Russian is impossible to learn!

[FadingAway]

Ya nalichie velikiy zatrudnenie uchenie Russkiy.

I have no clue what I'm doing. Russian is SOOOO difficult to learn. Bought a book today, it's for "beginners" (that's me) so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I gotta tell ya, being that it's a phonetic language makes it so damn difficult. And the hard and soft signs! AHHH!!! And the handwriting makes the Ts look like Ms. WHY?!?!? LOL!! Can an Americans speech pass as authentic in Russian if they're fluent? Does anyone have any tips. I'm pretty good in French, Latin (of course you don't speak it) but this is my first encounter with the Cyrillic alphabet. The two 3 looking letters screw me up too. One's an E sound like "let" and the other is Z. My head hurts with so much to learn

EDIT: I tried writing it in Russian, but it printed all wierd... How can you use the cyrillic alphabet in this forum?

[Echoed]

Russian consonant clusters threw me for a whirl. But thank whatever powers that be for my Asian descent. I can curl around almost any sound. And the Cyrillic alphabet is funky, but fun. I'm almost getting the hang of it. (All by just idly glancing at t.A.T.u. related things. Crazy.)

I'm sure that with enough practice, you'll master the art of Russian pronunciation to a T.

As for the Cyrillic alphabet, I think you can change the encoding or some such thing. In the "View" option up yonder. But actually making Cyrillic letters? No clue. I know that my French й turns into a funky Cyrillic letter when I change the encoding. So does и. And all letters with accents and stuff.

~Echo.

[goku]

I also thought Russian was kind of fun to learn

You follow palatalization rules in English and other languages too, you just don't realize it...

Have you tried typing in Cryllic and copy and pasting into the forum?

[MusicIsLife]

Just starting -- for the second time. Rosetta Stone seems to be pretty good instruction software. Also, the following Web sites have some good lesson structure (as I noted, just getting started). Also links to download keyboards, modify Windows or MAC OS to enable Russian key caps, load Cyrillic fonts, etc. (Pardon any typos; typing without contacts can be rough.)

http://www.russnet.org/online.html
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/...age/index.ntml

Hope this is helpful to all

[FadingAway]

The Instrumental Case is much like the Ablative Case in Latin. I wonder how Russian people think. It's confusing. I don't want to learn Russian just to always be listening-transliterating-comprehending and then replying by transliterating everything from English. I just want to ramble it off. Also, it worries me that everything in Russian is up for different English interpretations. How will I know what is really meant?

[Charles]

Short of studying for years, and living in that language's culture, I don't know that you can completely understand a anogher language. I've made do with looking at every translation I can find, and piece together an interpretation.

After a year of college French, I could read ok, and navigate through Paris, but couldn't carry on a conversation to save my life. If I were at the point in my education to pick a different language to study, I'd go with Russian now.

[FadingAway]

Yay! I've done French for about 5 years and ... well, I'm sorta bored of it... not that I know it that well, it's just that it does't pique my intrest anymore. There is much mystery that lies in the Russian culture. I hope to travel to Europe very soon. Wouldn't mind settling there either but we shall see. Maybe just live there for a while, then come back. Life is too damn short. I think we should be able to live in our 20s for like an extra 10 years Anyway, thanks Charles.

[Charles]

Couldn't agree with you more about the "mystery that lies in the Russian culture." Its both a very old, and very new society all at once. The cold war era blocked so much cultural exchange.

I know one university research project that was focused on interviewing russian immagrants to find out what society and life was like in USSR. This was a university project, but curiously enough, it was in a high security building.

[FadingAway]

*so the plot thickens* Hehe! I think it's very cool, but I'm so hung up on the age issue... I wonder how old I'll be when I actually get there. When I'm let's say 25 and I go there, that's when all the people that are my age leave to go to everywhere else...

[Echoed]

I'm a fluent francophone, so I don't really need to learn anymore French. :P (I just have to speak it more these days. Oi.)

But I do believe I'd be curious to learn Russian. Besides, I think I'd have a kick having Russians looking at me twice as I reply to them in their native language. (I'm Oriental. :P)

~Echo.

[vasilisaglebova]

FadingAway, there are several sites where you input your text in transliterated Russian, and get output in Cyrillic letters. One of them is http://www.ostrovok.de/filimon (or do a search for Filimon 2.2.5), but there are others, I'm sure. Don't forget to take a look at the transliteration scheme first.

Vasilisa Glebova

[goku]

Echoed, you are fluent in French? Moi aussi!

But you speak French Canadian, I speak Paris-Marsels French... probably minor differences........

[Echoed]

French Canadian? No, no, le Franзais Quйbйcois. Lol. C'est plutфt diffйrent. (But yes, how do you think I translate all those French articles? Lol. With an online translator?)

But the only differences would be in expressions and phrases. Grammatically speaking, it's all the same.

Anyway, back to Russian. Lol. We're veering off topic.

~Echo.

[Mad Debz]

I've always found it rarther easy to learn new languages. I diid French at school. The only one I have promlems with is trying to speak German. I was actually quite suprised when I picked up a Russian phrase book and could makes sense of it! I'm even managing to type in Russian, just changing the language settings on my keyboard and working out what letters what helps. But I know as soon as I try and speak to someone in Russian I'll get tongue tied!

[freddie]

Mad Debz: I had difficulties with german also. It almost drove me to insanity with all those damn exeptions. English is so easy
You can realise this only after you try learning german.
As for russian - I think I could learn it in couple of months - I would only have to work on my vocabulary, cause grammatical stuff is pretty similar. But I just dont know where to use russian- its like latin to me

[Jan]

FadingAway, what type of Windows do you use? If it's XP you have cyrillic already, you just have to activate it. However the hard part is to remember the keys- in classic layout they are VERY different from english (latin).
The best link I know to solve all that:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...or/kbd_eng.htm

You'll get anything you need to know+ needed software from there.

Echoed, :don't be so sure about surprising Russian people with your looks+ability to speak russian- remember, several former Soviet Republics( such as Kazakistan) populated by Chinese-looking people who are all fluent in russian!

And on a subject of "Can an Americans speech pass as authentic in Russian if they're fluent?" the answer is -NO.
I've studied english in St.Petersburg University (That is St.Petersburg Russia, not Florida) and we've had number of exchange students from various universities in the States, (Harvard among others) however NONE of them was even close to being able to fake russian accent to a plausible degree, even the best last-year students...

[FadingAway]

I'm gonna wrack Boris' brains until I figure out how to sound Russian LOL! I'm kidding! He's one of the nicest kids I've ever met, quiet (guessing it has to do with moving to Boston) but I can't wait to say a whole bunch of f*cked up English accent Russian to him! LOL! He's gonna roll over laughing at me! I'll probably try to say pazhaloosta whilst begging him and end up saying pashohlti Hehe, hopefully not!

[Echoed]

True! Darn. And here I was hoping for a little fun. (I've had lots of fun with Americans, pretending that I couldn't speak a word of English, whilst spouting Parisian-accented French. :P I'm evil. But I did it in Banana Republic because the people were being pompous and would not serve me unless they thought I was REALLY foreign and thus possibly filthy rich.)

Darn stores.

~Echo.

[Jan]

Which Banana branch was it? Montreal?

[Echoed]

No, no, at the time, I was in San Francisco. Easy pickings there for fooling people with the me and the no English talking. Lol.

~Echo.