Advice: Must learn Russian and im totally useless

Hi all,

Just signed up and hoping for some advice, maybe from someone who has been in a similar situation and has overcome the problem.

I guess the root of my problem is laziness combined with no ability for langauges.

I'm living in Russia (im English), with a Russian wife, and work with Russian people. You'd think it would be easy for me but unfortunatly everyone speaks English to me because they then get to practice their English. My wife is too impatient with me to speak Russian (and she has very good English). And frankly i find sitting down with a study book mind bogglingly boring. I was never particularly good with Languages in general having quit learning French at school as soon as i could, tried German for a month and actually failed English Language at school, although most people from UK would probably consider this very difficult to do (did well in all other exams though).

I think another problem is i am very technically minded and always looking for the 'rules' and 'structure'. And i think this is killing me with Russian because while there are rules and structure theres no bloody logic to it. eg: in english to pluarlise a word you add S (or ES, but sounds similar). In Russian its changing depending on gender, and tense and sheer bloody mindedness.

Ok, maybe im a little frustrated with it but i need to get beyond the point of being able to buy beer and cigs, and telling people "ya gavaroo ochen ploxho parusski", being my limit. Ive been in Russia now for 5 months and i was told by 6 months most people (even taking it easy) can hold a basic conversation. People tell me a word and within approx 5 seconds ive forgotten it. (by 2 seconds im already mis-pronouncing it!)

So, please, anyone with suggestions, learning techniques that worked for them, please let me know.

PS: money isnt very good for the moment, so expensive books (esp: ordering over internet as dont have credit card), or paying for private tutor are no good. Also the Uni here only aparently runs courses during the day and thats when im at work so not very good either.

There's no secret magic trick that anyone can tell you. Being lazy is fine if you have natural a flair for languages, or if you are in no hurry to learn anything, but you've already said that you don't and you are, so I don't know what anyone can tell you.

But, to state the bleedin' obvious...

Stop being lazy, lose the defeatist attitude, and go pick up a cheap book (for example: The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners (Penguin Handbooks) ~Nicholas Brown) - it's only 8 quid so if you can't buy it over the net yourself I'm sure you can find someone back home willing to post it to you. Once you have it, set aside at least an hour each evening to study, and force yourself. Tell your wife how important it is to you, and that you would really appreciate her occassional help if you get stuck. Practice at every opportunity, which shouldn't be difficult given your circumstances. Once you have the hang of the grammar, learing new vocabulary should be easy, again because of your circumstances.

Oh aye, and you can always come here and ask any questions you have.

You should stay in Russian university hostel for a year. The neighbours will find a way to teach you. :D

I have a book that perhaps you should look for if you are of a technical nature. Its called Scientific Russian by George E Condoyannis. It is from 1978 (1st ed. 1959) and I got it from a used bookstore, so it may be hard to find. It is intended for scientists, to help them understand Russian scientific articles etc. However it breaks down the language from the beginning in a very synthetic, mathematical way. It also has many charts of word endings, rules, etc. It wouldn't be my top recommendation to the average student, but if you're of a technical mindset it might be right up your alley.

Loki, I'm the same as you when it comes to languages. I lived in Italy for a while and had a hard time learning Italian evev though I had pretty Italien girls try to teach me on their lunch breaks every day. I had formal German classes for three years but my Russian skills were better than German after only three months of Pimsleur CDs.
So I'd say get yourself a Russian dictionary and a couple of text books and the complete Pimsleur Russian course (I, 2 &3) and portable CD player with a single earpiece and do it all the time, when you're walking, shopping, gym, driving, on the bus etc. And don't worry about grammar too much, it will come natural to you over time since you live with Russians. If you listen to them you will eventually feel when to use a word. This is how they learned grammar. Once you have finnished the course you will have the ground work to try to converse, which you must do in order to learn more. It is fortunate for you that you live in Russia.

You can get cheap CDs here

http://www.usedtapes.com/education.asp? ... ale&page=1

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Originally Posted by DDT

... I had formal German classes for three years but my Russian skills were better than German after only three months of Pimsleur CDs.

