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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5085 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 9 of 42 10 June 2011 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Past tense + бы is Rusian conditional. There is no any other conditional and there is no
subjunctive in Russian. Yes, we always distinguish between hard and soft consonants because they are different. For example,when pronouncing hard т, д, л, н one puts the end of the tongue on the upper teeth. And when pronouncing ть, дь, ль, нь the middle of the tongue is on the alveolars. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 42 14 June 2011 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Марк! Do you have any tips on pronouncing сь or рь? I can't seem to place the middle of my tongue on the alveolar for these consonants.
Fifth Week I: Review of Vocab and the Genitive Princeton lessons 46-47, Sara story 5-6. I realized that I haven't done that much new Russian grammar in the past few days; I've been mainly trying to review vocabulary and solidify my control of the genitive case. I now feel much more comfortable with the different forms, and the large amount of strange vocab (that is, they are long and look nothing like English) is starting to sink in. I've also been learning Cursive Russian handwriting, every once in a while. I don't know why, but it seems much harder than it looks, perhaps because I'm so used to writing in block letters. For example, I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that the "т" is written as an "m" in cursive. Currently I write a bit slower in cursive, but hopefully with some practice, that will change. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5085 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 11 of 42 14 June 2011 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was a little bit wrong: the front part of the tongue must be on alveolars, not the
very middle because it is impossible. The vocabulary, I think, is more familiar than that of Mandarin, isn't it? рь is pronounced with similar position of tongue as ть, дь, ль, нь. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 42 16 June 2011 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Surely Russian vocab is not as exotic (compared to English) as Mandarin, but there are still some long words that take a while to stick to my mind (государственчый, действительный, обыкновенный). I also picked up Mandarin from my parents, so I can't say how difficult it would be for foreigners to learn the words (with tones!).
Fifth Week II: Weather expressions and the Prepositional case Princeton lessons 48-50, Sara story 7 And this concludes the first semester of Princeton's Russian sequence. While I still feel largely illiterate, and although I only have learned about 700 words, I am glad that I've more-or-less stuck to this intensive course of study for the past 5 weeks. With research and other stuff going on, I can barely sqeeze in 2.5 hours per day, so I'm not progressing quite at the pace that I would like, but I can live with it. The objective here is not to learn Russian as quickly as possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 42 21 June 2011 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Sixth Week I: Perfective Aspect
Princeton Lessons 51-54, Sara story 8 I knew it. There had to be a catch with only a few tenses in Russian, compared to the millions of tenses in English. And indeed, there are two forms of each verb (two Aspects - perfective and imperfective), depending on whether the action it describes is completed or not (roughly - the difference can be much more subtle at times). I see it as similar to the Spanish imperfect, except that the rules are slightly different, and the distinction is made in the future tense as well. The fact that the Perfective and Imperfective verb stems are similar helps a little bit in memorization, but I am still slow in deciding which form is which. I'm not quite sure how to go about studying these different stems of the same verb. I'm thinking flashcards with the perfective on one side and the imperfective on the other, but that doesn't really help me internalize the idea of Aspect. I will have to see. I would guess that this is another main challenge of the Russian language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5085 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 14 of 42 21 June 2011 at 4:55am | IP Logged | ||
perfective and imperfective verbs are considered two different verbs in Russian. Yes, the distinction between aspects is one of the most complex things in Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 42 26 June 2011 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow - I haven't posted for a while.
Digression before I begin: does anyone know how to switch quickly between language keyboards on Windows? I don't want to click on the language bar every time I type something in Russian (and then switch back). It takes about 3 seconds total to switch, but I'm a bit lazy... Anyway, Седьмая неделя, часть первая: Dative case, and сколько тебе лет (how old are you)? Princeton lessons 55-59, Sara story 9-10 Ahhh, yet another case. However, I find this case natural thanks to years of Spanish and French object pronouns (unlike the Genitive case, which really doesn't exist in Romance languages and English). It's nice to see how phrases like мне некогда and вот вам чай (which I had memorized before as set phrases) make more sense. Also, I can finally say how old I am! Мне девятнадцать лет! It definitely took a while - I remember being able to say how old I was in Spanish in the second week, even in my super-slow middle school class. However, expressing age in Russian requires the Dative case and knowledge of the irregular Genitive plural of год, which is definitely a lot more complicated than simply saying that I have x number of years (j'ai dix-neuf ans, tengo diecinueve años). I also caught up on some written exercises that I've been too lazy to do in the past few days. I will need to solidify my Russian spelling sometime, since I debate over whether to write an "o" or "a" all the time (and similarly occassionally with "e" vs "и"). In other news, I was writing in my lab journal and wrote "NMR" (an instrument used to help determine the structures of molecules) as "HMP", with a hook on the M. I didn't even realize it until a few seconds later. This is what happens when I write way more Russian than English in the past month. Edited by 236factorial on 26 June 2011 at 3:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5085 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 16 of 42 26 June 2011 at 6:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I press SHIFT + ALT to switch between the keyboards. If it doesn't work, try CONTRL +
SHIFT. Anyway it must be written somewhere. I learnt "I'm ... years old" as a set expression in English, but I still don't understand its structure. What is "old": an adjective, a noun? How is this word connected with others? You have already noticed the difficulties of Russian spelling. I have created a thread about it in "Русский". You can write your opinion there. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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