Thread: Cell phone in the USA that does English/Russian

Hello,
I am looking to get a cell phone that supports texting in English and Russian to be used in the USA. I use Verizon but that can be changed. Anyone doing that now? If so, please tell me what phone and any obstacles.


Thank you,

Scott

99.5% certain that it doesn't matter what operator you use for this, unless the USA is very different from Europe in how the mobile phone network works.

Just change the character set for text input on your mobile phone to Russian/Cyrillic. All phones have at least one set of regional settings that you can change - including one for text input language. You need to find these settings and change them.

In fact you can probably already text in Cyrillic, but it would take an eternity, because every single character would have to be accessed in the "special characters" menu.

It doesn't "matter" to the phone or the network what language/alphabet your message is in.. The tricky thing is for you to input Cyrillic letters on your mobile.

If you switch the whole phone over to Russian settings you probably get predictive texting in Russian too.

Otherwise, from my experience - it's a real hassle to text in non-English langauges because it's slow without the predictive texting.

Originally Posted by Johanna

99.5% certain that it doesn't matter what operator you use for this, unless the USA is very different from Europe in how the mobile phone network works.

Just change the character set for text input on your mobile phone to Russian/Cyrillic. All phones have at least one set of regional settings that you can change - including one for text input language. You need to find these settings and change them.

In fact you can probably already text in Cyrillic, but it would take an eternity, because every single character would have to be accessed in the "special characters" menu.

It doesn't "matter" to the phone or the network what language/alphabet your message is in.. The tricky thing is for you to input Cyrillic letters on your mobile.

If you switch the whole phone over to Russian settings you probably get predictive texting in Russian too.

Otherwise, from my experience - it's a real hassle to text in non-English langauges because it's slow without the predictive texting.

My phone only has English and Spanish. I was told about Nokia 5320 and will look further into it.

Thank you,

Scott

Good luck finding one! If you do find one let me know. My Russian phones do not work in the USA but perhaps there are phones that one can buy in Russia that do work on the USA system aswell, I don'tknow. I do know that my Russian Samsung does not work on USA system with TMobile.

Originally Posted by DDT

Good luck finding one! If you do find one let me know. My Russian phones do not work in the USA but perhaps there are phones that one can buy in Russia that do work on the USA system aswell, I don'tknow. I do know that my Russian Samsung does not work on USA system with TMobile.

So far I found these but didn't have time to pursue them further.


Scott


http://www.berryreview.com/forums/topic ... ning-os-45

http://community.vzw.com/t5/BlackBerry- ... 6051#M3831

http://blackberry.beiks.com/intertype/

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/ ... ED43E5E76A

http://www.penreader.com/blackberry-sof ... aries.html

Originally Posted by DDT

I do know that my Russian Samsung does not work on USA system with TMobile.

Some my friends when visited US met the same problem: their Russian Samsung did not work. They found out that they should manually switch the phone's GSM band to 1900 to solve the problem. May be this point can help?

I have a friend. Hi lives in Canada. When hi comes to Russia uses same phone. Hi only changes SIM a card. Hi have a Nokia, I do not know model.
For a long time, when mobile phones in Russia had only a Latin, SMS wrote by means of a transliteration.
The standard of a transliteration which is resulted below, is applied in banks and official establishments of Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and also a department of state of the USA. You also can take advantage of it at registration in various services and projects.


У меня есть знакомый. Он живет в Канаде. Когда он приезжает в Россию, то пользуется тем же телефоном. Он только меняет SIM карту.
У него Nokia, модель я не знаю.
Давно, когда мобильные телефоны в России имели только латиницу, SMS писали с помощью транслитерации.
Стандарт транслитерации, который приведен ниже, применяется в банках и официальных учреждениях России, МВД, а также госдепартаментом США. Вы также можете воспользоваться им при регистрации в различных сервисах и проектах.