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I am trying pimsleur as well. Does not really work for me. I keep forgetting the words, and I feel like I have to repeat each lesson next day. They do turn back to old lesson, but I can't always temember the words learned 5 minutes ago.

I have had to start looking up the words, and writing them down, and then use the russian writing as a reference. Also help my russian reading skills.

loki... You said you liked rules and structure. That's exactly what grammar of languages is all about. And your statement that nothing in russian is consistant...

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this is killing me with Russian because while there are rules and structure theres no bloody logic to it.

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Well, thats not true... there is logic to it.

The one thing you mentioned was how the plurals bother you, well, let me show yoo the logic to plurals.

For masculine nouns, it's Ы.
рестораны restaurants.

Due to spelling rules (dont use я ы or ю after к г х ж ч ш щ) use a, и, or y. Instead.

like киоск - киоски Kiosks, or мальчики - boys

It's not much difrent for feminine nouns, instead you just change The a to an ы.
Like Гостоница - Гостоницы hotels
Though, sometimes you will run into that spelling rule again... like
Рибка - Рибки - pet fish (fishes, fishies) plural.

And for nueter, change the last letter to A, or Я. (О to A and e to Я)

окно - окна - windows
море -моря- seas.

lastly, there are some exeptions, like everything, some masculine nouns end in a, and their stress shifts accordingly.

For example,
Город - сity
but - города - сities.

I hope that can clear up plurals for you... As you can see, there is a reason why things change... we even have some quirks in english... like

person - people
or
city - cities... granted russian has alot more, u just have to get used to them.

For someone who likes rules, and structure... if you just find the right book (new penguin russian course) then learning russian will be niether boring, nor hard, and i think you'll move along a bit more quickly.

scotcher's advice is spot on, but I am in drunken ramble mode and there's just no stopping me!

I'd second Dogboy's point that the language is highly logical, much more so than English.

Loki, I can relate to your situation better than others, being an Englishman who has lived in Russia for the best part of a year now.

You need to find time to study. With me it was a case of - one month all socialising and no study : result : learnt no Russian apart from crap like 'davai' .. then a few months being norman no-mates and just hitting the books (didn't even have a TV - that helped).

Now there is one piece of trickiness here. You need one or more books. In a place like Voronezh you just won't find them.

Nicholas J Brown as recommended by scotcher is the best to start off with the grammar. Don't expect your Russian friends to help, unless they've been trained to teach it as a foreign language they'll lead you right up the garden path and/or just annoy the hell out of you. Russians are totally unused to dealing with people who don't know their language ... they treat you like an alien :lol: (I'm talking about provincial Russians here, Moscow is a different country) . Hopeless task. You need a real book for foreigners.

I suggest you get your bottom up to Moscow sharpish. Head for Biblio Globus just off Lubyanka or one of the other big bookshops.

If you can't get Nicholas J Brown there are several other titles which will do at a pinch. I liked the Russkiy Yazik series, one called 'Lyestnitsa' in particular.
Get on the blower to the bookshops and see if they can order it if a credit card purchase is out of the question (well on second thoughts don't get your hopes up)... scotcher's idea to get someone to send it to you is v v good.

You will need books and willpower.

A University course would be great, although I didn't go down that route. A private tutor would be alright too, but they'd have to be trained and it would cost, no doubt.

One last thought. It isn't THAT bad. It gets better. After you've done a little study, you'll be able to apply it very quickly. Find people to talk in Russian and ONLY Russian with.
And listen, listen, listen.
удачи!

OK I'm going to say one more thing.
You're finding it impossible to remember words.

This is common when learning Russian in the initial stages. It's because the roots of words and their prefixes and suffixes are not known to you.

Take for example круглосуточно .. it's a word you may have seen on street signs. There is no way you can just 'remember' this 5 syllable word straight off. You need to know the root 'krug' as circle, and 'cutki' as 24 hours, and also how they 'decline'.

