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How to get going in Russian ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 31 07 November 2015 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all,
I am actually planing on studying Russian (I am beginning the Duolingo course and would like to keep going), but of course, as a French native speaker, I have some problems with the alphabet. Though it's quite easy to associate the letters with the sounds (in general), I have some problems memorising the vocab, for the words that are not at all pronounced like English word. Though I studied Ancient Greek for a couple of months last year, Russian is more or less the first language I try which has a different alphabet and a different vocab. I know it will take time to get to any level at all, but I would like to get some advice so that I don't linger for an entire year on the basis of the language. I'd like to get to at least A1 within 6 months' time (I have no idea how long it would take me to improve in this language). Is there anyone who tried russian as a native French or English speaker and has advice on how to get going? Should I already try to get massive exposure to the spoken language via youtube videos? Or use some language methods like Assimil or Harrap's? I already have the Harrap's method (though the "spécial debutants-méthode express en 15 minutes par jour" method) and the "méthode 90 jours", though it seems to focus on useless vocab, so I'm not sure it would be of a great help... Thanks in advance! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5802 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 31 08 November 2015 at 5:28am | IP Logged | ||
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One challenge in Russian is a lack of good beginner materials. But you already have a course, so work
through that, and keep a journal writing everything that your studying in Cyrillic. That's what I did, and within about 2 weeks I was comfortable with the Russian alphabet. Once you finish your beginner course, I would suggest getting an italki tutor to speak with for a half hour every week, and on the other days listen to podcasts in Russian (there are several decent ones for intermediate learners). Is this your first time learning a language with the case system? If so, and if you want to be speak well (because perfect use of cases isn't necessarily necessary) I recommend doing hundreds of practice test problems for the Russian torfl exam. Through repetition you will learn good grammar, and it will take your speech to the next level. I would only recommend this after you had an intermediate level and could have basic conversations with a tutor already. Удачи! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4093 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 3 of 31 08 November 2015 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I am not sure that I will already feel confident speaking with native speakers when I
finish my beginner course, but we will see :) It is not my first time with case systems, since I'm already working on German, though it's not my main language and I haven't really put a lot of effort into it. I've studied it, but it was rather to recognize it in texts than to use it myself. As a beginner, would you recommend me to study everything by heart? I am quite an analitic person, so I like to decompose the language (finding the verb root, then the conjuguaison, plurial marker, ... to understand how it work) but would it already work now with Russian? Or is it better to only learn the parrot way and analyze later? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5802 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 31 08 November 2015 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't expect you to be comfortable speaking after the first coirse, but that's why you get a tutor to help
rather than a language exchange. Russian cases area he more complex than German. As far as how to learn at the beginning, I would say just do what you like. I never analyze any language like that at a beginner stage, so I wouldn't recommend it for Russian, but if you enjoy that and it helps you, then go for it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5167 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 5 of 31 09 November 2015 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Vocabulary will be the most difficult issue with Russian. The alphabet is a walk in the park. Try the site Langintro for a start.
I definitely recommend you a "warm-up" resource prior to Assimil. Having been through all the Assimil Russian available, I have to say in all of them the learning curve is too steep. I suggest you Méthode 90 which has even shorter lessons AND/OR Langues pour tous - Russe. No need to bother with English textbooks unless you already own them. They try to teach too much at once while explaining overall grammar to English speakers. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CitizenJimserac Newbie United States Joined 3322 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 6 of 31 13 November 2015 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||
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RUSSIAN ALPHABETICS - THE BASICS
I started long ago on the path to Russian, but even so, perhaps I can give a few suggestions to get going. Others will hopefully provide clarifications, corrections, or improvements. My native language is English but even so perhaps a few ideas helpful. First regarding the alphabet, this Russian letter "H" is easily remembered as an "N" because all you need do is mentally slide the horizontal mid bar of the "H". The "backwards" "N" is easily remembered, it is "ee" and is also their word for "And". Their "P" is an "R" sound just as in the Greek alphabet. Their "B" is a "V" sound, that's a bit confusing but is soon gotten used to. Their "f" is the Greek letter "phi" and again is easy to get used to. The only remaining ones that might seem odd are their "TS" and "SHCH" and "SH" letters. The "TS" is pronounced by putting the tongue on the roof of the mouth, almost as though one were a cat hissing at an attacker. For example the word "TSENA" which means price, and looks like this in Russian "цена" (remember, the "H" is an "N" sound !) The "SH" sound, which looks something like a "W" with a bar on the bottom, is just a simple "sh" sound but the other letter, that looks like it, but has a tiny curl in its lower right corner is "SHCH" is pronounced something like "SHuhCHuh" . Last but not least is the letter known as "Yerih", it looks like a lowercase "b" with a vertical line after it but is all one letter and is very common, for example their word for "you" (general" is "вы", first letter "V" and second letter "eerie" which is pronounced something like a "wee" but not quite...you need to hear a native speaker say it and then you'll get the hang of it, takes a while. So the word "you" is pronounced something like Vwee, but not quite. Russian has the well known distinction between general "you" and familiar "you, one for strangers, the other for family or friends, the familiar form is just " ты ", just as "sie" and "du" in German. The final two letters that I can think of that are different are the backwards "R", which is "YA" and is pronounced exactly as the German word for "yes", Ja ! (unless you're in Austria where they say "Jo" !). "YA" by itself means "I" in Russian as in "я здесь" which is pronounced "YA ZDYES (or, better phonetically - ZDYAYS)" and means "I am here". That second letter of here is just a modified Greek delta, so has a "d" sound and see how it looks like the roof of a house with a chimney on top? - well that makes it easy to remember the Russian word for house which is "дом", pronounced just like the English word "DOME". (Note the Latin connection "domus"). Oh yes, that "C" in Russian is an "S" sound, easy to remember because the top of an "S" is a "C" !! That's most of it, oh except for the "ch" sound which is an upside down "h" and looks like this: "ч". Well, sometimes it has an "sh" sound for example in the very common word "what" which in Russian looks like this "что" but is pronounced like "shto" instead of "chto" . But their word for the number four, "CHETERIE" (четыре) has the usual "ch" sound for the first letter. Those are the basic ideas, there's more of course but hopefully that will get you started. Also, learn some cognates, words almost the same in Russian as in English (or French) and that will help too. The words "tank", "bank", "telephone" or all easily recognized in Russian once you've got the alphabet down. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 7 of 31 13 November 2015 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Щ is just the soft ш. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CitizenJimserac Newbie United States Joined 3322 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 8 of 31 13 November 2015 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, didn't know that !
Russian has an interesting sound to it. Their poetry is unbelievable, for example Pushkin, the sounds mesh and it is an incredible experience to read and/or hear it spoken. I learned Russian in the late Khrushchev era because I was a chess fanatic, had to talk my way into Russian class in high school because it was mostly accelerated students taking it but it became one of those life changing events. So, of course, novels like "The Defense" by Nabokov became my favorites. After many years of not using it, I found that medical books which were not in English, and I don't know French, could be found in Russian translation, which made them available to me. Regarding vocabulary, by all means follow the advice of the amazing "Buonaparte/Siomotteikiru" of the "L-R" method, who has spelled it all out for everyone, performed a public service by making their method and their study materials available to all who bother to read and learn it. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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