Help Request

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

I am an ESL English tutor by telephone, and today I began working with a Russian student in Korkino, Russia. His English is very limited, and I found myself wanting to use a translating website. The only problem is that I don't read Cyrillic! Is there a translating website that provides Russian words spelled phonetically in English characters?

Comments

[markushka.livejournal.com]

User so called "translit" encoding (or латиница, транслит in Russian). Not very good phonetically but looks understandable... There are quite simple conversion rules

http://www.translate.ru/text.asp?lang=ru - online translation
http://www.translate.ru/ruscode.asp - use converter "Windows-1251 >>> Латиница"

[markushka.livejournal.com]

http://www.online-translator.com/text.asp?lang=en
http://www.online-translator.com/ruscode.asp?lang=en

Same pages in English. Converter "Windows-1251 >>> Latin"

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

Thank you. "Chocolate" becomes "shokolad", but it's close enough.

[markushka.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. sh-o-k-o-l-A-d (A accented), very close to Russian pronunciation.

[markushka.livejournal.com]

Found one - good to understand pronunciation:

English to Russian Phonetic Index Online Talking Dictionary
http://www.livelaughlovelearn.com/gloss/

Type English word and have a translation with pronunciation as result

[markushka.livejournal.com]

For English speakers better to spell like "shaw ka LAAD" (which is given by http://www.livelaughlovelearn.com/gloss/), because first "o" ~ "aw", second is short "a", and "a" accented should be pronounced a bit longer. Not a mistake to read as-is letter by letter - everybody understand that if read slowly.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>"Chocolate" becomes "shokolad"

well, you did not expect it to stay in original English, did you? ;-)

[markushka.livejournal.com]

(smile)

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

Actually, I expected an entirely different word in Russian.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Well, the things that did not exist in Russia before, say, 18th century would normally arrive with a ready name, usually German, Dutch, or French. Russian "шоколад" is a direct rendering of German "Schokolade". Potatoes are картофель because they are Kartoffeln in German, umbrella is зонтик because it is "zondeck" in Dutch, and mashed potatoes are пюре because they are "pommes de terre purees" in French. BTW earlier arrivals would also arrive with a ready name, but the name would be drawn from other languages: carrots and beets were introduced in ancient Russia by Byzantine Greeks, so they still bear names derived from Greek - морковь and свёкла.