You have to get used to the roots and the way they are modified to form adverbs, short and long adjective forms, case endings etc. etc. Point is, It's a synthetic language, which means that the grammar is built into the words. So in English you can remember bundles of words but you have to know how to put them together in the right order to create meaning. In Russian all of that stuff (a lot of it) goes into individual words. That's why beginners can't even make correct words in Russian, let alone sentences. It's frustrating as f**k, but that's every learner's experience. You just need to study a lot.

the best thing to do is memorize words which,

1)u know u will need (common ones, like "to fight, to throw, to quit, to talk, to whisper" words which u would use everyday... and then

2) learn some (maybe longer words) whivh u might not use everday, but are still good practice to know and memorize. Like, прислоняться... i might only say it like, once a month, or only see it when u go on the metro, but getting in the habbit of just being able to learn any word, is a good thing. It's like anything else, u get good at it after awhile.

i still remember one word i learned like a year and 6 months ago "уловка" ... i think it was, heh i have no idea what it means, but hey i still remember it.

Well, thanks for an amazing response.

Criticism accepted from scotcher, i do need to force myself more to learn and not be so lazy.

Also good idea from people suggesting i get my folks in the UK to purchase the book for me over the internet. Ive got my birthday coming up in a couple of months and i could suggest an early present or two to my family.

Thanks to Ryan for the tip about Scientific Russian by George E Condoyannis. Will look into it.

DDT: Before posting i read some of the formus and most people seem to say the Pimsular courses are expensive and not that good anyway so will give that a miss but thanks for the post.

Dogboy, Thanks for the advice on plurals. My statement about no logic was out of frustration and i do understand that there is logic, youve just got to understand it.

Waxwing: Yes, i know Russian is apprently more logical than English. My wife is always compaining about its ilogic (and articles). I just blame the fact that over the centuries we were invaded by (and we inavaded of course) half of Eurpose and therfore the langauge became the mess it is. I was interested to learn a while ago that until around the 14th/15th century that English used to have Genders but we dropped them. Hurray!!! I know a lot of languages in the world have genders but i dont see the point (probably being English speaking). I also read that one either south american or african tribal langauge has about 10 'genders' that not only covers the standard m/f/n but also for things like concepts, real things, and other stuff. I shudder to think what it must be to learn that. You mention a book called Russki Yazik. I have an old old book called Russki Yazik for all (za vcyex??). Its quite good but throws words at you a lot that you have to go hunting in the dictionary as its learning Russian in Russian so its a slow process and i get very frustrated with it. And as for listen, listen, listen, many people have given me this advice and maybe i have a bad ear. Example: When my wife says seechas (quite often :-) ) all i hear is chas. After listening to her, her mum and others it sounds like all of them are just saying seechas even though they swear they are saying chas. This was confusing me because when they were speaking to each other and asking for something doing it was like they were saying 'hour' instead of 'now' to me. Ah, and also thanks for the breakdown in your following post on word build up. Yes, those amazingly long words are quite something to get your tongue around.

Well, thanks again everyone. I know there is no magical solution but maybe i can put your advices to some good use.

hehehe. that's because they are saying "chas!" only, it's not "Час", it's "щас". (See friendy ? шч, and щ sound exactly the same to non russian ears :) :D )

щас is just a shorter way of saying "now". you can also say things like
"я щас" - I'll be right back / just a moment.


Also about genders... English, in a way has something quite simalur to them.

Take for example, german. If it's Feminine (object) you'd say "eine (object)"

If the object was Nueter, or masculine, you would say "ein (Object)"

In english we have either A or An. It just depends on which sound the next letter of the next word makes(vowels receiving an, consanants recieving a).

So hum ! It may not be "genders" but, its just about the same thing ! Im sure we could easily say that words that begining with consanants are masculine, and ones with vowels feminine !

Why not ? Sounds fun ! :lol: :D :D

Russian makes it easyer, because, even though there are 3 genders, all you have to do is listen( or look ) to the last letter of each word, and you can automatically tell which gender it's about.

try that with english. You'd think that it would be "Miles a hour"... but since the "h" is silent the next sound is O, which is a vowel"... making it that much harder for non native speakers to know what the heck to say. "miles an hour"... crazy.

But you're a grown man... i wont bore you with grammar details you already know... I would like to know, if u dont mindme asking, how did u end up in russia ? (lucky dog).

