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| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 17 of 70 09 April 2012 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Read the 2.4 again.
"If you simply want to be understood, you can ignore the following details. If you read Russian words as they are spelt, you will not cause misunderstandings. But if you are interested in the details of the small differences between the way Moscow Russian is written and the way it is pronounced, study these six points" The next three points explain hard and soft consonants. What do the words "as they are spelt" mean? The hardness and softness is a major phonological distinction which is reflected by the Russian graphics. it is not a small difference between the orthography and pronunciation. And mixing them certainly can cause misunderstandings. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 18 of 70 09 April 2012 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree that there's a big difference between hardness and softness, and that's why I disagreed about the book not being very deep. If you take all "Extras" (as I did), the book (as well as grammar rules) will be very deep. The sentence "as they are spelt" refers to the 1st lesson, where they explain the alphabet with the corresponding pronunciation. Of course it's never gonna be the same as learning as a kid, or even with audio, and that's why I said Youtube helps a lot here. But anyway, the point is that the way it explains Russian grammar is the easier and most didactic I've come across. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 19 of 70 09 April 2012 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If you pronounce Russian words in the way explained in the first lesson, you won't be
understood. What is the sense to mark one and the same sound soft L as ly in лес and raised y in соль? The transcription must have a simple correspondence between the phonemes and the letters. According to the lesson one there are only two sounds which somehow differ from the English ones in the Russian language. I liked the explanation: the hard sign represents A VERY SHORT PAUSE! How can be a pause inside a word?! Edited by Марк on 09 April 2012 at 5:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 20 of 70 09 April 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree that grammar is explained well, but this part is unbelievably awful.
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| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 21 of 70 09 April 2012 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, I will be understood, because I've been understood when I was starting to learn Russian with the book and tried to do the basics with some Russian friends. Of course my pronunciation wasn't "native like", but that's obvious for any language you're starting to learn. Anyway, they did understand me quite well, and by that time I still wasn't having Russian classes at university.
Well, in EVERY SINGLE source I've come across for Russian so far, people "explain" the hard sign as a short pause. Even in Michel Thomas. You must understand that we're not natives, therefore things must be explained in a more logical way. Yet, the hard sign, soft sign and the ы are the trickiest sounds for foreigners in the Russian language, but that also depends. European Portuguese has a "kind of" ы sound, while Brazilian Portuguese doesn't, what makes easier for them. On the other hand, in Portuguese (both Brazilian and European) we have the "lh" and the "nh" sounds, which are, again, "kind of" the ль and нь sounds, while people who are English natives don't have those sounds at all. My point is, these correspondences help us foreigners a lot, even the "short pause" approximation. But of course, in order to learn them to perfection, one must listen and practice them a lot, and not just rely on a book's transcription. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 09 April 2012 at 6:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 22 of 70 09 April 2012 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Probably you pronounced them in a different way, at least with Portugese sounds, not English and trained your pronunciation in other ways. I heard russian with English sounds, it is practically incomprehensible. Worse than фром май харт. And it is not only my impression. объём is [abjom]. Where is a short pause here?! [j] is a short pause? or maybe just one more sound? What's the difference between бъём in объём and бьём? And in every single sourse I've come across, starting with my school it was said that hard and soft signs are written before vowels in order to show the [j] sound between the consonant and the vowel. Hard and soft signs are not sounds. The hard sign is written to show the presence of [j], is it really difficult to pronounse? In fact, Anglophones replace бяб ля etc with бъя, лъя or бья, лья. How can hard and soft signs be difficult if they insert them everywhere? Edited by Марк on 09 April 2012 at 6:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 23 of 70 09 April 2012 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Of course one might be understood with wrong grammar, wrong pronunciation and sometimes
even wrong words, but that'not the way textbooks should teach. And what i'm talking about is not perfection, but at least understanding of basic Russian phonology and graphics. Edited by Марк on 09 April 2012 at 6:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 24 of 70 09 April 2012 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It might indeed be the case. Maybe Portuguese sounds are in general closer to Russian? But since the book is in English, I had to "transcript" the sounds from English to Portuguese, and apparently it worked out quite well.
In the book they don't transliterate "ъ" as "j". Like in 1.2, объект is put as [ab-yekt], and there's an explanation "the ъ simply separates the [ b ] sound from the [y] sound". I don't know where that "j" came from.
You're totally right about that, and that's why I said that the book has cons, especially not having any audio with it. As far as grammar explanation is concerned, it is the best I've found. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 09 April 2012 at 6:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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