Hey, cool, you have wonderful prononciation (sp?) !!:done: and a really nice voice :rose:

To answer your question... Hmmm... It's a little complicated since I haven't studied russian grammar for more that 7 years and it's natural to say it correctly without thinking about the rules. As far as I remmember, "plohi" and "plohie" are two different sentence structures. The second one is прилагательное and the first one is something else (maybe деепричастие, but I'm not sure). Basically the second one is used directly before nouns to describe the noun. The first is usually put after the noun and implies some action as well as description of the noun. In a way, "plohi" replaces the verb in the sentece above.

I know it probably sounds confusing especially since i don't remember this stuff, but I don't think anybody would notice if you said "plohie" instead of "plohi" or vice-versa - it's a typical russian mistake :) So you are doing really good in Russian!

:o thank you very much for the compliments :rose: very appreciated

and thanks for explaining :rose: it kind of makes sense... although - I also dont remember Russian grammar rules well :grustno: it's been 13-14 years since I was made to memorize the stuff - but I will look up those 'прилагательное' and 'деепричастие'.

and it is 'pronunciation' :), but dont worry - I constantly misspell things too - but shhhh we are allowed, since we are foreigners :gigi:

Yes, thanks again for opening this thread, Sunny Poison. I see myself using it on a casual basis - as I basically intend to teach myself how to speak Russian, because that's how I learn best, and trying to make contacts with native Russian speakers (we have a very good Russian dept at the local university).

Sorry to be a pest, but today I would like to know whether there's any way for a foreigner like me to know where the stress falls in a word ie are there concrete rules or do you just have to learn by experience? Because the problem is for me that I know how to pronounce Russian if the stress marks are included over words, but if they aren't then I'm totally thrown. For example, I don't even know how to pronounce Yulia's and Lena's surnames - because I've never seen them written in Cyrillic with the stress marks.

So there you go. A simple question for you - How do I pronounce the Tatushkis' surnames?

Sunny poison, put me on that list too. And thank you for this thread. This is very interesting and fun! You are a good teacher. I have been taken some Russian courses but my teachers have never been native Russians before. :)

To Russia with love :rose:

-Denial

i have a really dumb question yea but anyways i've always wondered how u get the umm like russian letters on ur computer like this мы продолжаем простые движенья lol copy and paste but would someone tell me how to get it?

http://forum.tatysite.net/showthread...&threadid=1560 :D

thanx coolasfcuk i still dont get how to do it lol yea i went to the website and the one on that page but its confusing lol :P

rachelc, U can use this thread the way U need it :) I just wanted to help ppl who's not lucky enough to have any russians around :D

prostrel, U are welcomed :)

So, so far I have:

1. zebu
2. sasha (russian name... hehe...)
3. coolasfcuk
4. prostrel (also sounds kinda russian ;))

Miss Denial, thanks for the rose and love :) but I'm still waiting for ur comfirmation as YOU were the one who made me start all this ;P

Wow, coolie, nice voice U have there :)

I'm glad U were the first to post ur file here as it made easier not the work of 'students' only... but mine as well... huh... it's just easier to correct mistakes if there are only few of them ;)

So, let's see what we have...
Well, telling that Russian is softer then Bulgarian (even if only in Sofia) is not right. It can sound softer at times but not always. hehe... we have 21 consonant letters but 36!!! consonant sounds. See what I mean? Russian just has bigger range.

Listening to ur file I got the idea that U feel quite comfortable reading Russian. (huhu... who knows, may be just after some lessons U'll become my assistent, not student :D). And U can be sure that if U pronaunce words this way, U'll be understood without any problem :done:. But I still smell something East-European :) I'll tell U why. U see, from the PD files U and zebu made in ur languages, watching some Polish tv-channel and after spending some time in Bulgaria and Czech Republic, I felt that many east-european languages are a bit softer then russian. They are easier to pronaunce. Huh... to be frank after hearing anyone speaking (or singing ;)) in any of this languages I find it quite difficult to speak Russian properly. I get some kind of accent. I make my speech more smooth without even realizing it :P Even Ukrainian seems more comfortable to one's tongue. Unfortunately, Russian isn't like that :( There are loads of consonants and most of them U have to pronaunce either really soft or firm but in both cases clear.

