → more interesting)
You can say более легко, but:
- легче is shorter and far more natural here.
- более легко would sound either stylistically heavier or like you’re emphasizing the comparison in a special way.
So становится легче = it becomes easier, exactly the normal way to say it.
Говорить and сказать are different aspectually and semantically:
- говорить – to speak, to talk (imperfective, process)
- сказать – to say (perfective, a single finished utterance)
Here we’re talking about the general activity of speaking Russian, not one particular act of saying something once. For general abilities, skills, and activities, Russian uses imperfective infinitives:
- Мне легко читать по-русски. – It is easy for me to read in Russian.
- Ему трудно бегать быстро. – It is hard for him to run fast.
So легче говорить по-русски means easier to speak Russian (in general).
По-русски is an adverb meaning in Russian / the Russian way / in a Russian manner. It answers how?:
- говорить по-русски – to speak in Russian (literally: to speak in a Russian way)
You’ll see similar patterns with other languages:
- по-английски – in English
- по-немецки – in German
- по-французски – in French
About the alternatives:
по-русскому
This would be a dative form of an adjective, not the standard way to say in Russian. As an adverb, the form is fixed: по-русски, not по-русскому.на русском
Also correct.- говорить на русском (языке) – to speak in the Russian (language)
- говорить по-русски – to speak in Russian
In everyday speech, по-русски is very common with говорить. Both are natural; по-русски feels a bit more idiomatic with verbs like говорить, писать, читать, объяснять.
So the expression говорить по-русски is a standard collocation.
Russian word order is relatively flexible, and all of these can be grammatically correct. The basic, most neutral order here is:
- Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
Variations:
Мне со временем становится легче говорить по-русски.
Still natural. Slightly more emphasis on мне (for me): as for me, over time it becomes easier...Говорить по-русски со временем мне становится легче.
Puts говорить по-русски first, emphasizing the activity itself. This might be used if you’re contrasting speaking Russian with something else.
In everyday speech, the original version is the most typical, but the structure is flexible. The main thing: keep all the parts together in a logically clear way.
Impersonal sentences in Russian frequently use 3rd person singular neuter forms as a kind of “default” verb form. There is no expressed subject, but the verb still needs to agree with something grammatical, often an implied “it”.
Patterns:
- Темнеет. – It is getting dark.
- Холодно. – It is cold. (Here the “verb” is implied: there is coldness.)
- Мне становится легче. – It is becoming easier for me.
So становится is like saying “it becomes”, where “it” is the situation, the state, or an abstract “things are becoming…”. English also uses dummy “it”, but Russian can omit even that and just leave становится.
Yes, that is possible, but the meaning shifts slightly:
Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
Focus on you personally: For me it becomes easier…Со временем становится легче говорить по-русски.
More general: It becomes easier to speak Russian over time (for people in general, or for some implied group).
So with мне it’s clearly about your own experience. Without мне, it sounds like a general observation.
The -ся ending marks a reflexive / middle-voice verb. With становиться, it often has a “become / get / turn into” meaning:
становиться + instrumental: to become something
- Он стал учителем. – He became a teacher.
- Он становится смелее. – He is becoming braver.
становиться + predicate (like comparative): to get, to become
- Мне становится легче. – It is becoming easier for me.
- Становится холоднее. – It is getting colder.
Here -ся doesn’t mean that the subject is doing something to itself in a direct physical sense; rather, it forms a verb that describes a change of state.
They look similar but mean different things:
со временем – over time, as time goes by
Focus on gradual change or development.- Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
As time goes by, it’s getting easier for me to speak Russian.
- Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
время от времени – from time to time, occasionally
Focus on something happening sometimes, not continuously.- Время от времени я говорю по-русски с друзьями.
From time to time I speak Russian with friends.
- Время от времени я говорю по-русски с друзьями.
So со временем = gradual development;
время от времени = occasional repetition.
Yes, that is also grammatically correct, but the nuance changes:
Со временем мне становится легче говорить по-русски.
Emphasizes the process: it is getting easier over time.Со временем мне легче говорить по-русски.
Describes a typical situation or state: As time passes (in general, or compared to before), it is easier for me to speak Russian.
It sounds a bit more static, more like a description than a dynamic change.
In practice, when you want to highlight the improvement process, становится легче is the more natural choice.