russian script

[lynxypoo.livejournal.com]

how important is it to know (and use) russian script, as opposed to printing?

I've noticed in america at least, most people use a hybrid between cursive and printing- do russians do that too, or would it just look odd to them?

Comments

[gordin.livejournal.com]

Well, people use scripting a lot, so being able to read it is an important skill.
But for a learner it's ok to use printed-style in writing, I guess.

[korolyeva525.livejournal.com]

I seem to be unable to write (or read) cursive in Russian effectively. However, in my 3 months over there, no one ever seems to print anything. Luckily for me, no one ever complained about my printing. I did have someone tell me it looked child-ish, but at least it was legible!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Printing in Russia is mostly regarded as a childish habit, since kinds in junior high schools are not only encouraged to use only cursive -- it is actually prohibited to print in school copybooks, or -- if you are alder than teenage -- as a cool trendy thing that not many people can actually do ;-))

If you are printing yourself it is OK: since you're a foreigner, Russians expect you to do weird stuff, anyway ;-)
But recognizing Russian cursive is more than an useful habit, since virtually everybody in Russian use it (and their handwriting is soooooo different: I'm a teacher with 15+ years of experience, and I'm still unable to read the handwriting of at least one student a year, of 24-26.)

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

hehe, doctors' handwriting is much more difficult to understand :))))

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

If you want to understand handwritten Russian, you have to learn it. Also, some letters in typed Russian (especially italics) look like their cursive, rather than print, counterparts.

[jodete.livejournal.com]

my russian teacher told our class that in russia some people will that you're illiterate or there's something wrong with you if you don't use cursive. i don't know it though, i can only do printing.

[silpol.livejournal.com]

well, you will be loughing but... курсив stands for italic in Russian, and means only that (actually, professional term of printing business)

[espejo.livejournal.com]

I think most of the russians use script, not printing. So maybe you better learn it ;)

[ditons-que.livejournal.com]

I would learn it, if I were you-- I had a friend in a formal Russian class at college, and her professor wouldn't even read something in block script. So, you know, make of that what you will.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Not only the aforementioned, but it is really, really useful and much, much quicker to write if you know cursive. Agreed, it does take awhile, and it's a bit like learning a new alphabet, but if you started out like I did (nice, slow, even pace), you'll eventually (and in a short amount of time) be able to write things out quickly.

That, and it looks so much more elegant than handwritten print.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Don't you remember in elementary like in 5th grade when they taught cursive? Just write out the whole alphabet, and if a letter gives you problems, do lines of that letter. Honestly, it's really simple.

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

You were taught cursive only in a fifth grade??!!

Oh well, now I understand where that comes from...

[lynxypoo.livejournal.com]

yeah, in 5th grade we got the whole bit-

Teachers will NOT accept anything that isn't cursive! (SO not true!)
Teachers will NOT accept late work! (Only true to an extent, I expect it to take full force in college; middle and high schools are so lenient!)

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

FIFTH GRADE????????????????????
Was it a school for the most gifted children?

[24karrot.livejournal.com]

In my school we started learning cursive/script in 3rd grade and by 4th grade we were expected to only write in cursive... that died by middle school though ;)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Russian children are taught cursive in the 1st grade, and through the whole 11 (formerly 10) grades they are allowed to write ONLY in cursive.

[mangiami.livejournal.com]

It's useful to know cursive also because even in printed books, if something is in italics, it usually looks much more like the cursive form than the printed form, so you should know it. (That's the case for all the fonts I've seen anyway...)

I think the most difficult part of learning Russian cursive that doesn't seem to be mentioned very clearly in a lot of sources is that you need the little hook up before L and M. Those are utterly essential. Also, there are two prominent variants of T (there are variants of lots of letters, but I see that one often), and that's useful to know too.

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

L and M, sometimes - T and SH :) sometimes L and I and M :)))))

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

Very important. I had learned how to write Cyrillic years ago, but never bothered to learn the cursive part. Then more and more I realized that cursive is widely used. It was like learning Cyrillic all over again.

[punkndisorderli.livejournal.com]

(as was explained to me by my Russian teacher) if you dont write in cursive, Russians will think badly of you (i.e. you are stupid/just out of prison, etc.) as foreigners, i dont think we'd get too much grief from it.

Learning Cyrillic cursive isn't too bad..i started class 3 weeks late (*shakes fist at hurricane Katrina*), and basically was given a page with the Russian alphabet written in cursive, and was told to learn it before the Chapter 1 test the next week. I'm still horribly slow at reading cursive, but my penmanship is relatively good!

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

I don't think that any Russian person will think so of any foreigner if he/she cannot write in cursive.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yup, foreigners are expected to do weird stuff ;-))

[purplefolk.livejournal.com]

For some reason, picking up cursive was very very easy for me and it's much easier than printing. Then again, I learned it as a kid although I never used it until I got to college. As mentioned above, people generally think you're childish for printing. (I don't know how it for people of nonRussian descent, maybe they're nicer, but I'd get scolded like crazy by total strangers for "not knowing better.")

Here's one tip: when you end a letter in English, before you link the next one, I noticed I'd go halfway up the line b/c that's where the next one hooks up. Bad idea for Russian, since a couple of letters (eg я, л, м) have that little bump in front of them. Make yourself stop the previous letter low down near the line. This was the hardest habit I had breaking and the only thing that really made my penmanship look weird.

[portugalist.livejournal.com]

I don't think that cursive easier than printing, 'cuz some letters can look similar in cursive, and some persons have terrible penmanship it can be very difficult to understand what they write (even for native speakers)

[purplefolk.livejournal.com]

That may be true for reading, but I definitely find writing it much easier.

My friend remarked that nonRussian people often see Russian cursive as uuuuuuu. He then wrote out машина. :)

[gera.livejournal.com]

It looks like people totally missed the hybrid part and concentrated on the typing part.
I bet they also imagine typing with no regard to capital and lowercase letters. That, indeed, would look childlike and illiterate. But hybrid script is ok, albeit not too common.
I personally used hybrid script since I was 14 and my Dad used it, I guess, for most of this life.

Also, note that for the letters that are common, the Russian script looks the same as the English one. So that shouldn't be too hard.

[nyessax.livejournal.com]

Cursive is the first thing we learned in my Russian class — before we were even taught what all of the sounds were. The teacher required us to use only cursive on the first test, though she allowed us to write in print if we preferred as long as she knew we could write in cursive. She told us everyone in Russia writes in cursive and emphasized that it would be best for us to do so too. Within about two weeks, my Cyrillic cursive was far better than my English cursive ever has been. When it comes to Russian, I've found cursive to be a lot easier than printing, though I prefer printing in English.

My teacher seems to use a sort of hybrid style when she writes on the board, but it's definitely more cursive than printing. I think she does this just to make it a little easier for us to read, though, since I've seen her write other things that were in full cursive like she taught us.

[jooniper91.livejournal.com]

Printing seems the easy way at first when you are getting your language down, but the cursive is not so bad once you get used to it. I've never seen a Russian print except if they are trying to write out a word so that an American can understand it.

[minnesota-anne.livejournal.com]

My Russian teacher requires us to write in script, even though he doesn't always do so - using the "All Russians write in script, therefore you must" argument.

I don't mind so much - especially after he complimented my handwriting! :) (Which no one has ever done when I write in English, script or not.) But I actually had some outside help - I found a Russian book intended to teach script-writing to children, and used that for practice, even though it felt a little silly.