So, ur first exercise part 1 (hope U don't mind me posting it here. If U do, just tell me and I'll do it with PM next time, k?):

No general mistakes. Congratulations! :rose: But there's still some space for improvement.
First of all U need to be more attentive with this a/o thing. When 'o' isn't stressed, it should sound like 'a'. It's just this damn 'akan'ye' thing. In some regions of Russia like Vologda, they have 'okan'ye'. That means they pronounce 'o' any time 'o' is written. But moscovites (and most of other russians) aren't looking for easy ways (as we say here :)), so they prefere to pronaunce 'a' instead of 'o' and then break their minds thinking how this or that word should be really written. lol! So, U'd better make unstressed O's in words like продолжаем, простые, продолженья and вопросы sound more like 'a'. Just pretend it's written прадалжаем, прастые, прадалженья and вапросы (attention! wrong spelling by purpose). Ur 'o' in the end of the word просто is perfect, girl. :)
Now consonants. Thanks god, U don't make the common for foreigners mistake - making consonant before letter ы soft. That's really good (heh... but are are bulgarian, U have this damn sound as well, right? ;)) U also pronaunce most of consonats right. Just give a bit of ur attention to 'ж' (it should sound firmer. It's never soft, remember?) Ur 'р' isn't clear enough in the first 2 lines but perfect in the next 2. May be it's coz of that little mistake with a/o wich makes the word a bit more difficult to pronaunce. Л should sound a bit more clear as well (may be it happens for the same reason as with 'р'). Sound 'j' should be more clear in combinations like 'нья'.
But these things aren't really important. I mentioned them ONLY coz U were so close to perfection :D *applause*
part 2:
I understood ur doubts with this плохи word. U so much wanted to make it sound like familar to U плохие. So U put the stress in the wrong place. It's 'o' that should be stressed in this case. Not 'и'. All other is correct.

Now I'll try to answer ur question.
Huh... Elf was right saying these 2 words are from different grammar categories. But not that different tho. Both are pronouns. But while плохие is a full one, плохи is short. It's the form usually only relative pronouns have. It's not slang. It's wtitten in any grammar book. What's the difference U ask? And why it is placed AFTER the noun? heh... hell knows! I'm good enough in speaking and writing Russian but find it's quite difficult to explain. I'll try tho. U know, that the words' order has more emotional and sense function rather then grammatical in Russian. Changing this order just gives some new shadow of sense. yep, full pronouns are usually placed before the noun and short ones after. But not always.
Let's see what this our phrase really means:
"people are bad not coz they are bad, but coz they are PEOPLE!"
So плохи in this case means 'are bad' and plays the role of the predicate in the sentence (short pronouns almost always do while full ones are usually attributes). U know, we don't have connective verbs in Russian. We can't say "Мир есть прекрасный" for example, so we use just "Мир прекрасен" to express the same meaning.
Ufff... tricky language we have here. Even for Russians it's may be the most difficult subject at school. I swear, the person that invented Russian grammar and spelling is second in my 'Would kill if find' list. Only the one who invented 'mornings after fun nights' is worse in my eyes. lol! :D

Really?! U must be joking :lol: But frankly speaking I'm so much with U in this! Typing in two languages at the same time is kinda... *tries to find the word from 'normal' russian vocabulary*... hard. Add the fact that I need to use so much code (making letters bold) that this forum says me "are u mad? go and delete something or I'm not showing this shit!" from time to time lol! And the worst part is that I was born as the person with correct russian spelling. And when I try to write how it sounds, not looks... wooo... it hurts :bum: My fingers just refuse to type 'a' when I know 'o' should be written. So sorry if I do mistakes in transcription at times...

