Learning Russian

[Morgan]

Of course! That's what these threads exist for
(and thank you, I was glad to help)

Oops, sorry for the delay. I'm having a rough time at memorizing words. I'm thinking that it might be because I'm trying to memorize what the word looks like, since it is a foreign alphabet to me.

Do you think it would help me to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (fully) first, and then try to memorize words?

[Kis]

Oops, sorry for the delay. I'm having a rough time at memorizing words. I'm thinking that it might be because I'm trying to memorize what the word looks like, since it is a foreign alphabet to me.

Do you think it would help me to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (fully) first, and then try to memorize words?

Knowing Cyrillic alphabet would certainly help, it's much easier to learn new words if you know how to spell them and, well, spell them    Besides it would come in handy if you're going to learn vocabulary by writing words with their translation. Spelling them (especially aloud)(I don't know, it just helps sometimes) while doing so will help you memorize all these unpronounced letters and horrible consonant combinations. We have a joke about learning how to write 'language' by saying to ourselves 'лангуаге'. An yes, I wrote this by saying 'лангуаге'. It works
I would also recommend learning simple words like 'снег'-'snow' or 'кот'-'cat' first and gradually increase the difficulty so that you can get used to memorizing absolute gibberish
Learning Russian must be a nightmare

[wavewright62]

Knowing Cyrillic alphabet would certainly help, it's much easier to learn new words if you know how to spell them and, well, spell them    Besides it would come in handy if you're going to learn vocabulary by writing words with their translation. Spelling them (especially aloud)(I don't know, it just helps sometimes) while doing so will help you memorize all these unpronounced letters and horrible consonant combinations. We have a joke about learning how to write 'language' by saying to ourselves 'лангуаге'. An yes, I wrote this by saying 'лангуаге'. It works
I would also recommend learning simple words like 'снег'-'snow' or 'кот'-'cat' first and gradually increase the difficulty so that you can get used to memorizing absolute gibberish
Learning Russian must be a nightmare

Agreed.  I took it as my language in high school.  The first year was okay, we had a small class but individual attention, and we learnt the alphabet and those simple words.  This was still during the Soviet era, and the textbook reflected it.  We quickly progressed from "что это (What is this?)" "это дом (This is a house)" to "Я работаю день и ночь на заводе как машина (I work day and night in the factory like a machine)."  The word for "red" got a workout, not so much the other colours.
The second year had fewer people in it, but the third year was so sparse that we were scattered to doing independent study in the back of other classrooms, in my case first-year German.  I learnt neither language that year. 

[curiosity]

Do you think it would help me to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (fully) first, and then try to memorize words?

It would. The first post in this thread has a rather accurate pronounciation parallels for Russian alphabet. I don't say Cyrillic in this case, because different languages that use Cyrillic alphabet may have slightly different sounds for the same letters. But since it was posted long ago, when the forum didn't support Cyrillic, I took a liberty of fixing and pasting it here:

Spoiler: show

А а - Pronounced like the "a" in the word "father" or "car". It is not the 'flat' "a" sound you sometimes hear in words like "cat" or "flat".
 
Б б - Pronounced like the "b" in "bat". (Equivalent to the english letter "b").

В в - Pronounced like the "v" in "vet". (Equivalent to the english letter "v").

Г г - Pronounced like the "g" in "go". (Equivalent to the english letter "g").

Д д - Pronounced like the "d" in "dog". (Equivalent to the english letter "d").

Е е - Pronounced like the "ye" in "yes".
 
Ё ё - Pronounced like "yo" in "yonder" or yo-yo but shorter /the British pronounciation of "yonder"/

Ж ж - Like "s" in "measure", "pleasure" or "fusion" or like "g" in colour "beige". (As there is no english symbol for this sound, it is usually represented as "zh")

З з - Pronounced like the "z" in "zoo". (Equivalent to the english letter "z").
 
И и - Pronounced like the "i" in "taxi". (Sometimes equivalent to the english letter "i", the short 'ee' sound.). (Note: The hand-written form for "И" looks a little like the english "u").

