Thread: Greetings. I need tutoring...

Hello everyone. I have wanted to learn Russian as a second language for nearly a decade now, but the proper resources always seem to elude me. Though I have money, purchasing anything online is simply not possible with my current banking situation, so that rules out everything but what I can find online for free.

First of all, let me just say that I love all things Russian: best military hardware by far, awesome music, and a wicked sense of humor. I also love that despite the decline of Russia sine the fall of the Soviet Union, and through those events, becoming the laughing stock of the western world, Russians still carry themselves with pride. So I give all Russians a double-thumbs up with a smile.

Yeah, I know that sounds awfully weird, coming from am American, but I am quite atypical.

Anyway, to get right to my first questions, I came across this:
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark...unciation.html
And where it begins to discuss something called "palatalization", it says the following:

You can determine where your hard palate is by pronouncing the sound [j] like in "yes": it is where your tongue touches the upper jaw.

Quite simply, this confuses the heck out of me. When I say the word "yes", there is no trace of a "j" sound at all! Nothing like it! The only place where my tongue even comes close to touching my upper jaw is when I tap the back of my front teeth to make the "s" sound. Somehow, I get the feeling this is not what they mean...


Secondly, I am having a really hard time understanding what sounds the Russian letters make. I was pleased to read that it is a phonetic language, but, being raised on nothing but english, my mind is automatically "reading" cyrillic as if it were made of english letters. (I see "в", and my brain fills in a "b" sound, instead of a "v", because a в simply looks like a B; the same goes for all the other letters). Anyone have an idea on how to break my brain of this habit?

On top of all that, I am having an extraordinarily hard time remembering what sounds each cyrillic symbol means, and not having any way of really hearing the sounds makes that even harder. I feel like I am trying to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone.

I really would like to learn Russian, but since I began trying all on my own, I have gotten discouraged really quickly. I'm glad I finally found this site, since it seems like everyone here knows just what I would like to know.

So, would someone with lots of patience be willing to tutor me? I would greatly appreciate it. :P

You can start out on your own. Buy a book and a CD course.
I suggest this book.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Penguin-Russi ... 0140120416

The money I have. A way of sending it electronically, I do not.
So I will take this under advisement. What about online alternatives that I do not have to purchase?

Explore this site.
http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/golosa/

Originally Posted by Terminator

Anyway, to get right to my first questions, I came across this:
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark...unciation.html
And where it begins to discuss something called "palatalization", it says the following:

You can determine where your hard palate is by pronouncing the sound [j] like in "yes": it is where your tongue touches the upper jaw.

Quite simply, this confuses the heck out of me. When I say the word "yes", there is no trace of a "j" sound at all! Nothing like it! The only place where my tongue even comes close to touching my upper jaw is when I tap the back of my front teeth to make the "s" sound. Somehow, I get the feeling this is not what they mean...

The matter is you misunderstood the phonetic sign of [j]. There is the IPA (international phonetic alphabet), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA, and the phonetic signs it uses are not always the same as their phonetic meaning in English.

They did not mean the English J as in jack, jump etc. at all. BTW, its phonetic sign is ʤ (sorry, it looks like IPA symbols are not displayed properly here).
They rather meant the sound [j], which is the first sound of English words yard, yes, young etc. The reason why [j] is used for this sound is because it is pronounced this way in many European languages. For example, in German "Ja" is pronounced as if it were "Yah" in English.

Originally Posted by Terminator

So, would someone with lots of patience be willing to tutor me? I would greatly appreciate it. :P

I can help you, you may write to my e-mail if you are interesting in it. Please find my e-mail address in my profile.

Ah, thanks for clearing up that IPA nonsense.

I think I shall take you up on your offer. Thank you.


On a side note, I have been watching YouTube videos in russian and listening to the Russian national anthem (Soviet and newer versions), and I think it is helping to familiarize me with the sounds. Transliterations using english letters helps a LOT.

I have a russian vocabulary now of about...oh...a dozen words.

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Hey, how do I configure my keyboard to use cyrillic characters? Finding them one-by-one in MS Word's input symbol menu is a royal pain-in-the-butt...

Hey, how do I configure my keyboard to use cyrillic characters?

If you are using Windows XP you just go the Control panel/time date language/Add other language/language/Details and add Russian. You can select how you want to switch between RU and EN while at it by selecting Language Bar under 'preferences' at the botton .

Thank you. That helped, though your directions are a little off.

The correct path for Windows XP is: Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages (tab) > Details (button) > (add new language)

Originally Posted by Terminator

On a side note, I have been watching YouTube videos in russian and listening to the Russian national anthem (Soviet and newer versions), and I think it is helping to familiarize me with the sounds. Transliterations using english letters helps a LOT.

I have a russian vocabulary now of about...oh...a dozen words.

By the way, I am not sure that listening to songs (even if it is a national anthem) would be a good way to familiarize with a language phonetics

I would advice you better to explore this forum resource. It has a series of good audio samples for language learners.

I wish you success in your efforts! Feel free to contact me

You can set the speed on this news site to slow or normal speech but you still have to know the vocabulary first.
http://news.rtvi.ru/.

Terminator, check out the Princeton Russian course at http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101/. There's also a sticky thread about this course at the top of the forum. It seems to be about as close as you can come to taking a Russian college course without having to plop down a couple of thousand dollars. My experience is that the lessons are pretty fun and extremely useful. Each lesson includes MP3 files so you can hear the language being spoken.

If you do find a way to spend a few dollars online, I second DDT's recommendation for the New Penguin Russian Course. It's an excellent reference, very cheap, but well-organized and gives a good overview of the Russian language for such a small book.

Well, there aren't many people brave enough to get mixed in with the Russian language =P As we are very notoriously known for the extremely confusing and complicated grammar rules...
However, luckily I have a certain document which may help you out (it works with Romance and Germanic languages generally, I dunno about the other ones). It's only a draft, so more is coming. But give it a look-through and see if any tips might help you =)

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/6/1054152/bah.doc

Listening to songs, in my opinion, is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the language. Just make sure they're older songs, as you can never be sure what sort of language comes up with the modern ones

Originally Posted by Яд

...Listening to songs, in my opinion, is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the language. ...

Yes! You can start here: http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=4492

Terminator

Yeah, I know that sounds awfully weird, coming from am American, but I am quite atypical.

Are you sure you are American?

Originally Posted by Grogs

Terminator, check out the Princeton Russian course at http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101/. There's also a sticky thread about this course at the top of the forum. It seems to be about as close as you can come to taking a Russian college course without having to plop down a couple of thousand dollars. My experience is that the lessons are pretty fun and extremely useful. Each lesson includes MP3 files so you can hear the language being spoken.

I've been trying to find this course online as well but no link seems to work?

Originally Posted by gunners

Yeah, I know that sounds awfully weird, coming from am American, but I am quite atypical.

Are you sure you are American?

Used to be.

You know you don't have to buy everything online. Just go to Barnes and Noble or borders. You can get just about every Russian book you've ever wanted there... Including the penguin one.

As for alphabet sounds http://langintro.com/rintro/index.htm

Real good site. Its the same one I used like 5 years ago. If you really sit down and do it to it you can learn the alphabet in like an hour.

Lastly, as great of a song as it is. Ditch the soviet anthem and watch some Russian TV.

http://www.corbina.tv/

the rest is up to you! Good luck!