Буквы русского алфавита Соответсвующие буквы (сочетания букв) латиницей
А, а A (a)
Б, б B (b)
В, в V (v)
Г, г G (g)
Д, д D (d)
Е, е E (e), YE (ye)
Ё, ё E (e), YE (ye)
Ж, ж ZH (zh)
З, з Z (z)
И, и I (i)
Й, й Y (y)
К, к K (k)
Л, л L (l)
М, м M (m)
Н, н N (n)
О, о O (o)
П, п P (p)

Р, р R (r)
С, с S (s)
Т, т T (t)
У, у U (u)
Ф, ф F (f)
Х, х KH (kh)
Ц, ц TS (ts)
Ч, ч CH (ch)
Ш, ш SH (sh)
Щ, щ SHCH (shch)
Ъ, ъ не пишется
Ы, ы Y (y)
Ь, ь не пишется
Э, э E (e)
Ю, ю YU (yu), IU (iu)
Я, я YA (ya), IA (ia)


Сочетания гласных букв с буквой (й) - русский алфавит Соответствующие сочетания букв - латиница
Ай Ay
Ей Ey, Yey, Ei
Ий Y, Iy
Ой Oy
Уй Uy



Сочетания гласных букв с буквой (й) - русский алфавит Соответствующие сочетания букв - латиница
Ый Yu
Юй Yuy
Яй Yay
Эй Ey

• Буква Е русского алфавита транслитерируется в латинский алфавит как YE, если стоит в начале слова, после гласных и знаков Ъ и Ь. Во всех остальных случаях - как E.
Например, Евгений = Yevgeniy, Анатольевич = Anatolyevich, Сергеевич = Sergeyevich.
• Буква Ё транслитерируется как YE, если она стоит в начале слова, после гласных и знаков Ъ и Ь. Во всех остальных случаях - как E.
Например, Ёлкин = Yelkin, Планёрная = Planernaya.
• Буквы Й и Ы транслитерируются как Y в обоих случаях.
Например, Быстрый = Bystryy.
• Буква Ц транслитерируется как TS. Таким же образом, как и буквосочетание ТС.
Например, Царёв = Tsarev.
• Сочетание русских букв КС транслитерируется как KS, а не как X.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

Originally Posted by DDT

I do know that my Russian Samsung does not work on USA system with TMobile.

Some my friends when visited US met the same problem: their Russian Samsung did not work. They found out that they should manually switch the phone's GSM band to 1900 to solve the problem. May be this point can help?

There is no switch on my Samsung for this unfortunately. Also, I don't know of any phones sold in USA that have Cyrillic keypad.

I thought the iphone has russian. Most phones here do not.

Got it! I recently bought a Blackberry Curve 8530 through Verizon which does Skype to Skype calls for free (have to purchase the data plan). I could read Russian text fine but not write. Today I updated my Blackberry software and they added full Russian write support! Nice!


Scott

Originally Posted by Hanna

99.5% certain that it doesn't matter what operator you use for this, unless the USA is very different from Europe in how the mobile phone network works.

The US mobile phone system is in fact quite different from the European system. Europe uses the GSM protocol, and most US cellphones use CDMA. Most US cell phones do not have a SIM card. Most US cell phones can only be used on the network of the company from which they are purchased. Thus if I buy a cheap cell phone from Verizon, I can only use it on the Verizon network. If I want to switch to ATT, then I have to buy an entire new cell phone.

My current cell phone is with StraightTalk, a very inexpensive provider. It has only English and Spanish options.

One of my students has an iPhone, and she used it with a Cyrillic keyboard regularly.

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

Originally Posted by Hanna

99.5% certain that it doesn't matter what operator you use for this, unless the USA is very different from Europe in how the mobile phone network works.

The US mobile phone system is in fact quite different from the European system. Europe uses the GSM protocol, and most US cellphones use CDMA. Most US cell phones do not have a SIM card. Most US cell phones can only be used on the network of the company from which they are purchased. Thus if I buy a cheap cell phone from Verizon, I can only use it on the Verizon network. If I want to switch to ATT, then I have to buy an entire new cell phone.

My current cell phone is with StraightTalk, a very inexpensive provider. It has only English and Spanish options.

One of my students has an iPhone, and she used it with a Cyrillic keyboard regularly.

Hello!

Just unlock the phone with code (which you can buy online) and you'll be able to use those phones with any provider as long as the phone support GSM.

César.

Originally Posted by Aimak

I have a friend. Hi lives in Canada. When hi comes to Russia uses same phone. Hi only changes SIM a card. Hi have a Nokia, I do not know model.

HE!

"Hi" is just a shorter word for "hello", and is pronounced with an -ай sound. "He" is pronounced with an -и sound.

Does anyone know if the Russian MTC phones work in America? And do you know if you can switch the system over to english as well? I've been trying to search around the internet for this info but haven't been very successful.