cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 1 of 6 15 May 2009 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
What are some of the grammar concepts that somebody studying Russian definitely needs to be clear on...?
I really hate everything to do with grammar, but realise that a certain minimum is needed if I am going to make progress (particularly since I am not familiar with "slavic" grammar from any previous language exposure....)
Jeff already gave me some great general links regarding grammar but if anybody has stumbled across a site or a book along the lines of "Russian grammar for dummies" or "Russian grammar is fun and easy..." then I'd be super-grateful if you could post a link or give me a book recommendation!
Edited by cordelia0507 on 15 May 2009 at 7:59pm
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vitovio Newbie Spain Joined 6301 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Spanish* Studies: Russian, English
| Message 2 of 6 15 May 2009 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
I like very much "The New Penguin Russian Course". You will find there all the grammar you need. It is probably the best book on russian grammar for the beginner and the intermediate student although it is not a grammar book, it is a complete course whit grammar, exercises, useful dialogs, readings, vocabulary, etc. The only bad point of this book is that it has no audio.
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cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 3 of 6 15 May 2009 at 7:58pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the tip vitovio! I'll check it out.
This was probably a really lazy and stupid question by me. But the truth is that the only SERIOUS effort I've ever put into learning a language was English, ages ago - I had forgotten what a complete pain it is to learn all those verb endings, adjectives etc.
Unlike many people on this site I have a very pragmatic view on language learning. Russian could be extremely handy for me in my job, plus I wanted to learn it for ages and it's one of the world languages, particularly in my neck of the wood... That's my reason, nothing else.
It's all very well listening to some audio material and thinking that you can say a few phrases, but cramming grammar and sounding like a moron when you start out is where most people fall off the wagon. I feel like I am there right now - this is exactly what happened when I tried to learn Russian (and resigned) back in school... :-((
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Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6777 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish
| Message 4 of 6 15 May 2009 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
Maybe instead of tackling the problem head on, you can avoid it altogether - by taking up a learning method that avoids grammar - be it Assimil or reading parallel texts or something like that.
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sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5748 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch
| Message 5 of 6 15 May 2009 at 10:05pm | IP Logged |
A good book if you want good exercise is Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar. I picked up a French version a few
weeks ago.
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cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 6 of 6 15 May 2009 at 10:18pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the tip - I am downloading "Assimil Russian" audios right now.
I would like to buy the book, but I can't find a Russian course for English speakers available from Assimil on their website (unfortunately my French is not good enough to use for seriously studying a third language - I suspect that must be what all the Assimil fans on this site are doing.. )
But I am looking forward to seeing what they have on the Assimil audio files! It'll go straight onto my iPod.
Michel Thomas is nice for a beginning, but I think it's meant as a 'kickstart' and not as a serious course.
UPDATE Sprachefin - thank's for the tip about Schaum's - it's on Amazon and seems like just the thing I need. The more they dumb it down the better
I think I got a bit lulled into confidence by hearing some of my colleagues speaking Russian between them and recognising lots of words... But just knowing a bunch of nouns doesn't get you very far.
Just to increase my irritation about my poor skills there is a Bulgarian and a Serb in the team, they speak Russian and make it seem very easy. I don't know what the full story is, but I suppose these are "Slavic" languages too, same alphabet and that these guys were able to study Russian from a young age without the distraction of English at the same time (their English is not that excellent but they are supreme programmers so nobody cares..,) I haven't told them about studying Russian because I don't want to be laughed at just yet...
Edited by cordelia0507 on 15 May 2009 at 10:26pm
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