|
 |
Soft signs in Pimsleur Russian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5447 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 1 of 6 30 December 2009 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I've been doing Pimsleur Russian up to lesson 5, and I look in Google Translate and online dictionaries for learning the orthography of whatever they say. Sometimes there are words with the soft sign Ь like здесь or пло́щадь, but the Pimsleur recordings have never mentioned the existence of soft signs even once. Are the speakers pronouncing them right? Is Pimsleur Russian good for someone practicing Russian or should I not do it?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7187 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 2 of 6 30 December 2009 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
If I recall correctly, the soft signs are pronounced in Pimsleur Russian (it would be a pretty terrible course if they weren't!). However, note that it can be quite difficult to hear the difference between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants as a beginner in Russian, so if you don't hear them right now, that's OK. You should at some point try and find a native Russian speaker to help you by going through some minimal pairs like мат, мать or лук, люк to learn just exactly what the soft sign does.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5837 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 3 of 6 31 December 2009 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I have done Pimsleur Russian.
Pimsleur, as you probably heard is incredibly repetitive and has next to no interesting plot. And I mean interesting in the loosest possible way. Frankly it is very boring. However, Russian is a VERY hard language and you need all the help you can get. If you've got Pimsleur already, just put it on your mp3 player and listen instead of music. I have read comments by native Russian speakers that would suggest that there is some questionable grammar, word order and vocabulary in Pimsleur though. Personally I wouldn't know. Last but not least: HAVE NO ILLUSIONS! Pimsleur is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to learning Russian. It doesn't matter at all whether it mentioned the soft sign as you brought up. Because you should have several other sources of learning anyway. One of them is bound to explain it in detail. Pimsleur is nothing, just a baby-step to pick up some VERY basic vocubulary and minimum required grammar to have a simple communication (wouldn't call it conversation) with someone. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5447 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 4 of 6 31 December 2009 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I see. Well, if the pronunciations are fine, then I'm relieved.
cordelia0507: I know that Pimsleur alone won't do; I am also studying vocabulary myself. I have ordered the Penguin Russian book a while ago and until it arrives, I'm just doing Pimsleur for now. And thank you bzoh, I'll get to the link when I get to my personal computer... At a friend's house right now. Edited by chucknorrisman on 31 December 2009 at 4:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hobbitofny Senior Member United States Joined 6232 days ago 280 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 6 01 January 2010 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is very true. Pimsleur Russian I, II, and III does not cover the full Russian language grammar. The course is to short for that. They were creative in working around this limitation to the series. A native speaker of Russian has full use of the complete Russian language and would never say some expressions as found in Pimsleur. However a native Russian speak will understand what you are communicating using the Pimsleur lessons. After learning Pimsleur, you still need to learn more Russian. As you do this, the Pimsleur work arounds are no longer needed. Any native Russian speaker who I have talked with is not offended by the work arounds. They are use to hearing poorly spoken Russian from Americans. They assume I have a much better grasp of Russian based on how i sound and the short time it takes for me to reply to them. Pimsleur is a base to build on while learning Russian. It will get you off to a good start. The work arounds are not a problem. They simply help you communicate more within the limits of what you have learned. As you learn more Russian you will not need or use the work arounds. I recommend the Pimsleur Russian courses. They are a great starting point. Edited by hobbitofny on 01 January 2010 at 7:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| novemberain Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5843 days ago 59 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC1, Italian Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 6 of 6 02 January 2010 at 1:30am | IP Logged | |||||
Pimsleur only occasionally mentions existence of rules in the target language: you are supposed to infer them as you listen. At least this is the case with Italian, Spanish and Portuguese courses that I've done.
I've just listened to an excerpt from a random Pimsleur Russian III unit at Audible. Well, speakers are no doubt natives, however, because they pronounce each word so slowly, it does sound a bit weird to my ear. But worry not about Ь (мягкий знак) and the way it changes sounding of consonant it follows: maybe narrators are forced to speak uncommonly slow, but they are still native speakers. 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. |
