Thread: I have a question.

I have a question. Lets say I see a word like Женщина, and I translate it to zhenshchina. How would I go from zhenshchina to what it says in English? Also, I know it means woman, i'm just saying how to go from Russian, to what I would guess would be Latin, then to English.

Thanks!

(Sorry if this is in the incorrect section.)

zhenshchina is called a transliteration of женщина. Why would you want to transliterate the Russian word and then translate it?

To translate the word directly, search Google for free online Russian-English translators. There are many, and probably even some that would translate transliterated Russian words.

Say that someone gives me just the transliterated word, like zhenshchina. I would want to, of course, put it in russian, but also know what it says in english.

If that makes sense.

Originally Posted by Notla

Say that someone gives me just the transliterated word, like zhenshchina. I would want to, of course, put it in russian, but also know what it says in english.

If that makes sense.

No. It doesn't make any sense.
The only thing you could do with it, is say "Hmmm...Zhenshchina. What does that mean? Well let me take the transliteration back into Russian here...Ok женщина. Now, let me look that up in my Russian-English dictionary. Oh, it means woman...."

Ok, thanks.

I guess i'm just trying to find an easier way to notice words without having to pull out a dictionary everytime.

Originally Posted by Notla

Ok, thanks.

I guess i'm just trying to find an easier way to notice words without having to pull out a dictionary everytime.

Are you talking about etymology. As in can you work out a word just by looking at it? Yes you can sometimes, and often it is easier than others. You won't be able to see much. The links between English and Russian are too distant to notice most of the time.

Молоко - Milk
Семья - family (semen, seminary (seed))

Ah, ok.

Maybe I won't be trying to take shortcuts like this once I learn more vocabulary. I just started really learning a few weeks ago, but i've been dabbling in the language for a few months now.

Thanks.

Yeah, there really are no shortcuts. It doesn't hurt to have a background in languages that Russian borrows from (some greek/french/german/english words, etc.) but that's a really minimal aid. You just have to learn them -- no way around it...Flash cards, Interlex program, Movies, Music, games -- just practice, practice and more practice.

I'm fluent in English, and I know only a little bit of French.

Yeah, i've been searching like crazy for items in Russian, and i've also been using the flash card way for a few days now.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Notla

I'm fluent in English, and I know only a little bit of French.

Yeah, i've been searching like crazy for items in Russian, and i've also been using the flash card way for a few days now.

Thanks.

Try this:
http://www.vocab.co.uk/

Originally Posted by Бармалей

Yeah, there really are no shortcuts. It doesn't hurt to have a background in languages that Russian borrows from (some greek/french/german/english words, etc.) but that's a really minimal aid. You just have to learn them -- no way around it...Flash cards, Interlex program, Movies, Music, games -- just practice, practice and more practice.

Well, it does borrow some words, but remember Russian is a Indo-European language, and not THAT far from English as people might make out.

Just wondering, would that Before You Know It program work just as good as Interlex? I downloaded Internex a few days ago, and didn't really enjoy the layout of the program. I might give it another try, but this BFYKI one is layed out pretty good.

:P

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by Бармалей

Yeah, there really are no shortcuts. It doesn't hurt to have a background in languages that Russian borrows from (some greek/french/german/english words, etc.) but that's a really minimal aid. You just have to learn them -- no way around it...Flash cards, Interlex program, Movies, Music, games -- just practice, practice and more practice.

Well, it does borrow some words, but remember Russian is a Indo-European language, and not THAT far from English as people might make out.

Shock Horror - I find myself agreeing with TATY!




Notla - there are actually a whole lot of words that you can "recognize" in Russian, once you get used to the way they change the sound of a "borrowed" word. As TATY says, there is some kind of common root with English, but your best bet would be comparing to French, funnily enough (it's a historical thing )

Compared to the total Russian vocabulary, it's not all that many words, of course. But as a beginner, it can be fun to look out for these words - they are so much easier to remember than the "purely Russian" words.

There are also a lot of loan words from Dutch - but you don't happen to speak that, do you?

Here's a couple for you:

дельфин : dolphin
карьера: career
гараж: garage
патруль: patrol (French: patrouille)
солдат: soldier (French: soldat)
солист: soloist (French: soliste)
юбка : skirt (French: jupe)

..... and so on....

Yes. New words entering Russian now are coming from English:

Бизнесмен(ка), интернет, компьютер etc., but in the past French was the dominant language to borrow form.

E.g. Магазин - shop

The common root language of Indo-European language is Proto-Indo-European, and from this all the Indo-European languages are derived. They range from English to Hindi, Greek to Bengali.

Proto-Indo-European is only a hypothesised language though, thought to have been spoken in Central Asia.

Depending on when the various seperate language emerged the closer they are.

E.g. English and Russian diverged much earlier than English and German did. This is why English and German are much more in common than English and Russian.

Often the links can only be seen by single letters.
E.g. compare Russian Пять with Pentagon and the Proto-Indo-European construct: "Penkwe"

0_o

Thanks for all the information!

No, I only speak English, and as I said before, a little French. :P