Does any one Know Russan

[Fossil_12000]

I am from the U.S. and i have always wanted to learn Russan and now that tatu is out i really want to learn it but is it hard to learn

[forre]

Fossil_12000, There are a few members on the Forum those know Russian. But! To learn the language you need a great motivation and material. Start please with getting a course in the nearest book-store.

[Gutter Flower]

forre, is right. Russian is a really tough launguage.

[FadingAway]

Le Russe est tres difficile. Wait a minute! Русский очень труден. There we go, hehe.

It is difficult to learn, but it's not impossible by any means. If you've ever taken Latin or any other inflected language (where the ending determines the meaning/role of the word) then you're already a step up. If not, no biggie! Forre's completely right about having a great motivation to keep it up because it can seem overwhelming at times. That's why it's important you choose your learning material wisely. Obviously courses are the best, but incase you can't find one near you (or in my case if you can't afford the only Russian course in your state that just happens to be at Harvard University at a whopping $4200 for the summer) then the next best bet is rigorous self-study through way of books and audio playback (be it cassette or CD).

I'm currently reading Colloquial Russian by Routledge which I find effective and quite comparitively similar to Teach Yourself (the book series) Russian. They're both well-written, but I think that Colloquial Russian is structured a bit better and seems to build on past material more strongly then Teach Yourself Russian. It also has a larger new vocabulary listing per chapter. Both offer an audio casette (or CD) to accompany the book. I've heard nothing but good things about The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners. Do not forget to get a decent sized Russian-English/English-Russian dictionary (some even offer the phonetic transliterations). Don't bother with little travel books on how to "get by" and such. Stick to the books that are geared towards learning the language. Now if ya really wanna go crazy, revered as the best self-teaching method has for many been the Pimsleur Language Program. They're a three-part collection of CDs, each with about 30 units, accompanied by cooresponding reading material. Only downside is each section (three in all) sells for anywhere between $300-$350! That's easily a grand in just audio books. The good news is two fold. First, you can find them used at online auctions for a much reduced priced, take them out at your local (or city) library if they're language savvy, or, since they're digital media which can be converted into files, they can be most likely be attained online *wink* (not guarunteeing Russian in particular). Second, and probably most importantly, is that it really works and gives you a solid foundation to learn the finer details and nuances of the language and proper pronounciation, as opposed to piecing together scattered grammar rules through the usage of poorly structured books (which doesn't have to be the case if you get a decent book like the Penguin Russian Course or Colloquial Russian). If you do audio books of any type, really shoot for getting the CDs, even if you have a cassette player in your car. You'll become very frustrated trying to stop, rewind, and get back to the correct spot everytime you want to restart the lesson. They're just more convienient, enough said. Read over and over, do the exercises, try to make connections when learning new material, pronounce all the new vocabulary, and just keep at it. As difficult as it may be, it's very fun and rewarding each step of the way once it's broken down.

Have fun and go for it! Russian is a very cool language and people love to hear you speak it (even if it's incorrect or mispronounced, what do they know? LOL! j/k :) ) Seriously though, it's very rewarding and you'll be very proud of yourself once you get your first joke in Russian or you surprise a Russian when you speaki to them in their own language. Supposively it's flattering that foreigners try to learn their language.

Well, good luck and get started! You'll be glad you did!

[MrZebra]

FadingAway: Humm, that's very interesting... As for me, I always wanted to learn a 3rd language and never really got around to it. With liking t.A.T.u. and all, maybe I could give Russian a try. That thread explaining each word of some lines from Я сошла с ума was very cool to read. I wish the same thing could be done for the rest of the song and all of t.A.T.u.'s songs as well but I guess it's pretty long to do so I don't expect it anytime soon. I know I won't be able to speak Russian fluently anytime soon (Or ever at all) but the fact that the album I've been listening to the most for the last 3 months is in Russian might be a good enough reason to learn.

About knowing another language being helpful, given that I also speak french fluently is it something that could help me?

With my birthday next month and some of my family knowing that I'm interested in learning Russian because of t.A.T.u. and the fact that no one knows what to get me for my birthday, I could get one of those Learn Russian book and/or a dictionnary...

