Thread: Introduction and Question re Newbie Use of Cursive

Hi all. Just started with Russian (Penguin New Course book arrives today if Amazon does not lie).

I am a bit of a language junkie (I have a feel there are a few of us here), but this is the first time with Russian. Bit nervous about the grammar, esp. cases, but hoping that my very rusty knowledge of Latin will come back into play, along with an extremely rudimentary knowledge of Pali (both of which are case driven languages).

Why Russian? I have been studying Mandarin on an off for a year, but have become discouraged about the difficulty of learning the characters (the spoken part was suprisingly straightforward). The problem was that I did not really have a strong enough motivation to buckle down and study. All of the linguistic types think that the single most important factor in dictating success in language is motivation/need -- hence illiterate Port Said dockworkers being able to speak 12 languages and pampered British Ph.D's being able to speak just English (albeit rather well). I don't have a strong enough motivation with Chinese, but I do with Russian as I am a huge fan of Russian literature. If Bulgakov really is better in Russian, I just have to do it . . .

Anyway, my question is this: in your early days of study, did you use cursive to write your notes, answers to exercises, etc., or did you print? My problem is that even though I am able to distinguish and read cursive in books (with, I might add, difficulty), my own version is so ugly I am not able to read it. This may come from the fact that I have never written in cursive in any other langauge (my early schooling in England must have been at a time when it was not cool to focus hard on penmanship).

What did (do) you guys do?

This is a great forum, by the way. I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

Well, the way i see it is my english script is bloody awful so why should my russian script be any different :-)

I find i can just read russian handwriting but its very difficult and some words look like a series of 'n's and 'u's joined together, especially words with these characters шщмлийнчп.

Right, it does come out looking like you are writing "nummumnmn" or something like that, over and over again.

The book I have used has been that Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Script. It did the trick, but the lessons on cursive all looked like they had been written by a child. But that seems to be quite typical of the examples I have seen. Don't get me wrong -- well executed Cyrillic looks wonderful, it's probably just that in the west we are used to seeing either printed handwritting or, less common, a stylish, individual handwriting.

The fact that Cyrillic has to be so precise (e.g., those little loops), probably means that I subconciously associate it learing it with my first (hopeless) childhood attempts at "joined up writing" (which had to be learned to prepare for "big school"). I am fairly confident that this does not mean that Russia is a nation of millions of people in short trousers, sitting at a desk too big for them, awkardly holding a pen, writing really slowly with their tounge suck out in concentration.

I started out in cursive cyrillic right away, just because I love it. You started getting really used to it and end up developing your own style pretty much right away. You can simplify out some of the superfluous curls, and disconnect some things.

The important thing is to remember you're writing not drawing. I have a hunch that some people feel like they have to keep drawing the letters. I watched one of my friends write once and it was so stilted even though he knew the characters he had to almost build them out of pen strokes. Even in Japanese (yay kanji!) once I get past the learning how to write (drawing) phase I just WRITE and I think it makes it neater. Watching another friend of mine write kanji was just goofy because he knew how it went, but he was sketching it, so it turned out chicken-scratchy.

Maybe practice writing fluidly. I dunno, if you just find a paragraph to copy into cursive (so you already know what it says) and then just write it without worrying, you will end up with a sample. Take a look at it and see what makes it hard to read. Practice ALWAYS makes better (if not perfect.)

~dUcK! (maybe this wasn't helpful...o_o i dunno)

Originally Posted by TexasMark

in your early days of study, did you use cursive to write your notes, answers to exercises, etc., or did you print?

Now, being Russian, I wrote print English for about a year, and then I started getting more comfortable with reading, then writing cursive. I always used cursive Russian, so I guess that spurred me up to switch to cursive English. I do find more English people using print when writing... so if you're comfortable with print, that's just fine, don't spoil it for yourself.

Originally Posted by TexasMark

This is a great forum, by the way.

Yeah, I can't get enough of it myself...

Thanks for the tips guys. As advertised, learning the alphabet has been quite easy.

It is fun, only one into learning Russian, to be able to pick up the paper and read the signs in photographs of Russia (right now, they are often the names of oil companies, hmmm, wonder why that is . . .)

