Thread: Hello!

Hi everyone! I'm just a poor doddering elderly librarian who has a thing for accents. In high school I took Latin and German; at university more German, French and Italian. I learned Farsi by myself and was approaching fluency. Not having anyone to speak Farsi with the last several years, I have sadly since lost it.

I became curious about Russian when I met a certain fellow in January. I think I can learn to speak it fairly easily (I have a pretty good ear), but reading and writing is so freaking hard! Perhaps it is simply a case of senile dementia, but I find the alphabet maddening. I had less trouble with Farsi, which makes no sense at all....but then, I can't knit lace anymore, either. If only I'd known I would end up losing my mind, perhaps I wouldnt have given pieces of it away so freely.....

pax,
~j~

Start to learn Chinese, and you'll see then that the Russian alphabet is very easy %)

I find the Russian alphabet very easy. It is similar to the English alphabet.

well i've got a thing for doddering redheads in magenta sweaters

How old are you? If that's you in your photo, I'd say 32.

Welcome. The fact that you taught yourself Farsi is pretty impressive. Let's just put it this way: if your biggest problem with Russian turns out to be the Cyrillic script, then you're set. Seriously. Slacker college students like me learn that in a week and a half. Hehe. My biggest problem is this: I think I write pretty well in Russian cursive; I NEVER use cursive for English -- which is normally fine. When I went to take Graduate exams, though, they made me write a huge paragraph for an honor pledge. It was so embarrassing, because I COULDN'T do it. LOL. I kept like randomly lapsing into Russian so "r's" became "p's," "s's" became "c's," etc. I finished about 5 minutes after everyone else and even then it looked like a mentally-retarded five year old wrote my pledge!

Originally Posted by Indra

Start to learn Chinese, and you'll see then that the Russian alphabet is very easy %)

Hey, more frustration, just what I need! LOl Seriously, that is excellent advice. Thank you.

Originally Posted by kwatts59

I find the Russian alphabet very easy. It is similar to the English alphabet.

I think this is part of the problem. Similar enough that it seems as though it should be easy...just similar enough to lull one into a false sense of security.

~j~

Originally Posted by DDT

well i've got a thing for doddering redheads in magenta sweaters

Really!? Wow, this joint gets more interesting by the second...

Originally Posted by TATY

How old are you? If that's you in your photo, I'd say 32.

Hey thanks. I turned 49 last month. And the pic is about 2 weeks old.

~j~

[quote="Barmaley"]Welcome. The fact that you taught yourself Farsi is pretty impressive. Let's just put it this way: if your biggest problem with Russian turns out to be the Cyrillic script, then you're set. Seriously. Slacker college students like me learn that in a week and a half. Hehe. quote]

TNX for the encuragement. I was a slacker college student once and if I reach far enough back into the dusty recesses of my memory (hey, it was the 70's!) I remember being so bored by my Philosophy of Religion class that I showed up only on the test days and still got a B. Ha!

~j~

Originally Posted by jimita

TNX for the encuragement. I was a slacker college student once and if I reach far enough back into the dusty recesses of my memory (hey, it was the 70's!) I remember being so bored by my Philosophy of Religion class that I showed up only on the test days and still got a B. Ha!

~j~

Pshh. I skipped 9 consecutive weeks of my comparative gov. class (except for the tests, of course) and got an A-!