Korean Job Discussion Forums

[canuckistan]

I've decided to fling myself into learning Russian--for now, on-line with an interactive program. Any advice on what to learn first? Should I try to learn Cyrillic now or after I've gotten a good start at the basics?

Yikes!!!

[Hyeon Een]

Never learned russian, but theres only like 34 characters in the cyrillic alphabet. And lots of them are 'freebies' from the roman alphabet. So, as someone who has never learned the language, it strikes me that the alphabet isn't a huge obstacle for someone who's already learned another alphabet (I guess you learned the Korean one). Cyrillic alphabet readers, am I wrong?

(I probably am. There are probably a billion ways of combining the characters to make different sounds like in English.. I hope not though =) )

[anjucat]

I learned Russian and became fairly fluent. I use the past tense because it seems like so long ago, and these days my Russian is absolutely horrendous (whenever i try to speak Russian, it comes out Korean). I lived in Leningrad, back when it was Leningrad during the glorious era of Gorbechev and perestroika.

I am decidedly NOT particularly gifted at picking up languages, but i can say that Russian is not particularly that difficult once you get the basics down. Definitely learn cyrillic right off the bat -- it is VERY easy. As stated above, more than half the alphabet is the same as "our own." Once you learn the subject/verb endings, then the grammar is much simpler than English (if i remember correctly) and the only real concern is expanding your vocabulary.

Bear in mind that this is coming from a person who USED to speak the language semi-fluently, but has forgotten most everything due to nearly 2 decades of non-use (sigh...). Like any language, it takes practice, practice, and more practice to learn and maintain. Good luck!

Nozdrovya!

[anjucat]

Oh yeah, i forgot:

Russian is 99% phonetic. No wierd spellings or letter combinations (just read the post above mine again). Again, very easy to read.

[canuckistan]

[davai!]

[ddeubel]

I studied Russian with a very nice Hungarian ambassador and his wife. Lots of fun, lots of wine..........

But despite speaking another slavic language fluently (Czech), never could master it.

For one, it is a very low sounding language. The russians seemed to me to be mumbling for a long , long time. Much like some parts of Portugal, like they had marbles in their mouths. So listening was a problem for a long time at first.

Two.

[Wangja]

I learned Russian 25 years ago and using a Linguaphone course (15 records) I was OK but have forgotten almost all I learned now. The grammar I didn't find too bad (I had learned Latin and was comfortable with declining nouns) and much vocab is common with other European languages esp French.

Definitely learn the Cyrillic alphabet: less time than it takes to learn the Hangeul characters.

Good luck.

[kiwikid]

What is the online programme you are using? I've always liked the sound of the Russian language. I picked up a little when I was working on Russian and Ukrainian fishing boats but it was mostly swear words as I was learning from fishermen. Also useful sentences such as "I'm not hungry" when you walk into the mess and see what's for dinner.... (they didn't get much of a food allowance on those boats). The crew I met were always really friendly but seeing as they were all male, when i spoke Russian I always lowered my voice to copy them. I found that when I drank vodka or braga (the lethal home brew) my Russian improved quite a bit!

[canuckistan]

Davai! wrote:

[ajgeddes]

[Wangja]

[WorldWide]

Russian is not hard to learn. I picked it up in about 6 months.

[Woland]

I majored in Russian as an undergrad, took more in grad school, lived in Leningrad at the same time as Anjucat (PM me, mou drug, my dolzhny uznat', znaem li my drug druga ili net. Ya rabotal v Ped. Inst. im Gertsena). My Russian is still pretty good. Before coming to Korea this time I spent six months in Armenia where I used it on a daily basis. Since Coming here, I've met up with one Russian in my university to chat with (unfortunately now away on vacation. I need to track down one of the others to practice with.)

Do learn the Cyrillic alphabet at the start. In my classes, we basically got it down in 3 days. Of course, it took more practice to make it automatic.

The complexities of Russian are 1) the noun declensions. It's fairly easy to memorize the forms, but again it is just practice that willmake it automatic. I remember as a beginner the slow thinking process - "Okay, that verb takes what case? Oh, yeah, dative. Now, the noun, is that masculine - yeah. Okay, what's the masculine dative ending? -U. Crap, it's plural, should be -am." - and finally being to say what I wanted to say. Don't be frustrated by this; it's just gonna take practice to make it automatic.

2) stress patterns in nouns and verbs, which affect pronunciation. Stress is mobile in Russian and can vary within a declension. There are regular patterns to such variation, with about 6 major patterns for nouns; I forget how many (fewer, I think) for verbs. You need to learn which word goes into which patterns and get a feel (which again comes with practice) for what pattern a new word falls into. I make accurate guesses about 90% of the time now with new words.

3) aspect. This is actually the hardest part, I think. Almost all Russian verbs come in two forms, perfect and imperfect, which differ in form (sometimes just a switch in conjugation pattern, sometimes a completely different root). You need to choose which one you are using every time. THe hard part is that this is not a matter a grammar so much as a matter of your perspective on the action - do you see it as complete or not; is your focus on the completion or not? In most cases, it's not a mistake to choose the wrong one, but it gives a different meaning. Getting a feel for how Russians understand and use aspect is still something I have to work at.

4) Verbs of motion up the ante on aspect by having a three-way distinction, rather than a two-way distinction. The good news is that there are only 14 or so of them. Again, getting a feel for the semantic distinction between them is the tricky part.

Most of this stuff you won't have to worry about as a beginner. ANd there is more stuff - alternations in form, pronunciation, etc. But I would say that learning the forms of Russian is not the difficult part; like any language, it's getting a grip on usage that is real trick. My advice would be to learn a lot of useful phrases as vocabulary initially to help you participate in the language more effectively and worry about the grammar of them later.

Oh, yeah, the article business. Russian doesn't have articles for marking definiteness/indefiniteness like English. So, sobaka can mean 'dog', 'a dog', or 'the dog'. Context usually makes it clear.

[canuckistan]