So, that's the alphabet, now on to the harder stuff . . .

TexasMark~

thats the same reason i started to learn russian.i was having a had time with japanese character so i decided to try a language with charaters slightly simalar to my own. and though i am american and in the 8th grade i still print because my writing is terrible(mabye its because im partly hadicaped or left handed, i dont know) and ive learned how to write russian in cursive but im sticking with print for now(though it looks awful when i write it like my д's and i get my э и з mixed up)(i go crazy looking for the right keys)

I'm in my 3rd year of Russian and the professor started making us write in cursive this year. But I didn't learn cursive because I didn't take Russian at the University like all the other students did, and my teacher in high school... well, she wasn't a very good teacher. It's so frustrating because it takes me so long to draw it out. I used to spend almost twice as much time on the tests because I didn't know cursive. I can't stand cursive writing. The old professor got fired, so now we have a new one who lets me get away with printing. Thank god!

You can simplify out some of the superfluous curls, and disconnect some things.

Some of those curls aren't superfluous, for example, the ridges before Л, М, Я, and so on. As for me, I can't really write in cursive that well. Actually writing it isn't a problem, but I've been told it looks like an eight-year old's handwriting

Чуть не половина русского алфавита пишется как разные английские курсивные буквы. То-есть,

а в д е ё з и й о п р с т у (our "u" with a little hat)

не говоря о буквах, которые близки,
к н х ц ш щ ь ы ю (i+o with connecting line)
а какие еще--

б г ж л м ф ч ъ э я

Итого, остаетя просто десять «трудных» букв.

I learned to write cursive in the real Soviet style-- my teacher in high school had just arrived from Leningrad, and he had beautiful handwriting. So cursive wasn't a problem, even tho I am left-handed.

But reading someone else's is a whole nother kettle of fish, which I didn't overcome until 30 years later when, as part of a Sister Cities project to link up penpals between our town and a Russian town, in order to match up writers I had to read each one of a couple hundred handwritten letters!!

Almost all were connected cursive, but there were a few less-connected. I don't remember whether anyone printed their letter, but I wouldn't be surprised, even if they don't print in everyday life. After all when you write a lot, printing individual latters takes a lot of time. If you look at the history of cursive (I have), you see why the cursive Д is written exactly like our cursive G. The forward downward tail used to be longer, so the square box of the Д became a circle with a left-swooping downward curve and upstroke to get to the next letter. In a similar way, our normal lowercase "a" just came about by writing A fast, starting with the \ stroke.

OK, you got me going. I'm an old printer and calligrapher at heart, as well as a Russophile. So here are some free cursive Russian fonts. There is another one floating around, supposed to be based on Pushkin's handwriting, so it's kinda old style, like how the Declaration of Independence was written.

Go to http://www.prodtp.ru/modules.php?op=mod ... load&sid=2

The standard one that all schoolkids learn is Didactica, but you won't go wrong using Allegretto, Chopin or Zeferino as models, even tho they are definitely flowery (Think: engraved wedding invitations). Mini or Demian are more like normal handwriting, and Festus is really rough.

And, just so you can try them out easily, some Russian sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet, the equivalent of English Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (what- you were expecting The quick brown fox???)

Экс граф? Плюш изъят. Бьём чуждый цен хвощ!
сорри, два предложения =:^(

Южно-эфиопский грач увёл мышь за хобот на съезд ящериц.
Съешь ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей же чаю.

(Note the second genitive in that last one.)

They sound just as weird in Russian as ours do.

Originally Posted by TexasMark

Hi all. Just started with Russian (Penguin New Course book arrives today if Amazon does not lie).

I am a bit of a language junkie (I have a feel there are a few of us here), but this is the first time with Russian. Bit nervous about the grammar, esp. cases, but hoping that my very rusty knowledge of Latin will come back into play, along with an extremely rudimentary knowledge of Pali (both of which are case driven languages).

