Newbie Question

[lillilah]

So, I'm just starting to learn Russian and, not surprisingly, have a bunch of questions. Of course, I'm having trouble with the soft sound and the vast amount of conflicting information on how to pronounce letters with it. However, my question today is about handwriting. I'm using a book from 1996, and in the chapter on Russian handwriting, it says that everyone is pretty much taught the same kind of fancy-looking handwriting style. Now, I know that back in the day in the US "cursive" handwriting was considered really important in schools (much to my misery), but now I get the impression that it is considered a lot less important and kids are more often allowed to print their letters. Most adults I know definitely don't use the cursive style. So, what's the story in Russia? Fancy cursive-style handwriting, hand printed Cyrillic or a mix of both?

Now, for specifics:
Тт vs. Мм - The book says that generally т's look a lot like м's, but that some people put a line over them to differentiate, and others write them so they look more like the printed т (which looks a lot like an upper case handwritten Г). Anyone have any thoughts on this? Have things changed from when the book was written?

What about putting a line under the handwritten ш to distinguish it from the handwritten и?

Thanks in advance for your help. Hopefully, this won't spark a flame war.

Comments

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

-actual cursive writing is still a huge deal in school and cursive is the rule for adults and not the exception.

-Some people use lines, some don't. Some people do т like m in writing, some don't.

[mikeybeerloving.livejournal.com]

As a matter of fact, an educated person in Russia will undoubtedly use the cursive rather than separate letters. I am pretty certain separate letters will look suspiciously inadequate.

That depends

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

.
That is pretty usual to print when you are leaving comments in technical documentation (correcting drafts or commenting on computer printouts).

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

.
There are different handwriting styles, for example here are two computer fonts used to simulate some handwriting:



Мой дядя самых честных правил,
Когда не в шутку занемог,
Он уважать себя заставил
И лучше выдумать не мог.




Съешь же ещё этих мягких французских булок да выпей чаю!

I guess one would not see the "under-scoring" and "over-scoring" in school exercises, however that is pretty usual in adults' handwriting.

[orie.livejournal.com]

- Adults don't use printed Cyrillic in handwriting, they use cursive. There's no "printed" style standart for handwriting.
- Тт don't look like Мм, they look like Шш. At school I used to put this line above Тт and below Шш to differentiate. You can also write at as printed Т, no one will notice. I also did it at school :) Actually the main idea of cursive isn't to have different style of letters, but to write a word in one strike.

In today's life you highly unlikely to meet cursive often.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

There is. Those large, slanted, rounded block letters used in the engineering drawings are a state standard, and engineers have to adhere to it very closely.

[arashi-opera.livejournal.com]

Not sure about how fancy it looks, but most people in Russia write in cursive indeed. I've never seen an educated adult who'd write in print letters.

[divine-1987.livejournal.com]

Print letters would look really odd to me. As far as T is concerned, i write it as т.

[missis-wallace.livejournal.com]

for what you learn Russian???
let's learn together
I'll do for u Russian
and you my english ))))

[lillilah]

I really like Russian music and books, so part of my desire to learn is related to that. The main reason, though, is to talk to one of my very good friends, who is Russian, in his language. His English is fantastic, so it isn't necessary - just fun.

I'd be happy to help you out with English, please feel free to message me.

[zellily.livejournal.com]

"some people put a line over/under them to differentiate" - only my grandfather did that :)

I was taught to write like this:
http://nekin.narod.ru/images/e24-ABC.gif

[icamel.livejournal.com]

Do you still write as you have been taught? Most adults don't.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

At this early stage you certainly should learn to write and read cursive exactly the way the book says. As your language level progresses, you'll be able to tell which handwriting style is acceptable and which isn't. But if you steer away from the general rule in the very beginning, it's very likely that in the end most Russians will struggle trying to read your handwriting, and you won't be able to read other people's handwriting.

Personally I use a mix of cursive and print letters when writing on boards (actually a lot of people do that to facilitate reading), but even this mix is mostly based on cursive rather than print.

[korica.livejournal.com]

This is an example of a New Year postcard from my friend: only cursive, no line under.

[korica.livejournal.com]

For better understanding
пусть барабаны бьют, и
трубы дудят -- в общем, все
в твою честь, моя дорогая.

Счастливого Нового года,
а также прекрасной и
счастливой жизни, мой
милый канадский друг!

Мила, 2010-2011
ко мне присоединяются
Арина и Алексей!

[lillilah]

Спасибо, everyone! That really helps! Also, the writing styles that you all have posted here have far fewer little curls than the style taught in the book. Clearly, I'll have to look further into other writing styles, as I prefer a simple one for myself.

[orie.livejournal.com]

are you in Russian now? you can buy a book in which they learn kids cursive.

or you can just use something from the web, like this: http://nekin.narod.ru/e24.htm

the keyword is "пропись"

[emperor-spock.livejournal.com]

Learning to read cursive is important since people still use it if they write by hand.

