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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6117 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 49 of 60 08 December 2008 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||
Good luck! Let me once more stress the importance of learning pronunciation well, right at the beginning. This is, IMHO, more important in Russian than in the Romance languages you know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6083 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 50 of 60 08 December 2008 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Are there any specific pitfalls to look out for then?
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| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6117 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 51 of 60 08 December 2008 at 5:31am | IP Logged | ||
The main one is to understand that there are more consonants than letters - specifically, for most consonant symbols, there are actually two sounds: "hard" and "soft". A careless student could just pronounce them the same - which would make it very difficult to correct in a more advanced phase. Also, keep it in mind that (apart from ь sign) it is the following vowel that tells you which consonant to use. For example 'я' and 'а' usually are pronounced the same in a word - but the preceding consonant changes. Or the negation: нет is not pronounced like the English 'net' (as opposed to 'gross'), but the difference is not in the vowel 'е'. Instead, it is in н that becomes nasalized. Other pronunciation facts: - keep in mind the rules regarding voiced and voiceless consonants. - learn the rules for unstressed vowels, how unstressed 'а' and 'о' change to 'а' in some positions, a kind of schwa in others, and how unstressed 'и', 'е' and 'я' can sound alike - there is no good rule for stress placement, so learn each word with its stress - and keep in mind that in different cases of the same word the stress may shift! - Russian intonation is different from other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maya_star17 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5923 days ago 269 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 52 of 60 08 December 2008 at 8:12am | IP Logged | ||
Just for the record, there is a fair deal of "light-hearted" stuff in Russian out there. I think Russians are just not as good at promoting it as French people perhaps ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6117 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 54 of 60 08 December 2008 at 10:07am | IP Logged | ||
No, that's the easy part. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6083 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 55 of 60 09 December 2008 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh Dear... Did I make the right choice? Declination?
Bear in mind I have never studied a language with a system of cases before. Maybe I am in over my head! On a serious note though, I just looked up the cases (on russianlessons.net)and I have a basic understanding of what each one does (not that I know anything about them), it may be a lot more work than I am used to, but the language is obviously not impossible for a native speaker of English. The only way to find out is to dive in, I guess! As with Italian, I use a learning manual (Assimil), is there something a bit simpler for Russian that starts at the ABSOLUTE beginning? I am a slavic novice. Спасибо Edited by gogglehead on 09 December 2008 at 3:56am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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