Have any of you taught yourself Russian? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Have any of you taught yourself Russian?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

reineke
Senior Member
United States
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Studies: German

Message 17 of 22

19 July 2009 at 6:19pm | IP Logged

Great timing.
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DavidW
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

Message 18 of 22

19 July 2009 at 11:27pm | IP Logged

I plugged away the the penguin Russian course for the best part of a year.. it's a grammar-translation method without any audio. Using just this, I can't imagine anyone acquiring more than a basic reading knowledge. Modern Russian (I and II) from Georgetown university press is a through and carefully prepared audio-lingual course which I've been using recently. Some users have posted that it's not really intended for self-learners, but I don't see any problem. Getting the audio could be expensive though, unless you're resourceful. I don't really have any other recommendations apart from the older Assimil course.

Can anyone recommend a bookshop where these Russian-published language books can be ordered from abroad?
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ellasevia
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Message 19 of 22

20 July 2009 at 12:44am | IP Logged

tanzoniteblack wrote:

If you can get through the pronunciation and new alphabet part, then you'll find that teaching yourself Russian isn't any more difficult then teaching yourself any other language. Unfortunately, due to the peculiarities of the writing system and how it matches up to the phonetic system, that can be a little bit of a challenge. As you start doing this, be sure to try to learn the differences between the "hard" and "soft" consonants from the get go, or at least recognize the fact there is a big difference between them even if you have problems hearing it (and doing it) at the start. That was one of my biggest mistakes in learning Russian, was ignoring the difference between those for 2 years because I couldn't hear them and no one explained them very well to me.

Wait--what are the soft and hard consonants? I think I may have a guess, but I should probably know so I don't end up in the same situation as you. I know about hard/soft vowels, but not consonants. Спасибо!
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goosefrabbas
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Message 20 of 22

20 July 2009 at 1:01am | IP Logged

Soft consonants are generally those followed by ь, common at the end of infinitives from what I've seen so far (I just started Russian two-ish weeks ago). I practiced them yesterday on a site, but I can't find it anymore. You say the consonant while simultaneously saying "i" with the middle of your tongue higher than normal.
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tricoteuse
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Norway
littlang.blogspot.co
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Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, English^C1, Russian, French
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Message 22 of 22

20 July 2009 at 7:35pm | IP Logged

Teaching yourself Russian is definitely possible. I have studied Russian on my own for some time now and I think I have achieved rather satisfactory (albeit slow) results, even though I don't think I actually speak it yet. I really wonder when I will be able to say "I speak Russian" around here without adding a comment about how poorly. I never used any method or book consequently though, purely out of lack of discipline and perhaps because there is just too much material for Russian. I have mostly learned through reading, chatting with people and writing journal entries on lang-8.

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