If you don't really feel like writing cursive (which is understandable, as it's pure kitsch and utterly disgusting) -- don't bother, since:

a) if you write in block letters you handwriting will never be misunderstood by others, and it's perfectly alright to do so.
b) sometimes you'll even be asked to write in block letters -- filling in forms and other documents, for example.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

haha, how is cursive writing kitsch/disgusting?

[alamar.livejournal.com]

As for pronouncing:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD,_%D0%AE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%91%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87
If you would pronounce as this guy did, you'll never be wrong.

I dearly recommend, the audio files are referenced in the article - listen to them.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Only everyone would look at the OP funny. ;) While Levitan was a great announcer he had his own highly unusual style and he had a very forceful enunciation no one really uses. And in the intervening 60 years the very way of speaking changed markedly.

[mithrilian.livejournal.com]

I'd say you don't really need to learn to write cursive unless you are a student in a Russian college.

However, if you know the ten-fingered blind typing, you can easily learn to type Russian. The same fingers are responsible for the same keys, and the new order of letters is surprisingly easy to learn. I learned to type in Russian and switched to English almost effortlessly.

But if you plan to live in Russia, it will be a great help for you to master reading cursive.

[lillilah]

I'm mainly learning to write cursive so that I can learn to read it. And honestly, I'm mainly learning to read it so that I can figure out the Russian I occasionally see in italics or with fonts that use the cursive style letters. I probably won't end up living in Russia, although one never knows, I guess. I am considering moving to Eastern Europe at some point, though.

I touch type in English, but I haven't had that much luck with going over to typing in Russian. The Rosetta Stone software uses a format of the keyboard that is very much like the English one. However, when I change to a Russian keyboard input in Windows, the keyboard is very different: this (http://www.learn-russia.com/images/russiankeyboard.png) vs. qwerty (http://www.dayiwasborn.net/clientimages/40333/CCampanella/QwertyKeyboard/qwerty.jpg).

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Well, the fact that cursive is extensively taught in school doesn't mean that its equally extensively used after. ;) Anyway, while it continues to be taught, the emphasis on handwriting greatly diminished and even in middle school no one makes much of it, so by the high school everybody develop their own highly idiosyncratic way of writing.

[surkova.livejournal.com]

what's worse, I do use cursive writing in English too. and they did teach me that at school.
looks something like this:

(https://skitch.com/emci/g26fc/img-1247)
Uploaded with Skitch (http://skitch.com)!

my Russian handwriting looks very similar, but I don't have any examples around me to take a picture.

[arashi-opera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. My British teacher used to marvel at it and pointed out my handwriting as something fancy and special. :)

[philena.livejournal.com]

When I was working for a non-profit that ran business-training for Russian businessmen (i.e., educated, successful adults who owned their own businesses), one of my jobs was to translate handwritten evaluations from Russian into English. I ran into a lot of Russian handwriting, and I can tell you that while Russians usually wrote in cursive, it looked nothing like what they were probably taught in school. It looked like the cursive that they were taught in school grew up, discovered independence and a life of dissipation, took to drink, lived started living under bridges--and importantly, each person's handwriting discovered a different favorite drink and lived under different bridges. (It was amazing what one person did with the word членами!) Hardly anyone used those helpful distinguishing lines over ш or т. So although I have no doubt that the adults were taught cursive in school and still used it, that did not make their adult handwriting any easier to read. Indeed, when they did (very) occasionally use block capitals, I was extremely grateful.

[lillilah]

*laugh* That was awesome! Thanks!

[alan-steel.livejournal.com]

Cursive is considered in russian pedagogics quite important as it improves brain function. That's why everyone is taught to use cursive extensively for the first three years at school. After that you are encouraged to use it, but it isn't that necessary. And as many people find cursive writing badly readable they kinda try to improve it themselves.

As for me I write т that way and use the underscore for ш and щ. If my hadnwriting is supposed to be read by some other people afterwards then I try to come as close to the handprinted letters as possible.

[kys.livejournal.com]

The most popular style of handwriting in Russia is a school-taught handwriting with quite a bit of individual 'tuning'. Some use т instead of m, some use ш with the line above for the same letter. A lot of people use printed version of p or x. There's also lots of variety with upper-case letters, from printed or school-taught ones to really fancy styles.

[orie.livejournal.com]

btw, I found this video, where each letter is written slowly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-A1Arv5eyw

the explanation is in German, but that shouldn't be a problem

[igor-nikolskiy.livejournal.com]

Well, I see you've been given many comments, but as we say in Russia - "повторенье - мать ученья" :Р

Coursive handwriting is very important, but the method you write may vary. Somebody underlines ш and put a line above т, somebody only put the line above т (so do I)

The "official" version of т looks like a big m with the line above.

I suppose, in the beginning it will be better for you to put all extra lines to letters to make the differenciation easier.