Dogboy... np with personal questions as long as not toooooo personal.

Answer is married Russian in UK, tried living there, got really cheesed off with cost of living in UK. Most of your wages go to either accomodation or the bank or the taxman. Do you know what house prices are like in the south of England? - you basically have to agree to give the banks half your income for the next 25 years to get a really crap place - and people get so proud about their house rising in value by

The only personal question that interested me was .. exactly what does your job entail?
I also came here with a mix of IT and teaching skills (but without a wife! :) - important difference I know), but as for using the former without language skills, it's obviously been a non-starter. Lots of Russians here who can do that stuff. Well, maybe .. hence my question above.

loki, ur vocab and grammar seem to be fine. Obivously you can see what's wrong and why it should be difrent. i didn't even learn the word мыть till like 3 weeks ago, and i have been learning russian for nearly 2 years. I think if u just keep at it u wont have anything to worry about.(though it is, в ванной ) :wink:

(If someone wonder about the Moskva spelling, it is the danish spelling).

I also have IT experience, including development (started programming in 1979, knows a multitude of languages). Got my first computer in 1981, have lots of Internet experience (been using it since 1986). Been out teaching, both corporate customers as well own employees (including a 2 months trip to Bangladesh and 2 months to Uganda). Knows a lot about networks as well. Also have some level of leadership, fairly intelligent, not afraid to make decisions. I have had no problems getting a job the last time I was out looking, one recruitment company was sure that some of their customers with no open position would hire me if I decided not to take the job I was interviewed for. And, I am willing to learn, but learns other things than laguages a bit faster.

The 2x2 months abroad got the bug into my blood, I have some former colleagues that has no plan to come home anytime soon.

waxwing: Hi, im a sys admin and the company here requires you to know either German or English in addition to Russian. As i already know English then they took me as i am learning Russian anyway. The manager believes that the English are very good with customer services and was very keen to take me. However, from what ive found out as a native English speaker you can get work as an advanced level English teacher and earn almost has much as im getting as a sys admin. In fact ive got an English school here falling over themselves to take me and offer me good money. Im going to see them in about a week or two to discuss terms and may take some students a couple of evenings a week. Got a baby on the way so the extra money will come in useful.

Dogboy: That post took about 2 seconds to write until i hit the Russian then i spent 10 minutes with the bucknell website trying to figure out the grammar for the correct scentence (and as you pointed out still got it slightly wrong). PS: I know MIT because im married and women dont like a smelly dirty man :-O - well some dont.....

Im determined to understand the grammar now though because ive realised with my mind i wont be happy just learning to speak the language parrot fashion and one of the problems is that ive been learning 10 words for each verb (rabotayoo, rabotayesh etc... - sorry for using latin, not comfortable with cryllic keyboard and dont want to take half an hour to write this post). So if i get the grammar sorted i can learn just the stem of each word and i will then know how to change the ending without thinking too much. Maybe its a bad way to learn but nothing else has worked yet.

Going to start keeping a list of unknown words on post-its around my desk at work as well and hopfully this will help.

PS: Can any native English here pronounce the Yeruh letter correctly. I have my wife laughing her head off when i try to say it and have resigned myself to simply saying a short I. like the I in bit.

And as for rolling my R i either say it like the English R or sound like a scotsman about to break into song!

Very few can pronounce ы well. Mine is just about OK in some words, but often I do like you and it just degenerates to i .. but it doesn't tend to stop understanding, as I'm sure you've found. Do a search on that topic in the forum and you will find a lot of discussion about it.

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Originally Posted by waxwing

The only personal question that interested me was .. exactly what does your job entail? I also came here with a mix of IT and teaching skills

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waxwing,
I would recommend you to search for an offshore programming company. I believe there must be one in Simferopol. Your main benefit would be your german language. A lot of customers in Germany are looking for a company to save money on oursorcing.

:lol:
Nice of you to try and help AndreyK, but I don't speak German!
Simferopol sounds great though! Ukraine, Crimea right?
Seriously though, I think to find a job as a foreigner you need contacts. That's the number one thing.
personally, I was never much of a schmoozer :wink:

@waxwing
First of all, what is a schmoozer?

