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Writing Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 17 of 45 14 February 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll worry about cursive when a need to handwrite Russian comes... And it probably won't come until I become at least decent in the language.
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 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 45 14 February 2010 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I had private Russian lessons some years ago, I preferred writing in cyrillic blockletters. Even if Russian natives themselves write naturally in cursive, I find it legitimate, if foreign language users of Russian choose to use cyrillic blockletters. The only thing which is inevitable, is learning how to READ cyrillic cursive writing, especially for those people who are interested in any form of Russian correspondence.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 14 February 2010 at 9:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 19 of 45 14 February 2010 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Luckily we can now print mails or e-mail things. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5533 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 20 of 45 14 February 2010 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm most likely out of touch with modern Russian usage, not having had to use it for last
10 years or so, but I believe it used to be that block letters in writing were being the equivalent of writing in ALL CAPS. You just didn't do it unless you were a kid. Not that one has to learn the cursive, but not doing it is kind of a like deliberately ignoring one part of literacy. I guess it's the cultural thing. First time I ever saw someone writing with block letters was when I had american pen pal back in the 80s. I didn't understand why would anyone want to write like that instead of using cursive. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Genevra Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5414 days ago 13 posts - 21 votes Speaks: Russian*, Swedish*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 21 of 45 15 February 2010 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, exactly Aabram. That is correct. It's not really optional - to use cursive or not.
When a person uses block letters in Russian . it is perhaps when he/she wants to point out something as we would do in all caps. But otherwise it's not acceptable. Of course, those of you who are learning Russian and are beginners, you should not worry about this. Naturally, one needs to learn a bit of the language itself first. But you should really consider taking on the cursive way of letters as soon as you feel confident enough. Native Russians are very attentive to pronunciation and the way you write something. That comes on the first place one can say. Me, being Russian native speaker myself but also having Swedish as my second native language (due to the very early age of coming to Sweden), I can't help to notice that a majority of Russians think very highly of good pronunciation and good writing skills. I work as a guide and have tours in different languages, but only Russians are so concerned with those perhaps more "superficial" aspects of the language. As long as I speak without any accent they can forgive any grammatical errors I sometimes make. They don't even hear that...almost. But my colleagues that also have tours in Russian but are native Lithuanian or Swedish speakers (and have great vocabulary and have a good command of the language I must say!) are facing more sceptical Russians that quickly hear that "something is wrong", the accent etc. and then it much tougher for the colleagues of mine to "win the acceptance" of those critical Russians =/ Of course, most of us cannot learn a language (when adults) and speak without any accent at all- But my point is - put some additional effort on your pronunciation and writing well in cursive, and you will find it much easier to communicate with Russian native speakers (especially those who actually live in Russia and not in Sweden, France or USA etc. because then one gets more "neutral" to such things; for example, I don't care about the pronunciation as long as the grammatics is correct). Do your best and some extra and you will be seen more as a Russian ("one of them") which has a lot of advantages when communicating with people. Nobody will care that much if you put a word to late in a sentence or something, as long as they feel that you actually are working hard on the "looks" of the language (ie pronunciation and writing skills). 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 45 15 February 2010 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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It may be part of an educated Russian's background to write in cursive, and the Russians may be condescending towards anybody who writes in ordinary block letters. That's OK with me, no offence taken. But that is just not the point. I write a lot in Russian (especially if you include my wordlists and copies from genuine texts), and I do that in block letters because block letters ressemble ordinary printed text. The risk that any Russian will have to read my childish handwriting is minimal, and it will stay so for a long time.
The only places where the things I might want to write in Russian are meant for Russians are the forms they use for entry or departure from Russian, plus the form used in hotels. The rest of the time my Cyrillic handwriting is exclusively meant for myself, and any communication with Russians will pass through a keyboard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| elysandler Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5404 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English*, French Studies: Latin, Spanish, Russian | Message 23 of 45 15 February 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I've never heard this idiom before - and I'm British. Might I ask where you heard it (its meaning being obvious)? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 24 of 45 15 February 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I think this is exactly spot on. In all likelihood you will type, and not write, when you need to communicate something to native speakers. Heck, even if you want to be a novelist you will hardly ever need to do handwriting - people use computers these days. The situations where handwriting is still relevant mostly have to do with education (in school, university, language classes, self-study). Apart from education, the opportunities to demonstrate your amazing handwriting will be very few. Frankly, I'm surprised Russians place so much importance on the cursive but if native speakers say so, I suppose it's true. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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