Studying the Russian language

[theArbiter]

A growing problem I have is my pronunciation. I'm saying the Russian words and people don't understand about 33% of the time, or they ask me to repeat. It was time to get some instructors to help me, so I went to Italki and now have two teachers. One costs $10/hour and the other is $8/hour. They complement each other because one forces me to do a lot of speaking while the other is heavy on grammar. The lessons are done on skype, and are comparable to what you would get at a language school.=

Russian pronunciation is not difficult.

Now, disclaimer: I took a bit over a year of Russian about 4 years ago, but I've left it to pursue/perfect other languages. Thus, my vocabulary pretty much has vanished. Sometimes when I'm bored, however, I open my Russian textbook and mess around with exercises and vocabulary. Even though I've forgotten a lot, my sojourn in Russian still carries benefits today, mainly, in that Russian grammar does not scare me. Russian is a freaking fun language, so I do regret that I can't revive it at this point in time. Anyhow, I put this here since I understand some people might not want to follow advice from someone who hasn't completely conquered the language (though I do have a lot of experience with other languages).

IMO, the two keys to Russian pronunciation:
1. STRESS. Take special care on this. Unfortunately, the stress is unpredictable and sometimes even mobile.

2. PALATALIZATION. Besides stress, it is this phonological phenomenon which makes Russian so distinctive. Ask yourself, can you pronounce мат and мать distinctly and correctly? Can you identify whether a consonant is soft or hard according to which vowel follows in the event there is no soft sign? If not, read up on it.

Now, here's the key with palatalization. It is really easy and FUN to pronounce once you know the key.

A hard consonant is typical in most languages, so you should know how to pronounce it.

For a soft consonant, they key is that you want the middle of your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth in the soft palette. A corollary to this is that you want the tip of your tongue to touch your bottom teeth. This should be really easy to do with all the consonants that can be soft (an exception is р, but I wouldn't lose sleep over this).

Try saying "nyet" like a typical English speaker (middle of the tongue not touching the roof of your mouth). Then, prep your tongue in the aforementioned position and pronounce нет. In fact, do it real slowly. Your tongue should noticeably glide. It's a very very distinct feeling. If you do it correctly, you should feel very Russian. After figuring this out (and having teachers not explaining this clearly), pronouncing Russian words suddenly became so freaking fun to me.

Practice saying the ть at the end of the Russian infinitives correctly.

 

[theArbiter]

A growing problem I have is my pronunciation. I'm saying the Russian words and people don't understand about 33% of the time, or they ask me to repeat. It was time to get some instructors to help me, so I went to Italki and now have two teachers. One costs $10/hour and the other is $8/hour. They complement each other because one forces me to do a lot of speaking while the other is heavy on grammar. The lessons are done on skype, and are comparable to what you would get at a language school.=

Russian pronunciation is not difficult.

Now, disclaimer: I took a bit over a year of Russian about 4 years ago, but I've left it to pursue/perfect other languages. Thus, my vocabulary pretty much has vanished. Sometimes when I'm bored, however, I open my Russian textbook and mess around with exercises and vocabulary. Even though I've forgotten a lot, my sojourn in Russian still carries benefits today, mainly, in that Russian grammar does not scare me. In fact, it makes me think that Russian is a freaking fun and rich language, so I do regret that I can't revive it at this point in time. Anyhow, I put this here since I understand some people might not want to follow advice from someone who hasn't completely conquered the language (though I do have a lot of experience with other languages).

IMO, the two keys to Russian pronunciation:
1. STRESS. Take special care on this. Unfortunately, the stress is unpredictable and sometimes even mobile, but make sure you take care to learn the stress well and practice them inside sentences so you stress properly the words not only in isolation, but in real speech.

Also, a corollary to this is make sure you understand how to reduce the а/я/о sounds when they are not stressed. IMO, this is another key characteristic to the "Russian sound".

2. PALATALIZATION. This is key! Besides stress, it is this phonological phenomenon which makes Russian so distinctive. Ask yourself, can you pronounce мат and мать distinctly and correctly? Can you identify whether a consonant is soft or hard according to which vowel follows in the event there is no soft sign? If not, read up on it (I could explain if someone really wants to, but it's not a difficult concept, so there are a lot of resources out there that explain it sufficiently).

Now, here's the key with palatalization. It is really easy and FUN to pronounce once you know the key.

A hard consonant is typical in most languages, so you should know how to pronounce it.

For a soft consonant, the key is that you want the middle of your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth in the soft palette. A corollary to this is that you want the tip of your tongue to touch your bottom teeth. This should be really easy to do with all the consonants that can be soft (an exception is р, but I wouldn't lose sleep over this).

Try saying "nyet" like a typical English speaker (middle of the tongue not touching the roof of your mouth). Then, prep your tongue in the aforementioned position and pronounce нет. In fact, do it real slowly. Your tongue should noticeably glide. It's a very very distinct feeling. If you do it correctly, you should feel very Russian. After figuring this out (after having teachers not explaining this clearly), pronouncing Russian words suddenly became so freaking fun to me.

Practice saying the ть at the end of the Russian infinitives correctly. The difference should be clear between the infinitives and the third person singular conjugation.

__

I don't know if people here are familiar with Anki/SRS flashcards. If not, consider using them.

If you've been studying Russian for a reasonable amount of time now, then SRS flashcards are a great idea. In fact, you should be using frequency lists to learn vocabulary (I don't recommend starting off with these, but after a beginner stage, you'd be missing out on a lot if you don't use these.