Is it easy to get work permit in Russia? I have business Russian visa and I had a very strange talk at Russian border some time ago. Now, there are special people from "министерство занятости" or something like that.
I am building a house and my neighbour is from Ireland. He's working in Latvia for Dutch company and doesn't have to have any of work permits or visas.

BETEP (cool can type your cryllic name with latin chars... he he),

A schmoozer is someone who is good at intergrating (erm,,, maybe i mean ingratiating... erm, what a bloody awful langauge we speak) themselves with others. Usually with false flattery or other insincere means. But can also just mean someone who is very good at making friends with the right people.

For a work permit my understanding is if you know the right people then you shouldnt have any major problems. If you dont then you probably will be eyeing up a plot of land to buried in before you even get a reply rejecting you the permit. You need contacts, with perhaps the exception being if you are hired by a company that has its act together and then they will sort everything for you.

Do what i did.... marry a Russian girl and then you can get leave to remain. Russian girls are great, best in the world ;-) Steer clear of those Russian Bride sites though because its full of girls wanting OUT of russia which kinda defeats the objective.

PS: Please dont get the idea i married my wife to get into Russia.

I have worked here illegally. I'm almost sure of it. All the time I've been here, my visa has been Dyelovaya 003. This does not allow me to draw a salary in Russia.
When I got my last visa, I had some problems and brought the school director in with me. After a chat, the bureacrat there told here .. 'oh i see, in that case don't declare anything you pay him'.

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

Of course the only really good way to come and work here is to be set up in some international company, and then they send you. That's called being an 'expat' .. those people make serious money.
If you're a top manager or lawyer of course you can get a job here under certain circumstances. But the legal stuff is a pain because frankly I get the impression that there is no consistency whatsoever in the application of Russian law, especially business law. Tell me I'm talking out of my bottom if you like, but I do have some reasons for saying it. I've heard a lot of stories.

Note I'm not saying that I think the laws themselves are particularly unreasonable, more how they are applied or not applied.

On the other hand the laws about registration of foreigners are utterly unreasonable. I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

There are dodges, like if you're a student at University you can work perfectly legally. But that's not a long term solution.

Marriage and residency is a long term solution. Takes time though, even if you do happen to have a girlfriend here and plan to get married.

Loki, your explanation of 'schmooze' wasn't bad at all I think. you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

Hey Loki,

I don't entirely agree with the advice you got thus far. You hated languages at school, were shit at it, never liked studying books by yourself, and now everybody is telling you to make lists and study x words a day, and force yourself to be serious about it. Don't think it'll work.

I'd recommend that you do not try to study, at least not now. Instead, I think you just need to immerse yourself in the language. Go to Russian films, or buy those cheap DVDs which still offer the English subtitles. Listen to some cheesy Russian music. Suggest assigning one of the days of the week to speak ONLY Russian with your wife, no matter how bad it goes.

Wait for the moment that 'Я люблю ты' sounds horrible to your ears, and other awful mistakes do as well. After that you MAY be able to not only understand and memorise, but also to 'feel' the words and the myriad grammatical rules this wonderful language has to offer ;)

Why? I think everybody has a faculty for learning languages, some residual capacity from your childhood. It's a lot more difficult after the age of about 5, but it still works. On the contrary, not everyone has the capacity to STUDY them, i.e. learning a rule first, and then applying it. It just won't stick. Since you have never learned to study languages well (your mom probably just told you what is (in)correct English, but didn't lecture you about grammar at age 3), it's better to use the natural approach. When you have enough ground under your feet, you can try brushing things up by learning the rules behind it.

If you insist on doing something concrete, why not just writing down new words you learn on a notepad, and copy them into your computer. That helps, but trying to memorize them won't, or costs so much energy you'll probably drop it.

I personally am pretty fluent in English, French, German and Italian, none of which is my mother tongue (I'm Dutch). I love languages and always had nice grades. Still, after the first couple of months of trying to study Russian grammar methodically (a familiar approach), I decided to drop it for a while and try talking about the weather, vodka, sex, and the meaning of life first, no matter how плохо my Russian is. Just because I'm sure that even for me, a bit of immersion comes with a learning curve a lot less steep than does an approach with lots of study and memorising.

