Thread: Learning Russian online

Here is another one of my experiments:
http://www.freewebs.com/pravit/akbar.htm

It is not intended to be a stand-alone course, but rather, a supplement to someone learning with some other materials. What do you think?

I thought it was great idea, giving the words little by little. It is always dishearting seeing a full text in russian!

Maybe, when you use the russian word for the first time, you could have the english word above it in small font, so they can make the connection without having to look up the word.

Thanks for your suggestion.

As I wrote in the little note, the entire point of writing it this way was so that it would be easier to guess the meaning of the word(since it is put into context by the English words). Figuring out the meaning of a word by context is the key to reading in Russian, or any foreign language. But I'll take it into consideration, although there is already a similar method to what you mentioned(though written entirely in the target language), that of Ilja Frank. And I have already mentioned I don't believe in learning words just by substituting one label for another.

I like it. I would like to print that page out and show it to a few new Russian students that I know to see what they think. I am certain that it will be well received.

Thanks! What would really be great, though, would be if they were able to figure out the meaning of all the words by guessing. Or at least most of them. I don't know if it would be so easy to teach more difficult words and vocabulary this way, but there's no harm in trying.

I'm thinking that it would be good to give a bit of a primer on grammar terms, such as accusative, dative, pronouns. Especially as if you ask an average high school student, they may not necessarily know what these terms mean. Nor do many grown-ups, especially those with some years between them and the last year they were in high school/college/whichever they consider their final year of formal education.

Oh yeah, I didn't read the little note. I take back my suggestion and burn it.

But, not to purposely waste a whole post, your sun is in the wrong case:

enjoying the warm rays of the солнце

The genitive of солнце is солнца - rays of the sun - лучи солнца(...и согрета лучами звезды по имени Солнце... ). I realize it may seem a little weird to put things in the proper case even when they are isolated in the middle of English sentences, but it is a bit of an experiment to see if people can gain a feel for which case needs to be where based on the prepositions in their own language. Besides that, it will be less of a shock when they reach a stage where it is completely written in Russian.

Another suggestion - the style, to keep it interesting, should have a bit of off-the-wall sense of humor. I'm thinking of the textbook that someone referred to in one of the threads, in Book Reviews, I think. It was a college textbook that had stick drawings and took place in an utopia with a twist. I can't remember the name of the textbook, though. I think it was published in the 80s and is still available, if I'm not mistaken. I remember someone posted links to a website that had scans from the textbook.

Originally Posted by Pravit

The genitive of солнце is солнца - rays of the sun - лучи солнца.

EXACTLY! So fix the sentence I copied and pasted from your page to солнца

Pravit, I like this method and I am familiar with something similar used in the textbook "Russian in 10 Minutes a Day" however they give hints in English. Check it here http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846

Conceptually, you are doing a wonderful thing. But gramatically, I want to note that you have mistakes with declension of nouns and pronouns in your text. For example, in "Akbar stroked свой beard" it should be "свою" because "beard" is a feminine noun. Also, "дерева" should be "деревья" in the context you use this "word referring to a specific object"

I think it is perfect for these students because they have enough knowlege that they are aware of the cases and this will show them a little of how words change while at the same time increase their vocabulary. Unfortunately their classes are not giving them much vocabulary yet and this is a fun way to learn knew words and I also think that they will retain them.

Alas! I must admit that I decided to write things with the proper case about halfway through and did not bother to check the declination of the previous words used, which is why I have the correct своей beard but the incorrect свой beard and солнце earlier on. As for дерева, that was a true mistake; I always screw up that word(and confuse it with the word for "village").

About Russian in 10 minutes a day: I remember a lot of people on the forum talking about it but I never actually looked at this book. If I recall correctly, it has a lot of phrasebook type stuff and big pictures, as well as stickers you could put on things.

DDT: Yes, I hope that something like this could be used alongside a course. I don't think it's enough to learn grammar and vocabulary from on its own.

"village" is "деревня"

Originally Posted by lolajl

Another suggestion - the style, to keep it interesting, should have a bit of off-the-wall sense of humor. I'm thinking of the textbook that someone referred to in one of the threads, in Book Reviews, I think. It was a college textbook that had stick drawings and took place in an utopia with a twist. I can't remember the name of the textbook, though. I think it was published in the 80s and is still available, if I'm not mistaken. I remember someone posted links to a website that had scans from the textbook.

I know this site, it has the storys about the "shockworkers"

Oh yeaaahh! That was a cool site; I wish I had had it when I was just beginning. I don't know if I want to go with all the "Soviet" humor, though, or any humor. It is very important to understand humor in the proper context, or a lot of it won't make any sense.

Originally Posted by Pravit

Oh yeaaahh! That was a cool site; I wish I had had it when I was just beginning. I don't know if I want to go with all the "Soviet" humor, though, or any humor. It is very important to understand humor in the proper context, or a lot of it won't make any sense.

Point taken. What I meant was to take the idea and rework it in your own way. Maybe impart a bit of cultural lessons along with the grammar info.

Yeah, I'm thinking about it. It does seem a good idea but lately I seem rather humorless for some reason. As for cultural notes, I'm not too sure what that would entail. The story, however, does not take place in Russia, and the characters are not Russian.

MasterAdmin, i looked at that book on Amazon and it looks like it can help a lot. Thank you for posting that.


Спасибо