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Team Катюша - TAC 2014 - TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5187 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 225 of 464 04 April 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I understand the situation of Russians speaking first and writing after, and gaining a natural intuition of these hard and soft letter combinations. For me and many other learners it is never going to happen that way. Where I am, I have 20x the opportunities for reading and writing than I have for speaking. That's why these made-up rules are so important in building my confidence.
Well, I'm going to keep learning from my books, speak when I can, and hopefully my Russian will not be built on rotten foundations. Anyway, moving on... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 226 of 464 04 April 2014 at 6:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Maybe not just reading, but with time and exposure, yes, definitely. The so called "rules" help us more with reading and writing, which is what the huge majority of beginners do when they start learning. As soon as they start listening to music, watching movies or conversing with natives, they will notice it. It's exactly why I always recommend using an audio resouce such as Assimil or Pimsleur together with a grammar book like Penguin. PS: Check Penguin on pages 19 and 82. They try to explain hardness and softness on page 19, and on page 82 they try to explain that "rule", saying that г, к and х are pronounced in the same place; ж and ш are always hard andt ч and щ are always soft. It might not be enough without audio examples, I agree, but I'm 100% sure that it helps any beginner a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 227 of 464 04 April 2014 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The evidence shows the opposite. People do not hear the difference even after listening to Russian. And it is difficult if you don't know what should be. You said yourself that you didn't hear the difference between ш and щ after years of learning Russian. If you don't hear the difference, how can you understand what should be pronounced? And the attempt is strange. That's like "I've been learning Spanish for two years and have just realized that c in ce and c in ca stand for different sounds". When I learned Spanish, we started with pronunciation rules. We learned that ga is /ga/, gi is /xi/, gui is /gi/ and gua is /gwa/.
That's a "non-essential feature". Edited by Марк on 04 April 2014 at 8:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 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 228 of 464 04 April 2014 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Mark, what would then your recommendation be? So far it works for many to have these spelling rules, that are taught by every Russian book I have every come across. But if you can recommend a method that is better and easier from a foreigner's pont of view, I am all ears :-)
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| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 229 of 464 04 April 2014 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's exactly what I said. That at the beginning the person might not be able to recognize it, but with time and exposure he/she will, like I can right now.
I don't think that this is a good example... the sounds "ce" and "ca" in Spanish are way different, and you have both in Russian, as well as we have it in Portuguese. I'll give you a better one. I might have mentioned before that my wife (and ALL, ALL her Russian friends) couldn't recognize or produce he difference between the sounds "ô" and "ó" in Portuguese (in IPA, ô = o and ó = ɔ). That said, we have 2 similar words here: "avô" (grandfather) and "avó" (grandmother), so understanding and pronouncing this difference correctly is pretty important and can affect comprehension. Now, after living in the country and listening to it a lot, she started to understand it better. I don't know if you don't have "ɔ" in Russian or if you just can't differentiate it, but for me it worked the same way with ш and щ.
Agreed, but at least they try to explain it... I second Cristina's suggestion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 230 of 464 04 April 2014 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
At the beginning I would explain it in the way The Princeton course does. http://ru.scribd.com/doc/117693162/Princeton-Russian-1-2 The consonants К,Г,Х are known as the velars (since they are pronounced toward the velum, in the back top of the mouth).In front of the vowels {A}, {O}, {U} the velarsare always pronounced and written hard, that is, written with the vowel letters ,a”, “o,”, and “у, respectively. Thus, you should always write only ка/га/ха and never кя/гя/хя;only ко/го/хо and never кё/гё/хё; only ку/гу/ху and never кю/гю/хю In front of the vowels {E} and {I} the velars are pronounced and written soft... The above are often given as “spelling rules” (see below for real spelling rules), but it’s really a matter of pronunciation . Still, be careful never to spell or say any of the velars with the “wrong” vowel. At a higher level, when I would add that the information given above is obsolete. Modern Russians can pronounce hard and soft velars in front of any vowel, more and more words which violate the rule enter the language, they are spelt according to the pronunciation: маникюр, ткёт, ЕГЭ, and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 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 231 of 464 04 April 2014 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Dear Mark, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this, but my problem is that this approach would not help me. The spelling rules are easier - even if your approach may be more linguistically correct :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 232 of 464 04 April 2014 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
But she understood well it was not just a spelling convention or a non-essential feature, didn't she? She realized these are two different sounds (phonemes) which distinguish words, didn't she? When you have difficulties with pronunciation, you need better and more detailed explanations than when you don't. If you don't hear the difference between two sounds, you need to know well when they occur. When we learned French, we learned how nasal vowels are expressed in spelling in the first months of learning, and it was more than helpful. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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