[otto]

I was taught cursive in elementary school and promptly stopped using it because I found it hard to read.

I'm now taking a Russian course(for fun) and my teacher explained that Russians do not print. I'm now at a disadvantage at reading written Russian(cursive), not only because I cannot read cursive, but also because I'm not as familiar with Russian as English.

[villiros]

As a russian, I can add to this. Lettershapes in cyrillic cursive look nothing like printed ones. When I started school I could read perfectly, yet handwritten notices on the door looked like greek; I had to ask adults to read them.

Admittedly, there is a good reason for cyrillic cursive's existance: shapes of printed letters are just not suited for writing them by hand. Whereas in latin most letters can be printed with just one or two pen strokes (even disallowing retracing), cyrillic letters take two or three at minimum. Probably related to the fact that cyrillic mostly developed after printing was invented, and changed by acts of kings and church, while latin had a much longer and gentlier history.

[crux]

I think there's a (mostly) non-sequitur there. Russian cursive handwriting bears only a very faint resemblance to Latin cursive. Russian cursive is (famously) hard to read and confusing because so many of the letters either look like other cursive letters, or even worse, look like other printed letters. Indeed if you were really totally ignorant of printed Latin cursive you'd probably find RC easier to read, because you wouldn't be seeing bloody Ms everywhere.

[Elepsis]

As a native Russian speaker and someone who reads printed Russian without a problem, I still struggle to read Russian cursive reliably. It's something that takes practice and occasionally even the ability to infer what the word ought to be.

If I had to work with and encounter Russian handwriting on a more regular basis I'm sure I'd be better at it, but as is, with me only needing to try to decipher things once a month, I find myself struggling. If I were just learning the language I would hate to be subjected to that.

[eru]

It wasn't that bad in High School.