|
 |
Gungho for Russian! | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6099 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes  4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian | Message 1 of 6 16 October 2008 at 4:40am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I had a strange epiphany. Until now I was rather luke-warm about Russian. It was fairly low down on my list. As of recently I came to like the language more and more. After having read some Dostoevski in German I started to develop a fascination with the culture and history of Russia. Ironically this shift was also partially influenced by the recent political events involving Georgia. I wanted to be able to hear the Russian side of things - untainted, unmingled, untranslated. I realized that Russian is the key to understanding the East. As a plus its great for my job. It won't surprise you, that there are many, many rich Russians to be found in ritzy, expensive hotels, in one of which I work. It is just cool for guest relations and gives me a competitive edge.
Now that I started to actually take my first tentative steps along the long, winding journey towards fluency in Russian I came to realize, that this will be a formidable task. This language IS hard. Subjectively I think much harder than Hungarian: Russian words are strange, difficult to pronounce and very hard fo me to retain. It all sounds the same, "slushy, mashy". Please dear Russians, don't get angry. It is just the way it feels to me on a very spontaneous, personal level. Having started out with Pimsleur Russian I feel that progress is slow and tedious. I am in it for a a week now and I have to do every lesson at least twice, sometimes repeating specific segments even more often. To contrast this with Italian: I swooshed through Pimsleur Italian I within 12 days, doing no less that 2 lessons a day, sometimes 3. Gee.... I have to amputate some languages. For the time being Italian and the "easy-as-pie" Swedish are put on ice. I need to feed my brain the real hard stuff as long as I am a 20 something. I guess I can learn Swedish even if I am already half senile. Of course French will stay there in the background. I don't work much for it, but progress is solid and I am getting there. I don't feel the same enthusiasm for it as I had for Hungarian and now for Russian. But luckily it is an easy language. I am planning to do Pimsleur and MT on Russian, then the Princeton course. Afterwards I just need a dictionary and a grammar book. Later I will need something that teaches handwriting in Cyrillic. Maybe much later.... I will keep you posted. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6101 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 2 of 6 16 October 2008 at 5:15am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I did Pimsleur Russian.
I found that some base on written Russian and some grammar rules helped me a lot. Either skim through Princeton or some other course (is there Assimil Russian in German?), or through a grammar book - just to understand genders and cases, without learning declination tables (that is Pimsleur's job). My routine was to do the whole lesson without pausing. Some time after the lesson I tried to remember and pronounce the lesson's new words. If I didn't remember a word or two I continued to the next lesson the same. I perhaps repeated a third of the lessons, mostly because I stopped paying attention midlesson, or if I found a new word or expression frustratingly difficult to pronounce. In the evening I also tried to find the new words I learned that day in the dictionary, and it wasn't always an easy task: a/o, e/i, voiced/voiceless. At half the second course I started getting bored. Just to get over it I started doing 3-4 new lessons a day. It becomes easier the more you progress, with less new words per lesson. If I could change something in what I did, I'd give more attention to pronunciation right at the beginning, especially towards hard and soft consonants - both to understand spoken Russian better and because it's difficult to learn once you have acquired bad habits. Princeton teaches it (well?), but you can also find How to pronounce Russian-guides. Some people suggest MT before Pimsleur if Pimsleur seems too difficult. To be honest I can't stand MT Russian - and I guess the more you know Russian, the less you stand it. Edited by Leopejo on 16 October 2008 at 5:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Akatsuki Triglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6290 days ago 226 posts - 236 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English Studies: Norwegian | Message 3 of 6 16 October 2008 at 6:09am | IP Logged | |||||
According to Professor Arguelles the old Russisch ohne Muehe is an excellent Assimil course.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6099 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian | Message 4 of 6 16 October 2008 at 7:21am | IP Logged | |||||
|
The Assimil course you suggested is out of print. Amazon.de has only the new course " Russisch ohne Mühe heute". By the way it is too much money. I might just as well order the Langenscheidt course for half the price. Langenscheidt isn't bad.
For the time being I will stick it out with Pimsleur and MT. This is totally different from the approach I took with Hungarian, were I studied exclusively passively at the beginning, I just want to experiment a bit. I don't think it will really harm my learning. I don't even know what you mean by hard vs. soft consonants... Is it that sometimes the "t" sounds have this slight hiss to them at the end of words that makes them considered soft? I noticed this in words like "ploshit" - square and "pit" - drink. Maybe it is better to get a decent phonological introduction first before going on... Hmm... Edited by LanguageGeek on 16 October 2008 at 7:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6101 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 5 of 6 16 October 2008 at 7:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Definitely so. But if you have Princeton, just give a look at the first couple of chapters, and listen to the examples. Most Russian consonants can be pronounced two different ways, hard (= "normal") and soft - or as some say, they are different consonants altogether, just written the same way. It is most evident in 'D', 'T' (that "hiss"), 'L', or 'N' and 'M' (kind of nasal). Two words with different meaning may differ by just the hard or soft consonant, kind of like the classic example of how "ship" and "sheep" differ in meaning in English. The vowels come in pairs too, as in "а" (A, "and") vs. "я" (YA, "I") and may determine the consonant's softness: "та" (no "hiss"), тя ("hiss"). Edited by Leopejo on 16 October 2008 at 7:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6099 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian | Message 6 of 6 18 October 2008 at 5:24am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I am getting the concept and starting to hear the difference quite distinctly. Actually Hungarian does something similar. the letters "ty" "gy" and "ny" are palatalized "t", "d" and "n" respectively in Hungarian. Never caused me problems. You just raise your tonge towards the palate. When Hungarian transliterate Russian names they preserve palatalization: "Putyin" instead of "Putin", "Arkagyi" instead of "Arkadi"
The Princeton course looks really promising. I am going to use my off weak to go full steam at Russian. Another great resource I should tap into is my local library. A wealthy Russian patron donated several hundred books to our library, many classics of Russian literature among them: Russian Library Off to the library :) LG Edited by LanguageGeek on 18 October 2008 at 5:26am 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
