Thread: Learning russian in 5 months

Hi,

The backstory: I will be traveling to russia (chelyabinsk region) in june for my work. I will be staying there for 6 months. I will be working with my russian colleagues to train them on internals of our software (we're programmers).. I'll be expected to speak some russian with them from the get-go because their spoken english may be weak or non-existent. I've already been working with a private tutor and have also signed up for a course at community college. Plus there is a large russian population at my office here in U.S. so i will have plenty of people to practice with. ANd i've always been fascinated by the language, so i'm very motivated/excited to learn.

The question: what areas of the language (grammar, vocab, pronounciation, etc) would you focus on when studying, knowing that you will have full immersion once you get there? Are there habits to learn early that will help later?

Thanks!
- jon

Learn how to read the alphabet first. Then learn how to conjugate verbs. You should be able to master both of these in about a week. After that move on to nouns then adjectives then focus on your vocab.

Though I woudn't doubt the ability of your Russian collegues, and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of them didn't speak english well enough to be capable to converse with you without help or outside refrence.

I guess what Im trying to say is if they're programmers and work with computers/internet then all communications wont just fall on you :P So rest easy. But if have any questions feel free to PM me.

Peace dude.

Get a handy phrasebook (maybe even one focusing on Business Russian; they are available ) , watch a few Russian films/listen to Russian music for pronunciation, and smile a lot.)

Good to see da Dog stopping by.

Holy crap, Dogboy! You totally don't remember this, but you asked me to marry you once. It was kind of weird, but hey, Russki Razmer fans have to stick together somehow.

Anyway, both replies above me are correct, but I think an incorporation of phrases + vocab/grammar really helps you out. You can learn all the vocabulary and verbs you want, but when it comes to everyday things like "What time is it?" or "I think we need to create a stack dump," you might have some troubles (I was joking on that last phrase btw).

What kind of software is it? Does it have a name?

Thanks for all the replies!

@dogboy - you are right, i don't doubt their intelligence. Most of them have excellent written english but sometimes the verbal part lags because they spend all day typing and have no practice speaking... I'm not worried, it will be an adventure and we can always revert to drawing pictures

@anna - so how _do_ you say "stack trace/thread dump" in russian?

@blacky - http://www.rocketsoftware.com/products/netcure

Originally Posted by noheat

@anna - so how _do_ you say "stack trace/thread dump" in russian?

КГ/АМ

Hey John,

I must say I am extremely jealous. I lived in Chelyabinsk for 6 months of my 2 year stay and I loved it. I hope you enjoy it there because it is a beautiful city with a lot of good people.

I would focus on the words you will need to use in order to implement your new program. Even if they don't understand everything you are saying, you are at least getting the idea across. I believe the biggest problem you will have is comprehension. They speak extremely fast in Chelyabinsk, this is no I talk slow I am from Moscow Russian, this is like hold on for your dear life, I am going to speak fast.

Anywho, good luck!