Й й - This letter is used to form diphthongs. So "oй" is like the "oy" sound in "boy" or "aй" is like the "igh" in "sigh". Think of yikes! or Yellow... so I guess this letter relates to Y in some cases.

К к, Pronounced like the "k" in "kitten" or "kangaroo". This letter replaces the english "c" sound in words like "cat"

Л л,  Pronounced like the "l" in "love". (Equivalent to the english letter "l").

М м, Pronounced like the "m" in man. (Note: Unlike english, the hand-written "M" should always start from the bottom)

Н н, Pronounced like the "n" in "no". (Equivalent to the english letter "n").
 
О о, When stressed, it is pronounced like the "o" in "bore". When un-stressed it is pronounced more like the letter "a". (See later notes.)

П п - Pronounced like the "p" in "pot". (Equivalent to the english letter "p").

Р р - Pronounced like the "r" in "run", but it is rolled. (Equivalent to the english letter "r").

С с - Pronounced like the "s" in "see". (Equivalent to the english letter "s"). (It might help to remember that it's used like the "s" sound in the english words "centre" and "cent".)
 
Т т - Pronounced like the "t" in "tap". (Note: The hand-written (and italic) form is "?". It should always start from the top, as it looks quite similar to the letter "?")  /Sorry, no idea how to fix this one; but you'll get the original poster's idea if you look at the second post in this thread with examples of hand-written letters/

У у, - Pronounced like the "oo" in "boot" or "root".

Ф ф,  Pronounced like the "f" in "fat". (Equivalent to the english letter "f").

Х х, - Pronounced like the "h" in "hello". However, this is often pronounced more like the "ch" in the Scottish "Loch" or German "Bach", or the spanish "x" in "Mexico".

Ц ц, -  Similar to the "ts" sound in "sits" or "its".

Ч ч, - Pronounced like the "ch" in "chips" or "church" .

Ш ш,  -Pronounced like the "sh" in shut.

Щ щ - Pronounced like "sh" but with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Try putting your tongue in the same position as you would to say "ch" but say "sh" instead. English speakers may find it hard to define the difference between "ш" and "щ". /And I have to add: think of English words "she", "sheet", "sheep" or "ship", and you'll get the general idea/

ъ -The 'Hard Sign' is rarely used. It indicates a slight pause between sylables.

ы - Pronounced like the "i" in "bit" or "ill". (Said with your tongue slightly back in your mouth.)

ь -  The 'Soft Sign' makes the previous letter 'soft'. Think of the "p" sound in the word "pew". (Try inflecting a very slight "y" sound onto letter before it.)

Э э - Pronounced like the "e" in "fed".

Ю ю - Pronounced like the "u" in "universe". (Pronounced much like the english word "you").

Я я - Pronounced like the "ya" in "yard".

Some ramblings about quirks of ь and ъ that I'd better hide under Spoiler tag:

Spoiler: show

You might want to pay extra attention to a wicked ь letter, which has no pronunciation by itself, but softens the consonant it follows. For example, in the word "пыль" (dust) л is soft, as in such French words as "mille" or "il". But л in the word "пыл" (heat; zeal) is hard, like in English words "maul" or "mile".

Understanding ъ can be more difficult, as it is used in fewer words, and the difference between ь and ъ is very subtle. The consonant before ъ doesn't soften; ъ letter is used to indicate that the consonant and the vowel it is placed between are pronounced separately. For example, the word "съёмка" (filming) has ъ between с and ё, so the word is pronounced "s-yom-ka". Without ъ, it would be something like "syom-ka", the sound somewhat similar to "u" in "surmise" and "burly" (the closest analogue I could come up with, so it's far from accurate). UPD: Maybe "ci" in words "circus" and "circuit" is a better example.

And some more about vowels:

Spoiler: show

Vowels can be a pain in the rear, too - we have 10 letters for them (а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я), but only 6 sounds ([а], [э], [и], [ы], [о], [у]).

The trick is that there are two types of vowels - those that use a single sound and those that use two:
а - [а], я - [й'а]
э - [э], е - [й'э]
о - [о], ё - [й'о]
у - [у], ю - [й'у]
ы - [ы]
и - [и]

UPD: In Russian transcription the ' symbol indicates that the consonant is soft. Some consonants are always soft, and й is one of them.

