Thread: Writing English in cyrillic

Sounds odd, I know, but if you can transliterate Russian using the English alphabet, why not the other way around? I do have a use for this. I have a friend, a Russian friend, who would like to sing in Handel's Messiah, but has difficulty reading English, so I thought maybe I could transliterate the English using the cyrillic alphabet that he's familiar with. So far, I've come up with a few problem sounds. What to use for the voiced and voiceless versions of "th"? I believe Church Slavonic has a symbol that looks like the Greek Theta. Maybe it's voiceless. Would you use that? My friend seems to be able to read church Slavonic. (He read some to me once with the funky letters in it.) How about the "w" sound? and the shwa?

Do you think it's a really good idea? I mean, if your friend has some difficulties reading English, I think he also has problems with his pronunciation, and he's obviously gonna read the text like he read a Russian text. Here's a link to the thread containing a video that shows what it can look like, and also an English text transliterated into Cyrillic (the man is reading from the paper with the transliterated text).

http://masterrussian.net/f13/%D0%BB%...0%D1%82-17177/

may it will be useful for some difficult words, but not always...it prevents to study pronounce correctly...it is better to hear the word from teacher or native speaker once (i think there are should be such dictionaries), and remember it than try to pronounce by reading the transkription

You will not be helping him to learn English. But usually the voiceless th is S and the voiced is Z. So thank you comes out senkyu. сэнкю.

The point is not to teach my friend English, just so he can read and sing in English. I know English speakers sing in various languages without knowing what they are singing. Why not a Russian, singing in English without knowing exactly what he is singing? He does know English, just has trouble with some of the text in this music. It is taken from the King James' Bible, so it has some old, and outdated language.

Oh, and I found a very neat thing. You probably all know, but it took me a while to think up trying it myself. I google in Russian and get the Russian wikipedia article. I find it very helpful. I googled "мессия гендель" and was able to get the text/scriptures in Russian. I will print this out for my friend. (Yesterday I googled "кларнет" and was able to learn the parts of a clarinet in Russian, so I could understand my friend as he talked about clarinets.

Thanks all! I transliterated the text this morning. I studied linguistics in college and found myself wanting to slip into the phonetic alphabet. (It would be much easier if my friend could read that.) I think the cyrillic will be good enough. I've also got a recording of "Messiah" to give him so he can listen to it.

Originally Posted by rusalka_s

maybe it will be useful for some difficult words, but not always...it prevents [s]to study pronounce correctly[/s] one from learning the correct pronunciation ...it is better to hear the word from a teacher or native speaker once (i think there are should be such dictionaries), and remember it and than try to pronounce it again by reading the transcription

corrected

and than try to pronounce it again by reading the transcription

What does it mean "and than"? Why is "and" needed?

сэнкю.

Почему не "сэнкью"?

Originally Posted by Marcus

What does it mean "and than"? Why is "and" needed?

actually, I missed your "than" it should be "then"

Grammatically, I can't tell you; however, you are saying to do one task first AND THEN do a second task. Maybe someone NOT American can answer that for you.

Here are some examples that I found:

We recommend that you read the grammar explanation on the first page of the lesson and then do the exercises, thinking all the time about the rules in the grammar explanation.

So you must remember to add (er) to the adjective and then place (than) after the (er). My brother is taller than me. It's very easy! (adjective+er) + than.

In Swedish, however, it is more common to bring an element to the front of the sentence and then invert subject and verb (as in German).

IMPORTANT The dictionary language applies to the entire database and cannot be defined for individual records or fields. To check the spelling in a multilingual database, you must change the dictionary language for each language that is in the database and serially check the spelling for each language used in each record.

• Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Access Options.

Where is the Access Options button?

• Click Proofing.
• In the Dictionary language list, click the dictionary language that you want to use, and then click OK.

Now that I think about it a little more... AND in the sentence might be a "conjunction" between the two instructional sentences.

Originally Posted by rockzmom

corrected

Your corrections are not enough. It's still bad grammar.

Originally Posted by rusalka_s

may it will be useful for some difficult words, but not always...it prevents to study pronounce correctly...it is better to hear the word from teacher or native speaker once (i think there are should be such dictionaries), and remember it than try to pronounce by reading the transkription

Here's my version:

It may be useful for some difficult words, but not often. It lacks the study of correct pronunciation. It is better to hear the word from a teacher or native speaker first. (I think there should be dictionaries like that.) It would be better than to try pronouncing from reading a transcription.

I don't mind bad grammar from a non-native speaker, though- as long as I can understand the meaning. I know my Russian is far worse.

Originally Posted by christineka

It may be useful for some difficult words, but not often as it lacks the study of correct pronunciation. It is better to hear the word from a teacher or native speaker first. (I think there should be dictionaries like that.)It would be better than to try pronouncing it from reading a transcription.

Everyone has their own style. In your version, you took out part of what the writer meant by deleting "remember it" and not replacing or rewording it. Personally, I wouldn't have two sentences back to back that start off very similar and I would take the period out from before the parentheses... both are correct... but one is your style and one is mine.

Rule 3.	Periods go inside parentheses only if an entire sentence is inside the parentheses.
Examples:	Please read the analysis (I enclosed it as Attachment A.). OR Please read the analysis. (I enclosed it as Attachment A.) OR Please read the analysis (Attachment A).

Originally Posted by christineka

I don't mind bad grammar from a non-native speaker, though- as long as I can understand the meaning. I know my Russian is far worse.

Neither do I; however, on this forum we have been requested to correct others as much as possible.

Way back in 1993-94, when I was teaching ESL in Moscow, I had a Russian friend who was kind of ABBA-crazed -- and his favorite song was "Take a Chance on Me". But he didn't know a word of English, so he'd just kind of hum the song (constantly) with nonsense syllables ("Chaka-cha, chaka-chika-cha"). Which, after a while, got on my nerves! So eventually I wrote out all the lyrics in Cyrillic: Иф ю чэйндж юр майнд, айм за фёрст ин лайн...

And, needless to say, друг писал кипятком от радости ("my friend was peeing boiling water from joy") because he was so happy that he could finally sing the words in English! (Well, sort of... but it was less annoying than the "chaka-chaka-cha")

Just thought I'd report. My friend likes my transcription