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[rogue-explorer.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm new here.

I recently signed up for a Russian course at my high school. One level of Russian is available, and since I'd like to learn as many languages as possible, I figured it'd be a good idea to get started. If I find that I enjoy the language, I may continue with it in college along with Spanish as part of my elective requirements.

Anyway. I don't know many foreign languages. I speak quite a bit of Spanish, and I know about three sentences in Scottish Gaelic. I doubt any of this will help me, seeing as Russian is Slavic and I've no experience with any other Slavic tongues. I am totally in the dark. Perhaps you know of some decent tutorials or study guides? Tips and tricks? Any similar languages that employ the Roman alphabet that I might be able to study first to give myself a better grip on things such as root words? Anything at all that would help a high school junior whose only Russian knowledge is "Нет!" would be extremely helpful.

Comments

[trepang.livejournal.com]

why 'нет'? learn something positive!
'yes' would be 'да'!!!

[city-twilight.livejournal.com]

+1
=)

[nominals.livejournal.com]

I think that you'll probably learn the most if you use a language learning program that is accompanied with audio. Language learning, largely, is learned through repetition so listen to the audio obsessively.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

take the class, which (if you're lucky to have a good teacher) will offer motivation, excerizes for you to do and a time frame to work in.

It's really extremely difficult to self teach from the very very beginning.

Personally I don't believe that knowing random phrases counts as 'knowing a language', nor will it really help you in class, except to show off a little.
The most important things I have encountered in studying russian are:
1) GRAMMAR - learning it backwards and forwards, memorizing the endings, verb patterns, etc.
2) PRACTICE - don't limit your learning to the classroom. Go out and actively seek people and place to practice.


As far as another 'easier' slavic language.... I have to say, either learn russian or don't. I don't really believe in the idea of warming up to a language. If you've had experience learning a language from scratch in your past, you may find it easier to pick up russian. If you have never learned another langauge from scratch, it may be harder.
Also, as daunting as it looks, the cyrillic alphabet is simply a letter system. It can be somewhat confusing at the beginning, but it's no more difficult to grasp than the roman alphabet system, which is used by the english language.
People tend to say that russian grammer is quite difficult, but I am not of that opinion.

So, go for it.
It's really a lot about effort.

good luck!! =D

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

A similar language that employs the Roman alphabet? I can definitely recommend you one. Latin.

It should introduce you to the inner workings of an inflecting language; it will look "friendly" to you if you know Spanish; and you will avoid the confusion of learning two languages from the same family. When I learned some Spanish on top of some French I'd learned before, it completely killed my French.

Any Slavic language will look "alien" to you at first, whatever its alphabet. On the other hand, Latin and Russian share a layer of Indo-European grammar, most of which has been obliterated in Spanish, and still more in English. The phrase "they see their names" is "nomina sua vident" in Latin and "oni vidyat svoi imena" in Russian. It's not that similar most of the time, of course, but eventually you'll recognise a lot of parallels that have been obscured simply by phonetic divergence. And grammatically, Russian is much simpler than Latin.

[rogue-explorer.livejournal.com]

That's handy! One of my most recent birthday presents was a Latin textbook. Thank you very much.

[bridgetdarcy.livejournal.com]

don't feel scared by a different alphabet. trust me, that's the smallest problem in learning a language (i know quite a number of alphabets, including Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopic, obviously Latin ;) which does not mean I am fluent in any of the languages using them ;) )

[ex-pelicano906.livejournal.com]

I think you should start with an audio-based self-training.
Rogue copies of "Pimsleur Russian" are available for free in p2p networks. ;)

[city-twilight.livejournal.com]

everyone advise audio.. =(
and my Francais teacher says - the more you reat the better you speak..

maybe thats just because i easily remember pronounsation...

[serpent-849.livejournal.com]

I think he meant that your speech is "cleaner", ie you make few grammar mistakes if you read a lot in the language...Reading can't help with pronunciation.