Keep in mind that е, ё, и, ю, я always soften the last consonant that preceeds them if that tricky imp ъ not present, while consonants before а, о, у, э, ы are always hard.

Okay, in some words of foreign origin e sounds like э, as in words "менеджмент" (management), "Интернет" (Internet) or "тест" (test), but that's another story, and some people - usually elder ones - still say е instead, but it sounds wrong and funny, don't do that.

UPD: It slipped my mind last night. I have to add that when the vowel that is represented by two sounds follows a consonant, the [й'] sound is dropped, but the consonant itself is softened.
For example, words "мяч" (ball) and "меч" (sword) sound like [м'ач'] and [м'эч'] instead of [мй'ач'] and [мй'эч'].
But if there is ь present between consonant and vowel, the [й'] sound remains. For example: "вьюга" (blizzard) or "пьяный" (drunk, drunkard) are pronounced [в'й'уга] and [п'й'аный'].
The [й'] isn't dropped if the word begins with a two-sound vowel: "яблоко" (apple), "енот" (racoon), "юг" (south) are pronounced with [й'а], [й'э], [й'у] respectively.

And four useful rules to remember, they help a lot when it comes to writing:

Spoiler: show

There are several tricky letter pairs in Russian that don't bend to rules I've mentioned above. They are:

1) "жи" and "ши" - in this case the letter и is pronounced like ы, because in Russian sounds [ж] and [ш] are never soft, thus words like "жизнь" (life), "жир" (grease, fat), "шифр" (cipher), "шишка" (cone; bump) are pronounced like "жызнь", "жыр", "шыфр", "шышка" respectively. But it's important to remember that writing words with "жы" and "шы" is a gross error, the only correct way is to use "жи" and "ши".

2) "ча" and "ща" - in this case the letter a is pronounced like я: "чашка" (cup) sounds like "чяшка"; "щавель" (sorrel) like "щявель" etc, much like with the previous rule. It is because [ч'] and [щ'] are always soft and can't be hardened whatsoever. Again, like in the rule above, writing "чя" and "щя" is a gross error.

3) "чу" and "щу" - in this case the letter у is pronounced like ю: "чудо" (wonder) sounds like "чюдо"; "щука" (pike) like "щюка". And you've already guessed that writing "чю" and "щю" is a gross error.

4) "чк" and "чн" - no matter how much you'd want to insert ь between these letters, don't - it's an error; words like "точка" (dot), "навечно" (forever) have no ь inside.

Also, many foreign toponyms and personal names in Russian are traditionally spelled quite differently from how they sound in your language. For example, the river Nile, which is [nail] in English, is spelled "Нил" ([nil] or even [ni:l]) in Russian instead of "Найл" (how it would have been spelled if we used English pronunciation).
But every language has its own traditions, sometimes changing the names radically (Deutschland, Germany, Allemagne, Германия, Нiмеччина - yes, that's the same country).

So it would be a good idea to check the result of your transliteration experiments by googling or visiting this thread.

Hope it was useful and readable Cx
If I've made it seem too complicated or you have any questions otherwise, feel free to ask.

P.S.: Gods, how I love linguistics. I would marry it if I could.

[wavewright62]

curiosity, you are a gem.

[Kis]

It would. The first post in this thread has a rather accurate pronounciation parallels for Russian alphabet. I don't say Cyrillic in this case, because different languages that use Cyrillic alphabet may have slightly different sounds for the same letters. But since it was posted long ago, when the forum didn't support Cyrillic, I took a liberty of fixing and pasting it here:

Spoiler: show

А а - Pronounced like the "a" in the word "father" or "car". It is not the 'flat' "a" sound you sometimes hear in words like "cat" or "flat".
 
Б б - Pronounced like the "b" in "bat". (Equivalent to the english letter "b").

В в - Pronounced like the "v" in "vet". (Equivalent to the english letter "v").

Г г - Pronounced like the "g" in "go". (Equivalent to the english letter "g").

Д д - Pronounced like the "d" in "dog". (Equivalent to the english letter "d").

Е е - Pronounced like the "ye" in "yes".
 
