Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 17 of 144 05 January 2012 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
Ellsworth wrote:
Yeah I agree about the listening. I even try listening to Russian that I can't understand
yet, just for exposure to the sounds. |
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I used to do that too. In fact, I still do :-)
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Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish
| Message 18 of 144 10 January 2012 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
So another couple days of studying gone by. I still have not updated my word list, as I
am still trying to figure out how best to organize words for ease of study. I am trying
to spend most of my time this month on verbs, as I figure the framework for any sentence
is the verb. Verbs from both languages are giving me a bit of a headache. If I can just
figure out Russian verbs of motion, I may actually be getting somewhere this year :P
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 19 of 144 10 January 2012 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
Ellsworth wrote:
If I can just
figure out Russian verbs of motion, I may actually be getting somewhere this year :P |
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Russian verbs of motion is not really beginners's stuff, on the other hand, if you master that first, I guess everything else will seem easy after that :-)
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Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish
| Message 20 of 144 13 January 2012 at 1:11am | IP Logged |
@Solfrid yeah well I am not expecting to master them, I just want to understand them so
that I can improve my usage of them in a more passive way.
Well I have just moved French to actively studying rather than just flirting. Hopefully
it won't get in my way too much with my other languages but my high school only offers
language courses in Spanish, German and French, and as I have exhausted the Spanish and
German resources if I want to take a language it has to be French, though I am not particularly excited about the prospect. So far it looks doable after Spanish but very
irregular (mais je ne sais pas).
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Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 21 of 144 13 January 2012 at 5:52am | IP Logged |
Ellsworth wrote:
wow stupid soft signs! I really am about to rip every hair from my
head. I feel like I
know what I should be doing in theory, and I can tell the difference when I hear it, but
my poor, weak, clumsy American mouth just can't make the right sound! |
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So, you don't have problems with soft consonants before vowels? Because you said about
soft signs, not soft consonants.
Listening itself does not help much with consonants. One has to know where the tongue
is. Sometimes one first learns to pronounce sounds and then to distinguish between them.
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Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish
| Message 22 of 144 13 January 2012 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
@Марк I wish but I am having problems with soft consonants in general. I think I
understand what to do with my tongue most of the time, as I have been using a Russian
phonetic guide. The рь however is still completely enigmatic. I can't find anything
helpful on how to pronounce it and my Russian friend can't explain it to me. I never
really encountered any sounds in Spanish or German that were unpronounceable for me and
I am unsure what to do...
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espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5049 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani
| Message 23 of 144 13 January 2012 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
@Ellsworth
I found this advice on a Russian website for native speakers who have trouble pronouncing certain sounds. It goes something like this: "Press the middle part of your tongue harder against the roof of the mouth than you would when pronouncing the regular R. Extend the tip of your tongue a bit further; it should be touching the back of your upper teeth. Spread your lips wide. Now do what you normally do when you pronounce the regular R: push air from your throat."
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Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish
| Message 24 of 144 13 January 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged |
@espejismo thanks for the tip! I am trying that now but so far no results. Stuff like
this may take time :(
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