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Josquin’s Language Symphony (RU, IR, 東亜)

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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 5049 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 41 of 646
14 May 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged 
Josquin wrote:
Марк wrote:
There is a subrule about velars, they become soft
before и. That's how Russian grammar
works. It's a grammar rule, which is not connected with orthography.

So, we can agree it's a grammatical rule, not a spelling rule. Is that what you want?
In any case, it is a rule that a learner of Russian has to learn, be it grammatical or
orthographical.

As I said, I am writing from a beginner's point of view. I know virtually nothing about
Russian and have to learn by simple rules. Learning that after г, к, and х you have to
write -и instead of -ы is much easier than learning that hard г, к, and х become soft
in front of an -ы/-и ending and that's why we choose -и instead of -ы.

One could also claim that nouns with a stem ending in -г, -к, and -х are a special
subgroup of nouns with a case ending -и where other nouns of the same declension have
the ending -ы (my grammar book does so). This might be the grammatically most correct,
but at the same time most complicated rule, so I simply learn: after г, к, and х always
-и, never -ы.

Is everybody happy now?

But you same the same about ж, ш, which is an inherently different situation, because
they remain hard despite the spelling. So, you have to learn it in another way. After
к, г, х, ч, щ you write and pronounce и, after ш, ж you write и, but pronounce ы.
And if you meet any letters with velars, you pronounce them in the way they are
written.
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4837 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 42 of 646
14 May 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged 
MONDAY, 14 MAY 2012

Today, I should have been working on my dissertation, but as we say in Germany: "The Muse did not kiss me", which means I had no good idea. So, I studied Russian instead.

First, I repeated the vocabulary of lesson 3, then I did some case drills. I made a spreadsheet, took 15 random nouns from every declension paradigm that I know, and started declining them according to the cases I know by now (that is nominative singular and plural, genitive, accusative, and prepositive singular). Afterwards, I controlled the results with the help of my grammar book. Surprisingly, I made only one mistake confusing the prepositive case of the feminine nouns ending in -ь, which should be -и and not -е.

Then I continued with lesson 4. First, I listened to the recording, then I listened while reading the dialogue, and then I repeated the grammar. Learning the vocabulary comes always last. I did the exercises, which were ridiculously easy. I wished there were more translation exercises, they are the best way to really practise using the language. Instead, I had to fill in correct verb forms and do question-answer exercises. They were rather silly.

So, I did not preoccupy myself too much with lesson 4 and had a look at lesson 5. As always, I was primarily interested in the grammar that is to be learned. I am a real grammar freak. Lesson 5 deals with the dative singular, the cardinal numbers up to 39, and the construction у + genitive + (нет) есть... for expressing ownership. I also had a look at lesson 6, which deals with the instrumental case and the compound future, but I have not learned anything yet. I have to force myself to go step by step and to really learn the vocabulary or I will end up knowing all grammar but no words.

But this is really my usual way: Learning grammar, adding vocabulary, starting to understand, and finally write and speak. For me, the most important thing is understanding the concepts and patterns of the language, then understanding the words, and then producing them. There may be other approaches to language, but this one works best for me.

Edited by Josquin on 14 May 2012 at 10:46pm

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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4837 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 43 of 646
14 May 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:

But you same the same about ж, ш, which is an inherently different situation, because
they remain hard despite the spelling. So, you have to learn it in another way. After
к, г, х, ч, щ you write and pronounce и, after ш, ж you write и, but pronounce ы.
And if you meet any letters with velars, you pronounce them in the way they are
written.

Yes, but my preoccupation is not with pronunciation, which is rather clear to me, but with attaching the correct case endings.

Another example: Masculine nouns with a soft stem take -я in the genitive, but after ч and щ you have to write -a. I guess it's because ч and щ are soft by themselves and do not need the -я to indicate softness.

Today, this is already rather clear to me, but during the last few days I was really confused.

Edited by Josquin on 18 May 2012 at 4:50pm

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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4837 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 44 of 646
15 May 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged 
TUESDAY, 15 MAY 2012

Today, I worked mainly on my dissertation, so there was little time for studying Russian.

However, I repeated the dialogue of lesson 4 and the rules for the dative singular, which are not very difficult. Then I proceeded with the dialogue of lesson 5. I will have to repeat the vocabulary of lessons 4 and 5 carefully tomorrow. In addition, I already read the dialogue of lesson 6. It is about ordering at a restaurant and employs the instrumental case. I did not understand everything, but as I am primarily concerned with lessons 4 and 5 at the moment that is not a problem.

So, not much to report today. I hope I can study more tomorrow.
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prz_
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Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
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Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

 
 Message 45 of 646
15 May 2012 at 10:22pm | IP Logged 
Quote:
Today, I should have been working on my dissertation, but as we say in Germany: "The Muse did not kiss me", which means I had no good idea.

I know this feeling very, veeery well...
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4837 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 46 of 646
16 May 2012 at 9:53pm | IP Logged 
WEDNESDAY, 16 MAY 2012

Today, I made a little linguistic excursion. My flatmate, who is half Hungarian, taught me four expressions in Hungarian: Szia! ('Hello'), Hogy vagy? (How are you?), Köszönöm! ('Thank you'), and Tessék! ('Please'). In consequence, I surfed the internet for Hungarian resources and read the Wikipedia article about Hungarian grammar. It seems to be a very interesting language, and I may add it to my hitlist. Perhaps, I will just dabble in it a little bit and see what it's like. But not now, now it is time for Russian.

I repeated the vocabulary of lesson 4 and 5. Lesson 4 already works quite well, but I will still have to work on lesson 5. I repeated the numbers from 0-39 and the 'у меня есть...' construction, which is rather easy. The only thing one has to regard is that in affirmative sentences the object is in the nominative case, while in negative sentences it has to be in the genitive: У тебя есть машина? - Нет, у меня нет машины. ('Do you have a car? - No, I don't have a car.')

Counting in Russian is not as easy as in other languages either. After 2 (два/две), 3 (три), and 4 (четыре) the counted noun has to be in the genitive singular - and not in the nominative plural as one might suppose. This also applies to the compound numbers 22, 23, 24 and 32, 33, 34. On the other hand, after 21 (двадцать один) and 31 (тридцать один) the noun is always in the nominative singular - because of the один in the end position. After all other numbers, the counted noun stands in the genitive plural (which I don't know yet, so I officially cannot count Russian nouns).

This is relatively easy to understand, but I think I need time to be able to apply it correctly. In all languages that I have studied up to now, you can simply add the number to a noun in the nominative plural, even in Icelandic - which has declinable numerals and seperate forms for each gender for the numbers from 1 to 4. I imagine that the genitive after Russian numerals has a partitive function: 23 книги = '23 of the book'. So, I understand the concept, but it will nevertheless take time to get used to it.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, I will repeat the vocabulary of lesson 5 and go on with the grammar of lesson 6.


@prz_: Great feeling, isn't it!? ;)

Edited by Josquin on 16 May 2012 at 10:17pm

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4700 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 47 of 646
16 May 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged 
How many lessons does your coursebook have?
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4837 days ago

2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 48 of 646
16 May 2012 at 10:22pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
How many lessons does your coursebook have?

18. Why do you ask?


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