Thread: New to Russian..

Hello!

I'm fifteen and I only speak english and some basic german. I'm interested in learning russian because I'm very much interested in russian history and literature.

For anyone who taught themselves, or at least learned russian after english, how did you teach yourself the alphabet? When I look at the letters that look similar to english letters I keep expecting them to sound similar. How do I break myself of this? Also, I'm not quite sure how to write the letters. In english and german, I'm able to write quickly because there's a certain way most people write the letters-- and I'm not quite sure how one writes the russian alphabet once you get into letters such as д or ж.

Thanks for the advice

I taught myself the alphabet before I started classes so I would be ahead. First I used flashcards to get used to the way they look and which is which. For getting rid of your roman alphabet habits, I suggest practicing with cognates.

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/rus ... habet.html

This website really helped me!

http://www.learningrussian.com/alphabet.htm

This shows handwritten Russian, which looks hard to learn, but gets to be second nature fairly quickly.

~dUcK!

Start here!! It's a great place to teach yourself the Cryllic alphabit, and learn some Russian words! http://langintro.com/rintro/first.htm

Thanks for the links

I used an inexpensive book -- Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Script. Only takes a few hours to work through the exercises and at the end of it you will have the ability to read and write the script (understanding it is, of course, a different matter). If you haven't already realized this, Russian handwritten script is quite different from pritned Russian script -- some of the letters are completely different.

I also used the "langintro" website, posted above. If you do it right, you can learn the alphabet in a few hours.

I am 17 and in a very similar situation to you and, like TexasMark, have also been using a Teach Yourself book, except I recommend the 'Beginner's Russian' for something a bit more speech based - it goes through the alphabet bit by bit along with various exercises which I found quite useful.
Good luck with your Russian!

Bonz

P.S: I can now say 'I don't understand pancakes' and 'where's the piano?'. I still can't roll my Rs, though...

what are pancakes? i mean in russian

Блины (bliny) - I think this is the plural version, so I'm guessing the singular would be something like Блинa.

Блин ! How can you forget the singular of Блин ! Блин забыл уже ? Не верится ! надо отдохнуть блин!

lol ok i think i proved my point Блин !

How do you write the letters when a form says "Please print only."?

TAK...

TAK... "ya ne ponimayu bliny"?

TAK... "ya ne ponimayu bliny"?

hm...<wonders how that happened>

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

Блин ! How can you forget the singular of Блин ! Блин забыл уже ? Не верится ! надо отдохнуть блин!

lol ok i think i proved my point Блин !

Err... I've only just started learning so that was kinda lost on me... Do you mean that the singular for Блин is Блин?

Blinchies!!! One of my favourite foods in Russia. Never had them in UK... ok, we had pancakes (even have a pancake day in UK) but nothing like russian ones. Filled with meat, or potato, or jam and many other fillings. Splendid.

In fact i like most russian meals as they tend to be based on meat and potato. Wife cooked me gortoshka (sorry for the spelling) yesterday and in the past she has done be borsch and many other traditional dishes as well as georgean and other stuff. The one thing i cant bring myself to touch is kvass. You see people everywhere selling it (and buying it!) but no way will i go near it.

Anyone like kvass?

Originally Posted by Loki

Wife cooked me gortoshka (sorry for the spelling) yesterday...

Maybe okroshka? The root is -krosh- "to cut into small pieces" - it is a cold soop made of kvas, vegetables and meet. Or kartoshka - cooked potatos.

Anyone like kvass?[/quote]
I do. BTW in my town they start to sell it again, but speaking frankly this kvas is not so good as it was in the USSR. The wrong technology, I think.

Yeah, I like kvass. I just think that $2.98 a bottle is too much and that's what they want for it around here.

I like kvas very much. But most of kvas sold in bottles has nothing to do with real Russian homemade kvas. Good kvas can be also made out of квасное сусло and it comes out much cheaper.

Originally Posted by JJ

...but speaking frankly this kvas is not so good as it was in the USSR.

Yes, when I was a little girl, kvas from cisterns was very tasty, but when I tried some last year that was awful. Probably there are some factories that make good kvas but you have to find them first.