cyrillic confusion.

[frolicsome.livejournal.com]

Does anyone else still mix up the alphabets when, damnit, you should know better? I've had a year of Russian and am studying Bulgarian now, yet, much to my embarrassment, м often becomes т when I am writing. Sometimes even writing English words (particularly ones that begin with pr) can be a bit of a challenge...


Will I ever snap out of it, or is this the type of problem that continues to linger?

Comments

[justaduck.livejournal.com]

I recently had to do a vision test. I found myself consistantly calling out the english H as N, since Russian н is equal to our n. I've been doing this for 5 years now, but I've never done it during a test of any kind.

The lady admistering the test just looked at me like I was nuts.

[battersby.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think it will be there for a long while. I've had many native English speakers say that you will always have it. We may possibly overcome it, but it will be difficult.

Just find comfort in knowing that you are not the only one who has this problem.

[nur-ein-tier.livejournal.com]

oh yes, i've done that. when printing sometimes i also write my Rs and Ns backwards. [*eyeroll*] i have similar problems now and then with spelling from other languages, i.e. sometimes i start writing an english word with 'sh' in it and i write 'sch' because i'm so used to writing in german lately. french makes me mix up s and z sometimes. argh. right afterwards i recognize that it's wrong, but i still do it sometimes. annoying. =0)

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've had such problems before. My brain automatically switches over from English to Russian if it can't make sense out of something in capital letters.

Do you think the Bulgarian nod will pose an even bigger threat? =P

[frolicsome.livejournal.com]

Cyrillic has infected - improved - my cursive in English as well. My x is now formed like a lovely, curvy х.

[frolicsome.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA. I fear the Bulgarian nod. Combined with my bumbling naivete, it will likely be the death of me.

[frolicsome.livejournal.com]

The Latin alphabet infects my Cyrillic more so than vice versa. Sadly, I don't immediately notice it. Someone either points it out to me or I'll sometimes catch it when proofreading.

[frolicsome.livejournal.com]

Well, the difference between those two characters didn't show up there at all.

Just, um, use your imagination.

[yozhevich.livejournal.com]

What's that...? :)

[lizphiz.livejournal.com]

I'm going into my third year and I still have issues when I write in cursive in either language. I'll even slip into Cyrillic halfway through signing my name. :/

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

As an exercise in cursive, I usually write out the whole Russian alphabet in one go. Today, I tried doing the same thing in English. I... had trouble.

And you know how people who don't know Russian look at русский and say "What's that? Pikn?" Well that annoys me, only I do the same thing in English :))) Any H's (capitals) or X's I pronounce as the Russians do (in Russian).

[mooose.livejournal.com]

the same thing's been happening to me...
i just smile and say it's not my vision that's bad, just my brain.

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you unless you're over 18.

[jurellai.livejournal.com]

heh- mine goes the opposite- my cyrillic bleeds into my english- so my notes are often half russian, half english... it should be called russish.

[justaduck.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think what most of the problem was the high stress environment and lack of sleep.

It happened a couple weeks back while I was at the Military Entrance Processing Station being examined before being cleared to join. I was totally freaked out the whole time. My brain was shot the whole day. haha.

[rowaasr13.livejournal.com]

Just write curvy x and add | to the middle.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

I sometimes forget to switch from one alphabet to the other when I'm typing.
The funny thing is - when I do, I transliterate without even thinking about it.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

I was writing in a letter in french lately and I had a huuge probleme. Whenever I had to write the "se" syllable I started it with an "e". Only in this syllable.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Lol, I am russian and I have always hated writing ц and щ (yes, in my own language).
Do you have no difficulty here?

[kart.livejournal.com]

Once in a long while I'll use alternate letters on purpose to help with readability. In one class we had to do a big messy complication that invovled v (lower case Latin "vee") V (capital Latin "vee"), and ν (lower case Greek "nu").

The original text I was working from had everything typeset nicely, but you still couldn't tell the difference between v V and ν without looking very closely.

Soo... I substituted:

v = v (no change)
V = В (Cyrillic... fortunately there were no capital latin B's in the calculation)
ν = נ (Hebrew "nun", which is the exact equivalent letter as "nu" and looks kinda similar in cursive, but has a rounded bottom so you can tell it apart.)

And fortunately, the teacher could read cyrillic and hebrew ;)

[justaduck.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I've done that too. There were times in school that I didn't catch it until I got my paper back. Fortunately for me, my name (Amanda) doesn't look too different when written in Cyrillic.

[danvolodar.livejournal.com]

well, seems it's a specific problem of english-speakers. i've been studying english for 11 years now, being originally russian, and i've never had such problems. maybe cyrillic is just more magnificient? ;-)
ups... just cought myself on trasliterating my message after forgetting to switch the keyboard... :-)

[dzhozef-derfler.livejournal.com]

I do that with my X's too.

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

You were lucky that you reacher understood you :)

Yeah, these letters are horrible. I remember our wonderful teacher who taught us to write them correctly, it took quite a time!

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

I sometimes spend minutes and minutes trying to make some of my letters (or numbers) look nicer ;)

Tell me please, do you write lower-case "z" like russian "з" in English?

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Say, have you never inserted latin letters when writing in Russian or vice versa?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Russisch is the name for Russian in German language :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I never did. Only on purpose (my home recording studio 15 years ago has been called Плаstinkи ReкоRдз, for example.)

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

One letter is still different :P

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Sounds pretty much the same, though :)

[danvolodar.livejournal.com]

Nope, at least when not using a keyboard.

[jurellai.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I had completely forgotten.... I took a couple years of german in high school..^_^;;