Can't dissagree, guy! :) But although this phrase can be interpretated right in the way U did, in my mind it means "ppl do mistakes not coz they are bad. it's just in human's nature" :D It's my life's motto. As well as "Дураки не дураки, просто они - не ты", "Если махнуть на всё рукой, то можно и не плевать" and "Ошибка в жизни - не беда, беда коль жизнь становится ошибкой" :D

Lux, U are welcome! I'm glad U enjoy all this *cough* as much as I do... :rose:

rachelc, well, I can't say I remember any special rules of russian stress. I'll try to do some research, but as far as I remember there's no exact rule here. U need to feel and to learn by heart (russians themselves do lots of mistake in this). Just can say that 'ё' is ALWAYS the stressed one. And 'я' in the middle of the word - quite often (not always, sorry).

As for Yulia's and Lena's names, they should be pronaunced this way:
Volkova Yul'iya Al'egavna
Kat'ina Yel'ena S'erg'eevna

I also added the way their short names sound (Yul'a, L'ena).
Then there's a form russian will use when asks for the attention of some person or just directs the sentence to him/her. (Yul', Len')
And finally the way Yulia often calls Lena (L'enok).
Huhu... I'm glad U asked as I hope nobody after reading this thread will ever call girls the way they did on those american TV-shows ;)

http://www.geocities.com/nrg2002ru/tatunames.mp3

t.a.t.u. n1 fan, sry... I don't know :( I never had such a problem as I have russian version of Windows. So, better ask guys who solved this problem already.

V love V
ur russian teacher,
with the mess on her head
from the center of the storm (20-25 m/sec wind is quite annoying when it's so damn cold) :rose:

Confirm!! I plan to devote 1 hour everyday at for my Russian.
:D

here is my homework, just have in mind that this is my first attempt to speak any Russian (and sorry to use your webspace again, I'll try to find something next time)

and you're a great teacher :)

*goes off to light a cig after hard work put in making her first Russian homework :smoke: and offers her teacher sunnyto join in*

Great job, zebu, especially if it is your first attemt speaking Russian!! :done: If you don't mind, I'll coment a little... :lalala: When you say "мы" it should sound a lot harder than english "me". There is no equivalent sound in english but if you listen to cool's file - she has it right :) Everything else sounds very good, especially those 'ж' sounds which are supposedly difficult. So you did a fantastic job overall!!! :rose:


Yay, I'm allowed!!! I should tell that to my Expository Writing teacher :gigi:

Haha, yeah it does sound a little nicer and the ukrainian way of speaking russian does not really emphasize the o->a rule so whichever way you say it would sounds fine and most say it somewhere in-between o and a.

P.S. I'm Ukrainian by the way but my first language is russian :D

It's not in my nature to asskiss but I will thank you once again Sunny P. I and the others really do appreciate this.

:o :heart: :o Thank you sasha :rose:

sunnich :rose: thaaaaaaaaaank you for all the explanation - very helpful and appreciated. I on the other hand recorded a little blaaaaaaaaaabing of myselff, or more like a lot of it...sine I love talking and now I am hooked on recording myself instead of typing:
Blaaaaaaaaaaaah blah blah
I also recorded some 'extra credit':
Extra Credit

zebu :rose: i loved your recording. thanks for posting it. if this is your first attempt - wow. I think for Slavic people...it just comes naturally :)

I`m sorry but I can`t do this homework cos I don`t know how to do that recording thing. My PC skills just are of a minimum level :( But it`s nice to hear you other guys speaking. Zebu and Coolasfcuk your pronunciation sounds very good to me! So far this thread has been very useful, thank you SP and fellow students! :)

OOoo *Gasp - I say this for the first time in my life* I wanna do homework too! Except I have no idea what to say :/