(no subject)

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Hello everybody!
I am fairly new here and absolutely delighted to have stumbled across this community. I started learning Russian in May and unfortunately, only have 1 lesson per week (plus I was away for 2 months), so my knowledge is still very basic. My current job currently doesn't allow me to study a great deal but I am changing jobs soon and plan to take my studying a lot more seriously then.

Anyway, my question is: is there any grammar book for Russian that you'd recommend? Like something that includes all the basics with examples (conjugations of verbs etc.) but explained in another language? I speak English (ehm, obviously), German and Spanish, so any of these languages would be fine. Our teacher is Czech (I am half Czech myself) and he explains everything through Czech, which is great because there are similarities between those languages but all he provides us with is photocopied pages from an exercise book, which I don't find enough. I would like to be able to look up things I don't understand without having to ask him.

Also, are there any rules about the pronunciation of the letter "o" in Russian? Sometimes it is pronounced like an "o", sometimes like an "a" - and it's driving me up the wall ;o) My teacher hasn't provided me with a satisfying answer... but maybe there are no real rules?

And finally, what about stress in Russian? At the moment our exercise texts have marks on the syllables that stress the word but we've been told that once we know more vocabulary, they won't provide them anymore. Are there any basic rules or aren't there any at all? Like in Spanish, for example, you can say that when a word has 3 syllables, the stress would be on a certain syllable.

That's all... for now:) Hope it's ok to ask such questions here! Thanks in advance for your help!

Comments

[evermore-spb.livejournal.com]

About o - you usually say 'o' when it's stressed and 'a' when it's not (like in корOва (cow) - first one is pronounced 'a' and the second 'o'). And I can't think of any general stress rule like in french or spanish, it can fall on very different syllables...

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thanks. So it has to do with stress, I thought so but wasn't sure. I don't like the sound of your last sentence... it makes Russian sound a lot more harder than what our teacher said:( So you basically have to know the word in order to be able to stress pronounce it correctly, right?

[evermore-spb.livejournal.com]

Actually yes. There can be some more specific rules - i.e. how to stress different forms of the word, but you have to know the stress in the main word and then change it by the rules. Though I'm not a language professor, maybe there is some system helping to learn stresses more easily)
By the way, I'm learning spanish now :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is a lot of memorizing of Russian stresses even for our Slavic brethern and sistern whose languages have a more fixed system of stresses (like Polish, where the stress is always on the syllable before last.) Unlike Polish, or unlike French, the stress in Russian is quite unpredictable and even drifts along the word as the word changes by cases (like with the noun "snow": снег (nominative, accusative) - снЕгу (dative) - в снегУ (locative) - о снЕге (prepositional) etc.), singular/plural forms (like in "side": сторонА (singular) - стОроны (plural)) etc.
On the other hand, those who studied German would not be surprised, as the stress in German is not very predictable, just like in Russian.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your answer. I am German, so the pronunciation in that language comes naturally to me, without giving it any 2nd thought. I think I'll be struggling with your language but hopefully I'll get the hang of it one day:)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're a native German speaker I don't think that Russian grammar logic can be a real struggle for you. I studied German when in high school, and had no serious problems with its logic (unlike in English, BTW.) Germanic and Slavic languages are related, after all (though distantly, but more closery than Slavic and Romance, anyway.) Manchmal Russisch ist nicht zu einfach, aber es ist Spass :)

[sibir-muzhyk.livejournal.com]

"Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi"
somewhere here i've read this "I would like to remind you that the working language of this community is English."

Just kidding :-)

[brissen.livejournal.com]

+1.
The funny thing is that it refers mostly to Moscovite (er, I hope I got the spelling right) accent :)
Someone living near Volga would always pronounce "o" as an "o", with no regard to stresses.

[evermore-spb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I forgot about this :) And living near Urals pronounce o more like a.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Older generation, yes. But these days, the television with its Muscovite accent affects more and more people in the way that they tend to forget their local accents.

[grafinok.livejournal.com]

There is no rule about stress in russian. You have just to remember each word. Russians often mix up stresses as well ;)

[return-true.livejournal.com]

In Saint-Petersburg's metro there are some posters, which shows right, and wrong stresses in difficult words. %)

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun... not!;o) Thanks for your answer!

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

as far as a grammar book goes, i use Essentials of Russian Grammar by Nicholas Maltzoff as my everyday reference.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'll check it out!

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Having nothing handy on Russian grammar and having never studied Russian the way I studied English and Spanish, I ended up buying Barron's Russian Grammar by Natalia Lusin, ISBN 0812049020, pocket size, $6.95. It's small, cheap and to my taste quite good as a reference (it's not a text book, it won't teach you the basic vocabulary). I think it should be a good complementary reading for a start. Obviously, it won't replace a lot of memorizing of all those words and irregularities inherent in the language.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that sounds good and I'll check it out soon!

[la-sincerite.livejournal.com]

never learn how it's incorrect to read a word! as you have to remember almost all the stresses, you'll mix them later((((. There is one rule :) If you meet the letter "ё" - you should always put a stress on it :) Though, the words with it you should also remember as we usually don't write dots above it...

There are strict rules of pronunciation of our vowels, they're written in difficult russian manuals which even not all russians read) Usually, it's enough to think that "o" unstressed is read as "a", "e" unstressed is read as "и"...

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

*sigh* So Russian is a lot more difficult than what my teacher makes it sound like... But I'm a fighter and won't give up! Thanks for your input!

[pphi.livejournal.com]

Here's a trick for getting some grip on stress: read (metric) poetry or song texts (esp. if you know the melody). Example: Анна Ахматова

Это просто, это ясно,
Это всякому понятно,
Ты меня цовсем не любишь,
Не полюбишь никогда

The trochaic metre reveals the stress for at least the disyllabic words.

Since you speak German, let me attract your attention to the bilingual poetry editions of Reclam and Suhrkamp. They work quite well for me.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Um, this is interesting... but my vocabulary is still very basic, so I don't really think poetry is for me just yet. But I'll keep it in mind for the future. (I do understand the 1st line, sounds similar to Czech:))

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

badmadnad,

In America, the book series "Golosa (Voices)" is, from what I can tell, the most widely used in universities (there are two books corresponding to first and second-year Russian -- Golosa 1 and Golosa 2). I think they are well written, I've read them both front to back. You can order them used on www.half.com for $25 or $30.

Others have answered but I thought I would reiterate-- Russian 'o' is an o sound only when stressed, and as far as I know, always pronounced 'a' otherwise. There may be some very obscure exceptions to this but none come to mind.

And finally I know of no logic or system of rules to Russian word stresses, it's pure memorization. It's just something that comes with lots of practice.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the input. I'll check the book out soon!!

[dekarmi.livejournal.com]

- Я сижу на берегу,
Не могу поднять ногУ.
- Не ногУ, а нОгу.
- Всё равно не мОгу!

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

um, I am afraid I don't understand any of this:(

[dekarmi.livejournal.com]

It's just a funny rhyme illustrating correct and incorrect stresses in Russian words. Maybe, you'll understand it some day.

[aylie-serinde.livejournal.com]

I'd rather say that in Russian 'o' in unstressed position is read more like English 'neutral' vowel than exactly like 'a', for example, the first 'o' in "корова" sounds very much like 'o' in 'forget' or in 'comment'. It's just the normal tendency in both languages that unstressed vowels get 'neutralised'. So the good phonetics is fairly important to sound natural. Saying both 'карова' and 'корова' is incorrect, there is some correct neutral variant just between them)