Here's a good list:
http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Learners-Dictionary-Words-Frequency/dp/0415137926/ (no affiliate link)

Since it's so expensive, I would recommend you find such a source elsewhere, such as a library or whatever legal means :angel:. They are there. If not, the Amazon preview has basically most of the list up online, so use that.

Also, www.masterrussian.com is a great reference with a frequency list of their own and plenty of example sentences to tickle your fancy, so bookmark that.

 

[GameTheory]

^^^ can you recommend Russian language academies in RUS or in the .UA ???

 

[theArbiter]

Unfortunately, I can't since I don't know of any. I stayed in St. Petersburg for a summer, but it was through a school program with a specific partnership with a certain university. I typically don't recommend "schools" and have a rather negative opinion about classroom learning (not saying they're necessarily bad, but as a sole resource, you won't get far at all). Self-learning is the way to go with plenty of conversation practice. What materials to use is another question.

Also, I don't think anyone here mentioned www.verbling.com, but it's pretty much chatroulette for language learning and is very very useful. This bypasses the "exchange skype" process in italki, so you can get some pretty quick practice in. In my experience, it could take 15+ minutes to connect with somebody, but it's not to complain about.

 

[Roosh]

Yeah the "exchange skype" process in Italki is cumbersome. Will try verbling, looks good.

 

[Volk]

Roosh, I assume you are still in central-east europe. Why don't you find somebody to talk to in Russian? It shouldn't be a problem at all in these areas and nothing beats 1st hand experience. When I first went to the 'States, many years ago, I had 8+ years of "Learning English". As soon as I tried to understand or speak, no way, I was stumped. Only after practicing for some time I did begin to understand and talk more fluently (or in many cases, just talking at all). It's a matter of input and output.

 

[slubu]

I'm on the ground now in Kiev. Despite a semester studying Russian and almost finishing 60 lessons of Pimsleur it's amazing how minimal my abilities are. I can understand here and there and can get a basic conversation going, but it fades pretty quickly. I need to get a tutor or something while I'm out here.

 

[Roosh]

Despite a semester studying Russian and almost finishing 60 lessons of Pimsleur it's amazing how minimal my abilities are.

Yeah it's very frustrating. Your brain can't construct sentences easily on the fly, and when it does, the grammar is horrendous. Just need to soldier on.

 

[T and A Man]

Are you in a place where Russian is widely spoken?

Immersion is often needed.

 

[Architekt]

Despite a semester studying Russian and almost finishing 60 lessons of Pimsleur it's amazing how minimal my abilities are.

Yeah it's very frustrating. Your brain can't construct sentences easily on the fly, and when it does, the grammar is horrendous. Just need to soldier on.

Have you checked out the Michel Thomas courses? I'm fairly sure by the end of the advanced and vocab sessions, your general knowledge of grammar is very much solid. Combined with Pimsleur, they should be a very strong combination to start. Assimil, from what I can remember, had a lot of detail, and a solid progression plan, with the passive and active phases, etc..

 

[Roosh]

Creating sentences at home and doing it in live conversation are very different.

 

[Architekt]

This is true. It's better than nothing, at least.

Something else I want to get into, is rapping along with music. That gets a smoother flow of the language going, and you can also pick up a lot of colloquialisms in the lyrics, etc. I've done this a little bit with German in the past, and the difference it makes to your understanding and recall is amazing.

 

[Menace]

Roosh, you have to talk to Russians. Ideally people who are near fluent in both.

 

[pdub]

Are you guys using standard Cyrillic keyboard layouts or one that places the Cyrillic characters on their closest QWERTY equivalent? Do you have any suggestions for learning to touch type using the standard Cyrillic keyboard?

 

[Architekt]

Are you guys using standard Cyrillic keyboard layouts or one that places the Cyrillic characters on their closest QWERTY equivalent? Do you have any suggestions for learning to touch type using the standard Cyrillic keyboard?

..The same way you learned to touch type on a qwerty keyboard?

I used dvorak layout on a qwerty keyboard for a few months without any indication of where keys are. By the end of it I was pretty fucking good at it, only every other keyboard in the country is pretty much a qwerty keyboard, so I had to keep changing, and it got pretty confusing. These days I use a qwerty keyboard, but set to output the German qwertz layout almost exclusively at home, except for programming.

 

[pdub]

A few months is too long! I'm looking for specific programs or websites for teaching me to touch type since I quickly learned to type around age 11 or 12 with Mavis Beacon, not the trial and error approach you used.

If there is a qwerty-Cyrillic layout that works well I'd rather use that than learn a new key layout. When typing in Arabic script I used a qwerty-Arabic layout I made which saved me a ton of time.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964665.aspx

 

[Brodiaga]

Native Russian speaker here. If you guys have any questions about the Russian language, feel free to ask me.

 

[slubu]

Tutor hired, let's see if this works. Not bad, got her at $12/hour for two of us for in home live tutoring. So $6/hr each of us.

 

[The Fantasist]

Tutor hired, let's see if this works. Not bad, got her at $12/hour for two of us for in home live tutoring. So $6/hr each of us.

That's a pretty legit price.

Can I ask what city you're in and what the price would be per hour if there was just one person?

 

[Akula]

Tutor hired, let's see if this works. Not bad, got her at $12/hour for two of us for in home live tutoring. So $6/hr each of us.

That's a pretty legit price.

Can I ask what city you're in and what the price would be per hour if there was just one person?

sh*t that's an amazing price....here in Moscow I pay 1000 Rubles (~$30) for an hour and a half for one younger tutor...and the one who comes to my office is p.1500....

maybe I should start working "Russian language tutor' game to troll for the younger, hotter Russian teacher? My one teacher is actually pretty hot but has a rich boyfriend...probalby some pretty attractive aspiring younger teachers out there...