Good luck, and I'm curious what you (and the others) think of my advice.

Rindert

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Originally Posted by Loki

BETEP (cool can type your cryllic name with latin chars... he he)

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And it's written so! Also I can type 3BOHOK, MOPE, 3ABXO3 and so on. :)

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Originally Posted by Loki

A schmoozer is someone who is good at intergrating (erm,,, maybe i mean ingratiating... erm, what a bloody awful langauge we speak) themselves with others. Usually with false flattery or other insincere means. But can also just mean someone who is very good at making friends with the right people.

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Following your description that is 'проныра' or 'лизоблюд'.

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Originally Posted by Loki

For a work permit my understanding is if you know the right people then you shouldnt have any major problems. ...

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Actually, that's I meant when I asked about work permit.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Do what i did.... marry a Russian girl and then you can get leave to remain.

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1. I don't want to live in Russia.
2. All Russian girls I know (and I know a lot of them) have no relations with Russia.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Please dont get the idea i married my wife to get into Russia.

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That's good for your wife! :D

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Originally Posted by waxwing

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

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Forget about Americans because USA is not a part of EU. If you are British citizen then you can work in Latvia without special permit like I can work in UK, Ireland and Sweden. The rest of EU countries restricted market of work for new EU members for seven years.

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Originally Posted by waxwing

I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

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I think it breaks an article about free motion of Russian citizens inside Russia.

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Originally Posted by waxwing

you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

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Sometimes I think it's pure Latvian word. The word has an unpleasant meaning here because 'Integraacijas ministrija' (Ministry of Integration) do the exactly opposite things.

SO THAT'S WHAT AN EXPAT IS !!!! hahaha ... how do i be one of those guys ???

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Originally Posted by BETEP

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Originally Posted by waxwing

In Latvia Europeans (well I know Brits and Americans and I think Europeans too) don't need a visa at all. However they prob. do need a work permit, but who knows eh?

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Forget about Americans because USA is not a part of EU.
If you are British citizen then you can work in Latvia without special permit like I can work in UK, Ireland and Sweden. The rest of EU countries restricted market of work for new EU members for seven years.

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Yeah I forgot about EU membership.

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Originally Posted by BETEP

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Originally Posted by waxwing

I heard one guy who's a legal expert saying they violate the constitution, I don't exactly know what he means but I can believe it.

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I think it breaks an article about free motion of Russian citizens inside Russia.

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Yes.

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Originally Posted by BETEP

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Originally Posted by waxwing

you wrote 'intergrating' instead of 'integrating'. I believe the word comes from Jewish dialect (Yiddish?), and came into English in America probably via New York Jewish business people.

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Sometimes I think it's pure Latvian word. The word has an unpleasant meaning here because 'Integraacijas ministrija' (Ministry of Integration) do the exactly opposite things.

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I think you misunderstood .. I was talking about the origin of the word 'schmooze' not 'integrate'! Integrate is from a Latin root, no doubt.
Sorry, the way I wrote there was very confusing :)

Dogboy, koroche I don't really know.
But there's different kinds of positions. The classic 'expat' is someone who is a manager in a firm back home, and then the firm decides to open an office or a factory or whatever in Russia, and asks you to go and supervise operations. People in this position will keep the same salary or even increase it when they come here, and so of course they're living the high life (although most of the time they don't actually want such a posting, especially if they have a family).
But this is not something you can plan to do. I think there are consultancy firms (you know like PWC) who have quite big offices here in Moscow, but you have to have some very high level specialty.
Oil, gas, legal.. I don't know what the main areas are. If you are ever thinking seriously about coming to work in Russia, I suppose the golden rule is to remember that if a Russian can do it even 80% as well as you, you're not going to get the job. Just common sense.

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Originally Posted by waxwing

I think you misunderstood .. I was talking about the origin of the word 'schmooze' not 'integrate'! Integrate is from a Latin root, no doubt.
Sorry, the way I wrote there was very confusing :)

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It was like a keyword for me. Now you can see how the 'integration' is annoying here. :)