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Russian writing system easy? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4658 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes  Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 32 17 March 2012 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It depends very much on your native language.
You can learn to read and write Cyrillics quite easily, whole generations of Czech children learned both the printed form and the handwritten form (cursive) in 5th grade before Christmas, I think. I know that for me, writing in Russian used to be as easy as writing in Czech. Cyrillics itself can be learned in few days. For me, the voiced/voiceless consonants are the most natural way to speak. The stressed consonants are different from Czech, but very predictable. A friend of mine had spoken "Russian" in the school simply through shifting the stress in Czech words and applying Russian conjugation and declension to it. Surprisingly, it took the teacher almost a year to catch this. And I completely agree with Serpent - don't avoid Russian because of Cyrillics, but don't expect to learn Russian just because you know the alphabet. Your work has just started... I mean - I couldn't read English just because I knew the alphabet, don't you think? As for the tts of "чаше, чаша" - the sounds are not the same. They are pretty close, I needed to hear it several time to confirm there was really a difference. The problem is that the æ at the end of чаша is very short and it is difficult to distinguish both sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 10 of 32 17 March 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When you start to learn reading your own language as a child, you go progressively from recognising single letters to recognising whole words. Once you are a fluent reader, you see the word as a single entity, not as a group of letters. More or less the same process takes place when you learn a new "alphabet" like Cyrillic script.
I am at a beginner's level in Russian, and when I start on a new lesson, reading a text with lots of new vocabulary, then yes, I need to spell out the words letter by letter. However, what works for me is reading over and over again the same text, at least ten times. That way new words stick better and I start recognising them as words, not only groups of letters. Now reading and knowing how to pronounce the words, let alone reproducing spoken words in writing, is something else and requires lot of practice. However, I am not giving up, and hope that, being perseverant, I will get to a level where I can read Russian as easily and fluently as I read English (and will know where to put the stress and how to pronounce it correctly). Edited by Ogrim on 17 March 2012 at 4:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 32 17 March 2012 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Any individual's experience, will of course just be anecdotal evidence, but for me the alphabet and all the exceptions has proven to be a gigantic obstacle. When I learned Polish many years ago, it took me a couple of days to get used to the special letters, but apart from that I was reading Polish without major difficulties. I have been learning Russian for two years, and I am still struggling with all but the words I know already. When I read Russian, I see 5 variants of the letter b. ( ы в ъ ь б). I know that there is just one b in Russian, but that is how my eyes present them to me. It is like there is a gigantic written glottal stop in every word with one of the 5 b's, until I have managed to figure out whether it is a b,v,i or just a sound which influences or separates other sounds. Of course I realize that the reason I struggle so hard after all this time, is that I have been avoiding to read. I do Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and 3-4 other audio based courses, so that I can still manage to learn something without reading. But no more. Thanks to you, Serpent, I have signed up with Russian as one of my Tadoku languages. I know I can't read Russian, but after I have done my German reading, in order not to feel like a complete idiot, I will do Russian. I have got an Easy Reader and my Agatha Christie on the table, and will somehow, sometime read through the whole book. And hopefully, when I am through it, I will go:" Nah, Russian is easy, just throw yourself into it, there is nothing to it :-) " Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 17 March 2012 at 6:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 12 of 32 17 March 2012 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The vowel letters э, ы, и, у, ю, ё do not undergo vowel reduction.
They do. ё is never unstressed, э is pronounced in the same way as ы and и. и, ы are pronounced like schwa in weak (not initial or prestressed syllable) у is strongly reduced too but manages to mantain the difference between it and other vowels. Чаше and чаша sound the same. Russian spelling is very complicated indeed, it causes very much trouble to native speakers as well as the punctuation which is one of the most complex in the world. It has some logic but it is inconsistent. There have been a lot of developed suggestions to reform it but people are too conservative. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4672 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 32 17 March 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yay - I'm not going crazy! Thanks for the rest of the post too, Марк. Very informative. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 14 of 32 17 March 2012 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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as for чаша/чаше - the "official" transcription would be a schwa (ъ) vs an и with a small э above it. i'm not sure how differently i pronounce them.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 15 of 32 17 March 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I admire you for learning a new alphabet despite being dyslexic but I think this does affect it a lot. Good luck with Tadoku!!! I myself am doing it in Polish to get used to the writing system. And I've known the Latin alphabet since I was 4 :-) Also, of course whether Russian or Polish is easier for you will depend on a number of factors. Someone with a knowledge of French or Portuguese has an advantage because of the nasals, for example. But in the long run these things don't matter so much that you should choose a language based on them. Edited by Serpent on 17 March 2012 at 6:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 32 17 March 2012 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am sure Japanese would be far more difficult for me or for anyone else - though who knows. Perhaps my brain would react positively to something which is more drawing based - you never know :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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