Non-obvious features of the Slavic language

1. Relative Linguistic Richness: Interslavic is designed as an intersection of Slavic languages, but it is not a language with simplified grammar or orthography/phonetics like most constructed languages. On the contrary, it boasts numerous features not found in entire groups of Slavic languages. For example, it includes the verb "to be" in the present and conditional tense, vocative case, Ě/Ѣ and Y/I, participles, palatalization of sounds, and optional features such as imperfect, pluperfect, and dual number. Its simplicity for learners is achieved through regularity and its closeness to the learner's native language.

2. Low Entry Barrier with Difficulty in Achieving "Fluent" Level: To become a proficient speaker, it takes only a few weeks to memorize a couple of hundred essential words and get accustomed to the grammar differences from one's native language. However, to reach an ideal, native-level proficiency in Interslavic, one should have a good grasp of which words and grammatical details are most familiar to each Slavic nation, which requires some knowledge of other Slavic languages.

3. Asymmetry as a Key Feature: This asymmetry makes it easy to learn Interslavic through natural immersion, such as communication and consuming content, and it works best in a one-way direction. It is both a strength and a weakness because while you can easily use it for creating signs or maintaining a blog, understanding someone who has not learned Interslavic may present difficulties.

4. Remarkable Flexibility: Interslavic is not only inclusive and allows optional variations in word usage and orthography, but it also provides an additional etymological alphabet with a set of rules that helps adapt ("flavorize") the language to resemble another Slavic language.

5. Influence of the Community: People actively contribute to the language, following the simple rule of "what is natural and understandable is good." If an Esperantist can't find a word in the dictionary, they construct it using existing roots, which is also commendable. However, if an Interslavic speaker can't find a word, they can: a) search it in a special bot (unofficial lexicons have over 10,000 words), compare Slavic languages using resources like Glosbe or machine translators, or ask the community. The official Interslavic website even has an open tool for selecting the best words, and people work on manually and automatically assessing the comprehensibility of Interslavic words. Ultimately, it is the community that determines how the language is used. Interslavic was originally conceived and officially described as a language for business and tourism, but it is now simultaneously used for blogs, poetry, and everyday conversations in chat rooms.