|
 |
Josh’s Russian/Portuguese Log | ||
Tags: Russian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 1 of 20 26 April 2013 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Ever since my teenage years I have had what I can only call I deep-seated passion for learning languages, but have never gotten far past the dabbler stage. I attribute much of this to my father, who was also a language learner. He died when I was six years old, so I never really got to find out all the details of his language adventures, although according to my aunt he spoke French (his favorite) and Spanish well and I know he was learning (or had learned) Mandarin Chinese and Japanese prior to his death. (I have vague memories of his studying Chinese characters and I still have some of his books). I've also found Italian, German and Portuguese learning materials among his things.
I guess "anatomy is destiny", because as I stated I inherited (among other things) his passion for languages. And so, now in my late twenties and having only reached a respectable level in Spanish, I have decided to embark on my own journey. I would like to be fluent in Russian. And so I have picked Russian, the language I am most interested in, to begin with. (I've recently returned to college and am taking Spanish classes to fulfill my foreign language credits, but I won't be posting much about that here). Why Russian? I honestly don't know. I don't know what attracts people to certain languages. Surely there is a scientific explanation for why, for example, my father was so passionate about French and I really am only mildly interested in the language. I have been fascinated by Russia for a long time. I was born in the 1980s, during the Reagan years when the Cold War was still going on, but my earliest memories were of the Berlin Wall falling and later on Russia going from the Soviet Union to the "former Soviet Union" and then the Russian Federation. I guess because Russia always seemed so exotic, so different...European and at the same time Asian and yet neither. I never felt antagonistic towards Russia, never understood why they were supposed to be "our enemies", and always wondered why, out of all the places my aunt and uncle have traveled, they skipped Russia but traveled to Communist China in the 1980s. I understand Russian is a difficult language, and I am in for quite a long period of study, but I hope my interest in the language and culture will only grow. Enough about me, this log is supposed to be about Russian, so here we go: LEARNING MATERIALS Assimil Russian With Ease The New Penguin Russian Course Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar Schaum's Outline of Russian Vocabulary The Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs, 2nd Edition English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary by Kenneth Katzner Lots of TV, radio, and movies from Netflix. I ordered Assimil directly from the site, so it still hasn't arrived here yet. I already started work on The New Penguin Russian Course, and so far have gotten to the second chapter. I really wish I could post everyday but I seriously doubt I will be able to. I plan on working at least an hour everyday, preferably either early morning before work or maybe after hitting the gym. Yesterday I put in 2 hours, working on the alphabet and pronunciation. Since Penguin doesn't come with audio, I can't wait for Assimil to get here so I can get a better handle on pronunciation. The alphabet wasn't as hard as I had thought, but the handwriting is tough. After I finish Chapter 2 of Penguin, I plan on tackling the first section of Schaum's to really work on my handwriting. I woke up late today and so I will probably have to wait to get in my 1-2 hours of studying later, which I will post. Edited by josh_badgley on 10 May 2013 at 4:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4850 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 2 of 20 26 April 2013 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I wish you lots of success on your Russian journey! It is a very beautiful language and I love it very much.
Успехов! (Good luck!) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 3 of 20 26 April 2013 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
That was easily the longest hour of my life. I finished Chapter 2 of The New Penguin Russian Course and the handwriting! It's killing me! There are also way more pronunciation rules than I imagined. Not discouraging, just daunting. Hopefully when Assimil arrives I will get a better idea of pronunciation and my brain will work out the details on it's own. I also read the first part of Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar, covering pronunciation. I still can't seem to understand how ы and щ are supposed to sound, but I guess I'll pick it up as I go along. I don't know if I have another hour in me today, maybe after the gym. I'm also planning on adding the vocabulary from Chapter 3 of Penguin to an Anki deck and start studying them.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4713 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 4 of 20 26 April 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
|
ы is fairly easy to distinguish, щ is somewhat harder in my experience (but I knew the
former sound from Romanian). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4850 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 5 of 20 26 April 2013 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Try not to learn too much information at the same time. There are a lot of rules for Russian pronunciation, but if you learn them systematically step-by-step they're actually very logical. All will be much easier when you have the audio recordings.
The sound of ы is between the English i in "bit" and the oo in "wool". Щ sounds like an English sh, but it's pronounced longer and with the tongue against the palate. In contrast to щ, ш is a retroflex sound. That means the tongue does not touch the palate, instead its tip is bent a little bit backwards against the roof of the mouth. It's hard to describe these sounds, but all will be easier when you hear them. The most important distinction in the Russian sound system is between 'hard' and 'soft' sounds. You should practise them right from the beginning. And don't drive yourself crazy because of the handwriting. It's not that important at the beginning. You can always learn it later. Edited by Josquin on 26 April 2013 at 7:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 6 of 20 27 April 2013 at 1:22am | IP Logged | ||
|
I got in another half our on The New Penguin Russian Course after the gym, starting Chapter 3. It's just basic greetings, yes/no etc. So that brings my total to 1:30 of study time today. I also downloaded an album by Агата Кристи, a Russian rock group I heard on TuneIn and liked. I'm watching Россия 24 right now and I'll probably fall asleep with the radio on. All in all a good day!
Пока 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5062 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 7 of 20 27 April 2013 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
If you want to learn Russian pronunciation, you shouldn't use The New Penguin Russian Course. You should find a normal description, which won't teach like "т is like t in tip" and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 8 of 20 27 April 2013 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
That's why I ordered Assimil Russian With Ease, I'm just waiting on it to arrive.
Edited by josh_badgley on 27 April 2013 at 1:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
