Thread: Hallo!

Hey guys,

My name is Jilles and I am a 19 year old guy from The Netherlands studying IT. I came here because I wanted to learn another language besides my native language Dutch and my most used language while working: English.. After some thinking and asking around I chose Russian.

I think it sounds really cool when people talk Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet always intrigued me. Now this is not the real reason I chose Russian, I just wanted to mention it. As I'm 19 years old, I wanted to learn another language so I could read/speak 3 languages decently when I hit 25. In the IT branche there are a lot of great Russian programmers. It shows something special if you speak their language I believe, some effort and real interest.

After a few days studying the Cyrillic alphabet I feel like I can read most words. Really slow like as if I just learned to read, but I'm able to. The thing I find the most difficult is that the 'o' is sometimes pronounced like an 'a' and sometimes like an 'o'. Luckily I have no problem with the 'rolling r' because we use it in Dutch too.

Well that is about it! I'm really looking forward to learning Russian and speaking to you guys in Russian.

Kind regards,

Jilles

I want to take a look at you after 3-4 months of learning.

he-he

You are welcome here, Jilles!
Russian is a good choice!

Hello Jilles! I have great memories of getting incredibly drunk during the Queen's birthday party celebrations in Eindhoven. Have fun here!

Originally Posted by Paul G.

I want to take a look at you after 3-4 months of learning.

he-he

You've got me curious! What do you expect?

Originally Posted by Jilles

Hey guys,

The thing I find the most difficult is that the 'o' is sometimes pronounced like an 'a' and sometimes like an 'o'. Luckily I have no problem with the 'rolling r' because we use it in Dutch too.

The rule of thumb is this: If it's stressed it's "о", if it's unstressed it's "а". But it implies one has the know where the stress is ))

It's OK if you say [o] where 'o' is written. As far as I know there's no rule for saying 'a' instead of 'o'.