Ё ё - Pronounced like "yo" in "yonder" or yo-yo but shorter /the British pronounciation of "yonder"/

Ж ж - Like "s" in "measure", "pleasure" or "fusion" or like "g" in colour "beige". (As there is no english symbol for this sound, it is usually represented as "zh")

З з - Pronounced like the "z" in "zoo". (Equivalent to the english letter "z").
 
И и - Pronounced like the "i" in "taxi". (Sometimes equivalent to the english letter "i", the short 'ee' sound.). (Note: The hand-written form for "И" looks a little like the english "u").

Й й - This letter is used to form diphthongs. So "oй" is like the "oy" sound in "boy" or "aй" is like the "igh" in "sigh". Think of yikes! or Yellow... so I guess this letter relates to Y in some cases.

К к, Pronounced like the "k" in "kitten" or "kangaroo". This letter replaces the english "c" sound in words like "cat"

Л л,  Pronounced like the "l" in "love". (Equivalent to the english letter "l").

М м, Pronounced like the "m" in man. (Note: Unlike english, the hand-written "M" should always start from the bottom)

Н н, Pronounced like the "n" in "no". (Equivalent to the english letter "n").
 
О о, When stressed, it is pronounced like the "o" in "bore". When un-stressed it is pronounced more like the letter "a". (See later notes.)

П п - Pronounced like the "p" in "pot". (Equivalent to the english letter "p").

Р р - Pronounced like the "r" in "run", but it is rolled. (Equivalent to the english letter "r").

С с - Pronounced like the "s" in "see". (Equivalent to the english letter "s"). (It might help to remember that it's used like the "s" sound in the english words "centre" and "cent".)
 
Т т - Pronounced like the "t" in "tap". (Note: The hand-written (and italic) form is "?". It should always start from the top, as it looks quite similar to the letter "?")  /Sorry, no idea how to fix this one; but you'll get the original poster's idea if you look at the second post in this thread with examples of hand-written letters/

У у, - Pronounced like the "oo" in "boot" or "root".

Ф ф,  Pronounced like the "f" in "fat". (Equivalent to the english letter "f").

Х х, - Pronounced like the "h" in "hello". However, this is often pronounced more like the "ch" in the Scottish "Loch" or German "Bach", or the spanish "x" in "Mexico".

Ц ц, -  Similar to the "ts" sound in "sits" or "its".

Ч ч, - Pronounced like the "ch" in "chips" or "church" .

Ш ш,  -Pronounced like the "sh" in shut.

Щ щ - Pronounced like "sh" but with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Try putting your tongue in the same position as you would to say "ch" but say "sh" instead. English speakers may find it hard to define the difference between "ш" and "щ". /And I have to add: think of English words "she", "sheet", "sheep" or "ship", and you'll get the general idea/

ъ -The 'Hard Sign' is rarely used. It indicates a slight pause between sylables.

ы - Pronounced like the "i" in "bit" or "ill". (Said with your tongue slightly back in your mouth.)

ь -  The 'Soft Sign' makes the previous letter 'soft'. Think of the "p" sound in the word "pew". (Try inflecting a very slight "y" sound onto letter before it.)

Э э - Pronounced like the "e" in "fed".

Ю ю - Pronounced like the "u" in "universe". (Pronounced much like the english word "you").

Я я - Pronounced like the "ya" in "yard".

Some ramblings about quirks of ь and ъ that I'd better hide under Spoiler tag:

Spoiler: show

You might want to pay extra attention to a wicked ь letter, which has no pronounciation by itself, but softens the consonant it follows. For example, in the word "пыль" (dust) л is soft, as in such French words as "mille" or "il". But л in the word "пыл" (heat; zeal) is hard, like in English words "maul" or "mile".

Understanding ъ can be more difficult, as it is used in fewer words, and the difference between ь and ъ is very subtle. The consonant before ъ doesn't soften; ъ letter is used to indicate that the consonant and the vowel it is placed between are pronounced separately. For example, the word "съёмка" (filming) has ъ between с and ё, so the word is pronounced "s-yom-ka". Without ъ, it would be something like "syom-ka", the sound somewhat similar to "u" in "surmise" and "burly" (the closest analogue I could come up with, so it's far from accurate).

