Thread: A ...Major?... Problem

I'm trying to teach myself Russian from "The New Penguin Russian Course: A complete Guide for Beginners" that I got for my birthday...I've been at it constantly for over a week now.

Learning the alphabet was fairly easy for me (although according to what this book says, ё and я are pronounced the same... Oh, that and the fact that it says that щ is pronounced 'shsh'...???).

But that's not my main problem. I'm just having trouble absorbing the vocabulary/grammar. I remember almost nothing that I've read through about grammar, and I've even reread the chapter several times! Pretty much the only words I understand are я, да, нет, это, спасивбо, and вот, plus cognates, like такси.

Are there any tricks or something that I can try to help me absorb the material (better)? The grammar seems very intimidating, but I just assumed that because I spoke English as a first language, where grammar isn't so...carefully paid attention to. (But even grammar isn't that bad, since I understand it completely in German, but things like noun declension seem...difficult to learn, at least to me).

So, as a sort of summary, I guess, my problem is that I can read Russian fairly easily (albeit, rather slowly and very choppy; except for щ and ь), but I just don't understand it, even though I had read the meanings of the words, like, 5 minutes before. I'm really eager to learn Russian, but I'm just finding it rather difficult.

Patience. In time, you will pick up the the feel of what russian sounds like, and that greatly helps learning words. It's also said that the first 100 words you learn will be the hardest words you ever learn.

Russian grammar is very different than English grammar. It takes a while for a lot of it to sink in. Just keep persevering, and there will come a time when everything suddenly clicks and makes sense.

щ is just ш but pronounsed longer (hense the transcription of shsh)
ь palatizes a consonant. Try to immagine a short "y" after it.
ё and я are not pronounced the same. ё is pronounced as "yo" as in "yogurt" or "yo". Я is pronounced "ya" as in "yeah".

Удачи!

Originally Posted by Chibi

Learning the alphabet was fairly easy for me (although according to what this book says, ё and я are pronounced the same... Oh, that and the fact that it says that щ is pronounced 'shsh'...???).

ё is pronounced "yo" as in yo-yo (the toy) and it is always stressed
я is pronounced "ya" as in yaba-daba-doo (from the Flintstones)
щ is pronounced like "shch" as in swiss-cheeze

Here are some audio examples of Russian greetings.
http://masterrussian.com/blday_greeting.shtml

Hope this helps

Ah, thanks for the pronunciation corrections. ^_^;

Anyway...Yeah, I guess patience makes sense (...of course it does...). I'll try to get myself to be more patient -_-;

Originally Posted by kwatts59

Originally Posted by Chibi

Learning the alphabet was fairly easy for me (although according to what this book says, ё and я are pronounced the same... Oh, that and the fact that it says that щ is pronounced 'shsh'...???).

ё is pronounced "yo" as in yo-yo (the toy) and it is always stressed
я is pronounced "ya" as in yaba-daba-doo (from the Flintstones)
щ is pronounced like "shch" as in swiss-cheeze

Here are some audio examples of Russian greetings.
http://masterrussian.com/blday_greeting.shtml

Hope this helps

What about X .. Kwatts? .. can you give a example of that..

The Russian letter "X" is pronounced similar to the English letter "H".

Examples:
http://masterrussian.com/media/audio/bad.wav
плохо
plO-ha

http://masterrussian.com/media/audio/finethnx.wav
спасибо хорошо
spaceeba harashow

Actually, it isn't like an English H. Let me quote what I wrote in another thread.

HOW TO PROPERLY PRONOUNCE THE RUSSIAN Х
1) Place the back of your tongue like you were going to say an English "k", but don't.
2) Say the "k", but don't move your mouth after saying, and keep pushing air through the opening. You should hear a sound that sounds something like static.
3) Now repeat, except do not make the "k" sound before the proper sound..

This is known as a voiceless velar fricative.

damn, how complex it is...

I think I'm not that confused by it because of my experience with German and Dutch...I believe I read somewhere that it was pronounced similar to the 'ch' in German or that weird gagging sound in Dutch. (I think it's, like 'g' in Dutch or something...I dunno, I haven't studied it a lot).

The Russian "X" is close to the German "ch" in Bach. Of course, if you don't know how to pronounce Bach as the Germans would, then this doesn't really do you any good.

Originally Posted by lctp72

The Russian "X" is close to the German "ch" in Bach. Of course, if you don't know how to pronounce Bach as the Germans would, then this doesn't really do you any good.

An easier way to think of it for people who have no idea would be close to "h" in "loch".

A very simple course, possibly with an audio section, might help you. I started out with new penguin Russian course and was stuggling with learning new words and with grammar and pronunciation, so I bought BBC Talk Russian, with a CD. I completed Talk Russian, and once I went back to the New PEnguin book I found it a lot easier. I'm not very far along with Russian either. I started a couple of months ago but have been able to spend very little time on it.

Originally Posted by lctp72

The Russian "X" is close to the German "ch" in Bach. Of course, if you don't know how to pronounce Bach as the Germans would, then this doesn't really do you any good.

Heh. I always thought of it as a hissing sound...maybe that's just me...

Originally Posted by lctp72

The Russian "X" is close to the German "ch" in Bach. Of course, if you don't know how to pronounce Bach as the Germans would, then this doesn't really do you any good.

Exactly... i never heard the German pronunciation of Bach.. to me in the U.S. Bach has a "K" sound...

To me x sounds a lot like someone hawking up some phlegm.

The German letter ch, when preceded by a, au, o, sounds like the Spanish letter j, it's an r pronounced from the throat. The Russian letter x sounds like a k you try to pronounce but only with the air coming out of your throat.

For Americans, the most familiar to Russian 'x' sound would probably be 'j' as in 'jalapen~o'.

To me it sounds like the kh, in arabic, I think it may be the closest one may get, unless youre russian, Hope that helps!

People like to say that X is pronounced as ch in ich. However, i feel i should note that according to my chinese textbook, x in hanyu pinyin is pronounced as ch in ich. The two sounds are incredibly different.
Moral of the story is, if you want to know how something sounds, use IPA.

And interestingly enough, the IPA for х is [x]. Hmm...