[FadingAway]

First, definately get some free reading material for your birthday hehe. I'd look into the The New Penguin Russian Course first, then Colloquial Russian (probably just as good), and then Teach Yourself Russian. I'd get a decent-sized dictionary and probably skip on any audio tapes for now (because of the cost vs. quality). Meanwhile, try to find the Pimsleur collection online if you can. Other helpful items include the following: books explaining Russian idioms, namely "Russian Idioms," a pocket-sized book chock full of common idioms and sayings; grammar rule books that focus on the details of Russian grammar and sentence mechanics; verb conjugation books, which aren't very useful once you learn the endings, but is helpful for those irregular verbs; workbooks, which may remind you of school workbooks, but they're very useful to test your comprehension along the way.

Second, I completed the full analysis of Я сошла с ума but I still need to figure out where to display it (either on my webspace or possibly here or another section of tatysite.net). Glad to hear you benefited from it, as did I. I'm already working on the rest of the songs, starting with Нас не догонят. I'll update you on that and where this information will all be.

Third, answering whether or not knowing French would be helpful to you would be yes and no. French is not an inflected language, where the ending does not determine the meaning of that word, which is more like English. In French, "my friend" is simply mon ami, but that's only for a masculine singular noun (being ami). French does obide by verb-noun gender and number agreement. So learning that endings determine it's case, meaning whether the word is the subject (nomative), the direct object (accusative), the indirect object (dative), in the possesion of (genitive), how the verb is carried out (instrumental) or it's relative location (prepositional formerly called the locative) is something that will be new to you. You already have more then a step up though. You understand that verbs, noun, adjectives, and so on, will need to agree AND you will have already delt with the fact that not everything in another language has an English counterpart. So in short, yes it will help you with seperating Russian from English translating, but as far as French grammar and mechanics go, it may not be too obvious (except for the gender and number agreement). You will learn a lot more about English though, I can guaruntee you that!

[MrZebra]

Ok, that sounds good... I'll wait until I can get the rest of those analysis text. About getting stuff for my birthday, I can't really be specific because I'm pretty sure I'll get it as a surprise since I know my mom knows I'm trying to learn Russian by listening to t.A.T.u. so that's why I think I might get something related for my birthday if she doesn't know what to give me.

I can see what you told me about how the Russian Language works, but it all seems pretty overwhelming for now, but if I can get some sort of step by step guide (One of those books) then I can pick it up one thing at a time.

One thing I'm pretty good at is reading Cyrillic, even though I can only recognize a handful of words (parts of t.A.T.u. song titles mostly hehe) I can still very much determine how it's pronounced so that's a good start. I even impressed my dad with that! Last saturday, the movie The Saint was playing on TV and I watched the beginning and at one point there were some TV Screens for some security cameras or something and they had the name of the person they were pointing at written on them and one of them was called Тони and my dad said "Huh, Tohn? John but with a T instead?!?!?" And I said "That's pronounced Toni!" Haha!

[Jan]

Yeah, English speaking people do have a tendency to assume that Russian letters match English ones, even though look different- Like "Я" must be "R" and "И" must be "N"...
Funny.

[utka]

I speak Russian. It's good you want to learn. :) I think it is not hard. My friend learned how to pronounce Russian letters in a day and a half. :)))

Lizochka

[Fossil_12000]

May i ask how long it takes to learn it

[Jan]

Fossil_12000, it all depends:
How easy is it for you to learn?
What level would you consider to be enough? (you'll never know all of it, mind you)

I'd say- acceptable level can be achived in 2-3 years.

[Fossil_12000]

i have been wanting to learn and this is working as motivation so thanks

[Charles]

Thanks for the advice. I'm another fledgling language student.

I picked up the books for the local university russian101 class since it had a CD set. Not bad, but they don't work very well without the instructor. I like The new Penguin Russian Course very much. Easy to follow.

Anyone have a recommendation for russian-english dictionary software?

[coolasfcuk]

Charles, Try this link, I find it very helpful... it also works the other way around English-Russian.

http://lingvo.yandex.ru/

[Charles]

Hehe. I already have Lingvo. I like itr. Huge vocabulary, easy to use, good integration into application (Ctrl-C-C to lookup a high-lighted word) The only problem with Lingvo is its really for a russian speaker learning english. The manual is all in russian for example. It identifies all the parts of speach in russian, and the 5,000 words in audio format are all in english. This raises the difficulty of using it slightly at first, but after a while, I got used to it. Still a good program for all that.