And some more about vowels:

Spoiler: show

Vowels can be a pain in the rear, too - we have 10 letters for them (а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я), but only 6 sounds ([а], [э], [и], [ы], [о], [у]).

The trick is that there are two types of vowels - those that use a single sound and those that use two:
а - [а], я - [йа]
э - [э], е - [йэ]
о - [о], ё - [йо]
у - [у], ю - [йу]
ы - [ы]
и - [и]

Keep in mind that е, ё, и, ю, я always soften the last consonant that preceeds them if that tricky imp ъ not present, while consonants before а, о, у, э, ы are always hard.

Okay, in some words of foreign origin e sounds like э, as in words "менеджмент" (management), "Интернет" (Internet) or "тест" (test), but that's another story, and some people - usually elder ones - still say е instead, but it sounds wrong and funny, don't do that.

And four useful rules to remember, they help a lot when it comes to writing:

Spoiler: show

There are several tricky letter pairs in Russian that don't bend to rules I've mentioned above. They are:

1) "жи" and "ши" - in this case the letter и is pronounced like ы, because in Russian sounds [ж] and [ш] are never soft, thus words like "жизнь" (life), "жир" (grease, fat), "шифр" (cipher), "шишка" (cone; bump) are pronounced like "жызнь", "жыр", "шыфр", "шышка" respectively. But it's important to remember that writing words with "жы" and "шы" is a gross error, the only correct way is to use "жи" and "ши".

2) "ча" and "ща" - in this case the letter a is pronounced like я: "чашка" (cup) sounds like "чяшка"; "щавель" (sorrel) like "щявель" etc, much like with the previous rule. It is because [ч] and [щ] are always soft and can't be hardened whatsoever. Again, like in the rule above, writing "чя" and "щя" is a gross error.

3) "чу" and "щу" - in this case the letter у is pronounced like ю: "чудо" (wonder) sounds like "чюдо"; "щука" (pike) like "щюка". And you've already guessed that writing "чю" and "щю" is a gross error.

4) "чк" and "чн" - no matter how much you'd want to insert ь between these letters, don't - it's an error; words like "точка" (dot), "навечно" (forever) have no ь inside.

Also, many foreign toponyms and personal names in Russian are traditionally spelled quite differently from how they sound in your language. For example, the river Nile, which is [nail] in English, is spelled "Нил" ([nil] or even [ni:l]) in Russian instead of "Найл" (how it would have been spelled if we used English pronounciation).
But every language has its own traditions, sometimes changing the names radically (Deutschland, Germany, Allemagne, Германия, Нiмеччина - yes, that's the same country).

So it would be a good idea to check the result of your transliteration experiments by googling or visiting this thread.

Hope it was useful and readable Cx
If I've made it seem too complicated or you have any questions otherwise, feel free to ask.

Oh god of hangovers, you're amazing

[Morgan]

Ah wow you all are so great! (curiosity that is HUUGE oh my gosh)

So from what I gather, it would be best to do this:

1. Learn the [Russian] Cyrillic alphabet and the behaviors of letters (I can sort of remember doing this in school when I was 7 for French. Good times.)

2. Start small and learn words. Just random words, by writing them down in Russian and then in English while saying them out loud. (I’m thinking of picking up a Russian-English dictionary and just copying that down hehe )

And then I can move on to putting all of those words together and learning phrases.


Ah you all have been so much of a help! Thank you so much!!! I really really appreciate it! I didn’t have the opportunity to take Russian in high school like Wavewright because the only other language (besides French-required and English) that was offered was Spanish. Plus our local library doesn’t have any Russian resources at all. That would probably be because we don’t have many, if ANY Russians here in town aha.

[Kis]

I liked this discussion so much, aaah
And we helped, yay!

[Morgan]

I liked this discussion so much, aaah
And we helped, yay!

Ah yes it has been a wonderful discussion! I'll let you all know how my studies go 

[wavewright62]

Ah yes it has been a wonderful discussion! I'll let you all know how my studies go 

I liked this discussion so much, aaah
And we helped, yay!

Do you mean --

[Kis]

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