Why Russian? I have been studying Mandarin on an off for a year, but have become discouraged about the difficulty of learning the characters (the spoken part was suprisingly straightforward). The problem was that I did not really have a strong enough motivation to buckle down and study. All of the linguistic types think that the single most important factor in dictating success in language is motivation/need -- hence illiterate Port Said dockworkers being able to speak 12 languages and pampered British Ph.D's being able to speak just English (albeit rather well). I don't have a strong enough motivation with Chinese, but I do with Russian as I am a huge fan of Russian literature. If Bulgakov really is better in Russian, I just have to do it . . .

Anyway, my question is this: in your early days of study, did you use cursive to write your notes, answers to exercises, etc., or did you print? My problem is that even though I am able to distinguish and read cursive in books (with, I might add, difficulty), my own version is so ugly I am not able to read it. This may come from the fact that I have never written in cursive in any other langauge (my early schooling in England must have been at a time when it was not cool to focus hard on penmanship).

What did (do) you guys do?

This is a great forum, by the way. I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

I started writing in print when I first started that book but after I got to around chapter 5 I remembered that I had heard that if, "You do not write in cursive you will be considered illiterate," this spured me to teach myself Russian cursive in a few hours and since then it's all I have been using. It's really neat, and I think is a neat thing to get used to. I'd say learn it, it doesn't hurt.

I started using Cursive cuz it didn't take as long to write out, and it just looks cooler

You sound like me, I'm a language junkie too. I studied Mandarin for awhile, and I loved it, but it was hard. I think I'll be studying Russian for the rest of my life

I don't use cursive because when I tried it, It looked like crap and I couldn't read it after anyway. Are there any web tutorials for doing it? My book doesn't cover how to write in cursive, so I just had to go with the tiny chart they provided.

Originally Posted by chaika

OK, you got me going. I'm an old printer and calligrapher at heart, as well as a Russophile. So here are some free cursive Russian fonts. There is another one floating around, supposed to be based on Pushkin's handwriting, so it's kinda old style, like how the Declaration of Independence was written.

Go to http://www.prodtp.ru/modules.php?op=mod ... load&sid=2

The standard one that all schoolkids learn is Didactica, but you won't go wrong using Allegretto, Chopin or Zeferino as models, even tho they are definitely flowery (Think: engraved wedding invitations). Mini or Demian are more like normal handwriting, and Festus is really rough.

And, just so you can try them out easily, some Russian sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet, the equivalent of English Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (what- you were expecting The quick brown fox???)

Экс граф? Плюш изъят. Бьём чуждый цен хвощ!
сорри, два предложения =:^(

Южно-эфиопский грач увёл мышь за хобот на съезд ящериц.
Съешь ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей же чаю.

(Note the second genitive in that last one.)

They sound just as weird in Russian as ours do.

That link is not working!
Ok here's a link from some dude's writing.. I think it looks terrible!
http://www.rten.net/~ballbach/hwriting.jpg

I am interesting in writting о with bottom connecting line

кол около колокола
молоко

All standard copy-books (прописи) give only results - the right images.
But it don't illustrate the process of getting the result.

It will be better if somebody make a "live" прописи - where the lines will be painted dynamically.

----------
мишины шишки
на последние шиши

Another language junkie here and a new member of this forum. I'm currently brushing up my Italian (my native language but I was born here in the UK!), Swedish and Russian.
Yes why IS Russian cursive so difficult? Every attempt I make looks like a 6 year old right hander trying to write with their left hand - it's just a mess and impossible to read.....still, I'll keep going with my well known book on learning the Russian script

Just try the way your writing in your language...

Originally Posted by Storebror

why IS Russian cursive so difficult

1. Russians almost do not use "handprinted" script which is popular in another countries where people needs to fill many forms with "handprinted" letters. Such type "чертежный шрифт" was used only in technical drawings.

2. To understand the cursive you should use traditional writing tools - fountain pen (or even just a goose feather :-). When I was a schoolboy
we were strictly forbidden to use ball-point pens in the first 4 clases. We must use only fountain pen to train clear handwriting.

Originally Posted by Storebror

Another language junkie here and a new member of this forum. I'm currently brushing up my Italian (my native language but I was born here in the UK!), Swedish and Russian.
...

Привет, Storebror! Добро пожаловать к нам!