17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>
Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6671 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil
| Message 1 of 17 11 October 2006 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
I finally found the motivation to start learning Russian, but I could use some advice on how to start. In the long run, I want to use the Assimil course, but I find it too difficult to enjoy it, because I'm not familiar with the alphabet at all. Also, I fear that the transscription to the Latin alphabet will influence my pronunciation and maybe mess it up... So I was thinking I'd do about 20 or 30 Rosetta Stone lessons first to get acquainted with the alphabet and the pronunciation first and then switch to Assimil. What do you think? Do you have any other idea on how to get started?
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| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6690 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German
| Message 2 of 17 11 October 2006 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
Based on my half hour of experience with Russian (haha), I would recommend starting with something that'll give you a general overview of how sentences are constructed, and things are said. Perhaps the first five lessons of Pimsleur. My sole resource thus far has been the Learn in Your Car course, and for an absolute novice to Slavic languages, the pronunciation is a beast to get down. However, it does get easier.
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| オットさん Pentaglot Newbie Canada Joined 6673 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian*, English, German, Slovenian, Macedonian Studies: Japanese, Russian
| Message 3 of 17 11 October 2006 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
I posted something about resources in my other thread, but I was wondering if anyone has a site that has Russian grammar books and dictionaries in other languages, specifically Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian.
Thanks in advance.
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7194 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin
| Message 4 of 17 11 October 2006 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
Just learn the Russian alphabet. It will seriously only take you half an hour max to know each letter. What I did to learn the alphabet, was "read" a news article. Every time I encountered a letter which I didn't know or had forgotten, I'd look it up. After doing this, I'd quiz my self, and then just learn the ones I got wrong (which was only 2 or 3). I never used a transliteration, even when just starting Russian, and after a few chapters of working through my coursebook, the Russian alphabet was second nature to me.
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| autodidactic Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States tinyurl.com/cunningl Joined 6629 days ago 100 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Japanese, Kazakh
| Message 5 of 17 12 October 2006 at 6:53am | IP Logged |
privyet!
I just started Russian last week and I'm doing an all out approach.
I'm doing 2 pimsleur lessons a day during my workout. I'm also reading the book " The new penguin Russian course" which is one of the best introductory language books Ive read. I'm also reinforcing the grammar in the new penguin book by looking each concept up in "Schaum's outlines of Russian Grammar" as the book goes over it. I dont know anything about assimil, but I am doing a couple rosetta stones here and there, but that program in general is just frustratingly slow, pimsleur at least teaches you phrases you can use immediately, rather than rosetta stone's approach: "the boy is on the plane".
You can learn to sound out cyrillic in at most a couple of hours. It is A LOT easier than it looks. THIS is hands down the best introduction to the alphabet there is, read this before you read anything else.
http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/alphabet.html
If you're short on money for the courses and books, try these links along with what's on this site:
http://www.tinyurl.com/hbdez
http://www.tinyurl.com/fbovo
http://www.tinyurl.com/zetyb
http://www.learningrussian.com/
http://www.masterrussian.com
http://www.tinyurl.com/g49ft
http://www.russianlessons.net
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_grammar
Edited by autodidactic on 12 October 2006 at 6:58am
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6665 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian
| Message 6 of 17 12 October 2006 at 8:52am | IP Logged |
The more Russian you hear and speak, the better your pronunciation will be.
I only had about a month and a half of Russian some years ago, and I found that the alphabet wasn't really that much of a problem. Some letters look and sound the same as Latin letters, and other letters look like Latin letters but represent different sounds.
I live in an area where many people have (or had) grandparents or other relatives who spoke Italian or Slavic languages, so the sounds of Russian weren't as much of a problem for me. Russian seems much more phonetic in its spelling than English or French, so I don't think transcription should be much of a problem.
By all means learn the alphabet. It's not as scary as it may seem at first, and it will give you the confidence to move forward.
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| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7152 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto
| Message 7 of 17 14 October 2006 at 6:43am | IP Logged |
I began with My First Russian Book by Arakin and Samoylova which had two 10 inch long play records to go with the book.
It introduced the letters gradually, taking half a dozen lessons to introduce them all.
It began, Eta Tom, eta Nina, Eta Mama, Eta Papa.
Then it would ask, Eta Mama? Da, eta Mama. etc.
I learnt the alphabet painlessly and without effort. I worked through My First Russian Book and graduated to My Second Russian Book. I also have the third and fourth in the series, but I dropped them to go to Russian For Everybody, which contained six or seven books and ten 10 inch 33 1/3 rpm records. I recorded all of the records to cassettes and worked with the tapes.
I believe Russian For Everybody is still available. I bought mine in the early seventies in East Berlin. I know it was very cheap for what you got.
I would recommend either of these courses to begin learning Russian.
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| Vova1984 Newbie Russian Federation Joined 6496 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: English
| Message 8 of 17 18 February 2007 at 5:22am | IP Logged |
Hi to all! I'm native Russian speaker and I can help you in study Russian! But I'm needed you help in study English! If you can help me and wish I help you then mail me to dcshoecousa@pochta.ru
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