[serpent-849.livejournal.com]

I just wanna say that you don't need greeeeeat knowledge of Russian to start speaking and writing, practically all Russians are so happy if the person is interested in their language and culture that they don't really care for mistakes.

But of course it doesn't mean that you don't need any grammar at all:)

Also, spoken Russian doesn't differ too much from the written language, of course it does but mostly lexically.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

Spanish was my first second-language. I actually referred to Spanish frequently when I began learning Russian, and then I learned Russian so much better than Spanish, that I started to refer to Russian to understand Spanish! I don't know where you are exactly, but... I recommend you do this:

1. LEARN THE ALPHABET. Make flash cards, learn the letters, learn the order of the letters (this REALLY comes in handy since you will need to use a bilingual dictionary a lot for the first several years). You can learn a few words, like Привет, Да, Нет, Пока, etc. Knowing these very basic and simple words will help reinforce the letters you're learning. Also, memorize spelling rules in this phase.

2. Buy a BIG bilingual dictionary (65,000 words+ don't just buy a phrase book because you'll be quite disappointed) and a CD set (Teach Yourself Russian is pretty good) and just listen to the same lessons over and over. Follow along in the books. Do not go on to the next lesson until you know the first lesson backwards and forwards. Make flash cards for every word you learn.

3. Learn colors, numbers, and adjectives!! And... start to get familiar with the cases.

4. As you start understanding Russian and start being able to put primitive sentences together by yourself, start looking around you. Take note (literal or mental) of the words that you use all of the time. I would go for walks and look around at the things a person HAS to know in English to fair well: car (машина), road (дорога), house (дом), sign (знак), and so on. Look up the words in your dictionary. Then, whenever you see those things, say the Russian words to yourself. Since you probably see your home all the time, keep saying the word дом to yourself, and then it will become second nature that you're not just going home - ты идёшь домой. :))

4. I recommend getting a good base vocabulary of nouns and adjectives (about 200 words... it really won't take you that long) and the absolute basic verbs (the different forms of "to go", to eat, to do, to think, to want, so forth). Then, start adding in more verbs. They have a lot of rules.

5. Now that you have a nice set of words in your brain, start learning the many rules of the cases. Take your time - don't rush!!!! Thoroughly learn all the rules and examples, and learn how the words change for each case.

Your CD set will probably take you in this order or similar. But this is a good way to become familiar with Russian and to go beyond what you will learn in your class (unfortunately, you will probably not get very far in this class...). When I started learning Russian, I started learning at the end of May and studied very hard in the summer. As a result, I had covered what most high school students learn in two years of Russian. It definitely helps to get some Russian-speaking friends (personal or from the internet) because you can use the language in context and have the opportunity to use Russian's great variety of slang. :)))) With a very rare exception, all of the Russian-speakers I have ever met were very supportive of me learning Russian and they were eager to teach me new words. There are millions of Russian-speakers out there, and each one can be a great resource - learn from each person you meet!

And finally, good luck! Don't give up. Knowing such a hard language is very rewarding, and you won't regret the time and energy it takes to learn Russian. It can open many doors for you. And... it's better than Spanish. :-P

[rogue-explorer.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your advice. I started learning Spanish during the early years of elementary school, and if you recall being in primary school, you know that there isn't a whole lot of self-teaching going on. I've never learned a language in a consciously systematic way before, and when I started trying to teach myself Gaelic, I found it very hard (which is why I can only string those three sentences or so together by now). Since I've always been very interested in Russian/Soviet history, I thought it'd be a great language to learn. Plus, there are many more resources for it than the other obscure languages I've tried to teach myself in stints over the past couple of years. . .

All of what everyone has said seems pretty obvious now, but I can be a haphazard person, haha. The audio is an excellent suggestion. I never would have thought of it, since pronunciation has never been a big problem for me and I tend to let it fall by the wayside as I push myself through trying to accumulate grammar. It's good to be holistic about things.

:) Thanks again.