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Ha! Most of the Russian-teaching books I get from the library are fairly new. The book I am using is one I actually own. I picked it up maybe 20 years ago for maybe 50 cents and did virtually nothing with it. It is called "Look and Learn Russian," and I think it is better than any of the library books I have gotten. I still need the library for the cds, though.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Congratulations on your efforts to learn Russian! I took an intensive Russian course before I went to the Soviet Union in 1984 and learned enough to ask and understand directions. My big goal was to visit the house where Mikhail Bulgakov had lived in Kiev (not included on the tour), which I did get to. And of course now I hardly remember any of it. But it was great fun to learn a whole different alphabet.
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The thing that keeps tripping me up is that some Russian letters look just like letters in our alphabet - but they make completely different sounds. The 'H' makes the 'N' sound, for example, and there are several others. I also think it is funny that the Russian word for brother is "brat."
I have been so happy with the book I have, today I ordered a book from the same series on learning French.
In a year or so, when I am proficient in German, Russian, and French (as well as English) I plan to disappear from my current life and live in seedy Eurpean towns and drink lots of cheap beer. Probably have crappy medical care, though...
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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I am still plugging away on the Russian. I am still amazed by how motivated I am to study this stuff. I can literally spend hour after hour just working on Russian. Maybe there is some brainwashing in the book after all.
Currently, I am working my way through this website:
The site is really cool because most of the words and phrases have audio which lets me hear the word(s).
Oh, and I just found out today how to use a Russian font:
грфнылджэ йцуиь юэджфьтя
The above is meaningless, of course, because none of the keys on my keyboard are labeled with Russian characters. I either need a Russian keyboard or some stickers so I can tell what I am typing.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Of course, 5 minutes after I typed the above nonsense I found the Cyrillic keyboard mapping. Ah well...
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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My perserverence continues. Just today, I finally finished working my way through my first text on Russian. Now I have pages of notes, many vocabulary words to re-memorize, and tons of grammar rules to continue to attempt to decypher. Still, it is a work in progress. I do understand some basic Russian now. (Ok, maybe pre-school Russian.) Oh yeah:
я люблю читать по-русски!
It actually makes sense now.
The eventual goal is to someday be able to read a newspaper in Russian, and maybe toss down some Stolichnaya while doing it.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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I am quite annoyed. Our local library has a set of CDs that teach a short course in Russian - the Pimsleur course. Anyway, after finishing the book I was working through, I thought I needed audio. I wanted to start pronouncing words the way a Russian would pronounce them. The problem is - the CDs don't work. I tried a few CDs in different CD players around the house, and none of them work.
I also just started studying French, too. Someday, I hope to be quadra-lingual. For what it's worth, I am finding French much easier than Russian.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Before I took the above-mentioned cds back to the library, my wife suggested that I try the cds in the van we bought last year. The funny thing is - they worked in the van. The van has the newest cd player, so I guess some of the new cds use a different format?
Does anyone know why new cds have to be played in a new cd player?
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Sooo...I went looking at new CD players so I could play the Russian disks. I didn't find anything I wanted, and I chatted with the salesman and told him my tale of woe. He then asked me if I had tried the disks in a DVD player. I hadn't; it simply had not occurred to me. Soooo...
I got the disks back from the library, and they do indeed work on a dvd player. Go figure. Lot of trouble for some CDs that don't even have a sexy chick on the cover.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Rockhopper Lad: If the price of Rosetta Stone seems too much, see if your public library offers access to Mango Languages, a web-based language-learning program that is available for free.
Our library system did not have Russian at first, but now it does. Mango has several languages one can pick from - including (shiver me timbers!) Pirate!
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Practice makes perfect though, so have you found anyone to practice Russian with, Lance?
I've been trying to learn some dialects here - Hokkien (a Chinese dialect) and Ilokano (a Filipino one). Alas, I keep forgetting everything except "good morning".
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Out of curiousity, IB, what is your mother tongue, what languages do you speak, and how well would you say you speak them?
I have not found anyone to practive Russian with. I am currently working my way through the Mango course (free to anyone with a library card!) which is helping immensely with pronunciation.
I try to review vocabulary words every day. Repetion is the mother of learning - at least as far as languages go.
Just for your amusement, here are some interesting things about Russian:
1) You can typically tell the gender of a noun by looking at it.
2) Russian has 2 sets of plurals - one plural form is used for the numbers 2-4 (and any number ending in those digits) and another plural form for numbers ending in other digits. There would also be a general form, which means Russian has 4 ways to say "rubles," and that is just in the nominative case.
3) Every multisyllable word in Russian has one accent, and you must know where the accent is to pronouce the word correctly. There are letters that change pronunciation depending on whether or not they are in an accented syllable.
4) Russian has 6 cases. (German has 4; does anyone know if French uses cases? Just curious.)
5) The Russian language uses declension on adjectives, pronouns, and nouns. With 3 genders plus plural and 6 cases, that means there could be as many as 24 different ways to say just one word.
No wonder all the info online said Russian was a difficult language. I am still gonna get it, though.
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My mother tongue is English, which is unusual for someone living in the Philippines. My parents always hoped for me to eventually end up abroad, so they taught me English. I'd say I'm pretty fluent.
I speak Filipino fluently too, although we cheat a lot - most Filipinos nowadays mix English in too. I think that's why English-speaking tourists love us; we can be pretty easy to understand.
I speak Mandarin well enough that when I've gone to Beijing, the natives were pleasantly surprised at my competence.
I know a few words and phrases of Japanese, Hokkien, Ilocano, French and Bahasa Indonesian, but they're all just hello, goodbye, and thank you so I wouldn't count them.
I admire your persistence, lance! Good for you. I'm good with three languages at the moment, though - right now I want to focus on learning how to ride a bike!
Thanks for the quick background on Russian. Good heavens, that makes me admire you even more!
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![[Frown]](frown.gif)
But it was great fun to learn a whole different alphabet.
