i want to learn russian

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From what i heard that is very difficult to do.
I guess the first step should be the alphabet since you know cyrilic is quite a bit different in pronanciations
like the letter H sound like N
and theres 2 leters that have no sound at all - Ь and Ъ
 
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Learn the alphabet, learn a lot of vocabulary and go from there.
DefinitelyNotMe said:
and theres 2 leters that have no sound at all - Ь and Ъ
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It's much better than a quadrillion words with silent letters. I'm looking at you french people...

That being said, half of the 'O' sound in russian is actually more of a soft 'A' than a genuine 'o' like 'скоро' that is pronounced "skor'a" unless it's a loanword like radio where it keeps the O sounds. There's also the ë (yo) that they never bother to put the ' ¨ ' on the E and you're supposed to guess if it's Ye or Yo.
Finally you have the consonants used as prepositions that sit in the middle of a sentence, it's jarring AF.

Fuck you linguistics, I'm going back to grunting and pointing.
 
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for the most part i'm getting okay at knowing what each letter in cyrillic is supposed to sound like. the o→a thing is very weird, but when i see words written out i sound them out to myself in the vain hopes of being able to read each character together Faster.

the issue is knowing words. because apparently г can make a few sounds?

also ы is difficult.

thank you kiwis :) love you
 
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Colress said:
the issue is knowing words. because apparently г can make a few sounds?
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mostly when it its in the end of the word and when placed before "о" it can make "в" sound
like "чего" can be pronounced as "чево"
Colress said:
also ы is difficult.
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try to sing english E but then pull your tounge back
that should make an Ы sound
 
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DefinitelyNotMe said:
mostly when it its in the end of the word and when placed before "о" it can make "в" sound
like "чего" can be pronounced as "чево"

try to sing english E but then pull you tounge back
that should make an Ы sound
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This advice genuinely helps a LOT. thank you so much!! what about the pronounciation of е? ive heard it as just e before but other times as "ye".
 
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Colress said:
This advice genuinely helps a LOT. thank you so much!! what about the pronounciation of е? ive heard it as just e before but other times as "ye".
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Adding to what DefinitelyNotMe said, г has the sound of в in the suffixes -его/-ого, as well as in the word сегодня ("today"). Other than that it makes a hard "g" sound everywhere else except at the end of words where it's pronounced as к and even х in some cases.

As for е, it only really has a full "ye" sound at the beginning of words, after vowels or after ь and ъ. After consonants it can sound like "ye" or "yih" and I'd personally recommend just consuming lots of Russian content with Russian subtitles on or Russian music while reading the lyrics just so the pronunciation of words with е comes intuitively to you.
 
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MadDisaster said:
If you learn well via reading, try The New Penguin Russian Course. I've found it really useful for explaining things.
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In a similar vein, if you're the reading type, some of the best literature ever written is in Russian. So you could read some Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or Gogol or whatever in English & Russian side by side. Maybe a chapter at a time, switching back and forth.

It's like the advanced version of learning a language by watching their TV shows.
 
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shan state lesbians said:
I'd personally recommend just consuming lots of Russian content with Russian subtitles on or Russian music while reading the lyrics just so the pronunciation of words with е comes intuitively to you.
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I've mostly picked up reading cyrillic from following along to the lyrics of music from artists like Tatyana Kurtukova or Yuri Shatunov (Седая Ночь will always go hard)

Unarmed Gunman said:
It's like the advanced version of learning a language by watching their TV shows.
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I genuinely had not considered this. I've been using the music route mostly but this is a really good idea!

coming to kf for language learning advice was a weirdly good idea.
 
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I havent learned russian, but from learning other languages I can suggest:
0) learn cyrillic
1) get an anki deck for the 2000 most common words (I also found learning both ways vastly improves retention and the ability to actually use the language. So don't just learn Russian->English, learn English->Russian too)
2) work through a basic Russian study book.
3) once you know about 500 words and a bit of grammar start reading. Something you find interesting is more important than something that is super easy (books for children bored me out of my mind)
4) Find some kind of "easy Russian news", usually state sponsored news also run an easy language website for barely literate people. Go to chatGPT and prompt the following "I want to practice Russian by translating easy Russian news. I'm going to translate the article line by line, after every line, provide the correct translation, evaluate my mistakes and dissect the sentence so I can understand how to correctly translate it. Then print the next line. I will then translate that line and you have to repeat the feedback." (or something like that, Im not an expert proompter but I used a prompt like that for decent results. You can always adjust it by telling it to change up how it gives feedback). Don't feel bad about looking up words, just focus on working with the language, you'll recognize a few of the common words you've been studying and some of the basic grammar patterns. The news articles are often structured in a very consistent manner (for example: introduction to the subject, few lines on what is going on, quote from a person like an expert or passer by), this means you'll learn the language patterns and know what "hooks" to look for in the text to guide you. Once you can go through most lines with minimal mistakes, you can do an entire translation and paste it into chatgpt and tell it to give feedback on the entire translation. This generally causes it to be less granual in feedback (and with line-by-line you can't end up halfway the text completely confused what it is supposed to be about). Do a few of these every day.
5) once you're past 1000 or so words, branch out to natural material. I don't know what you want to learn Russian for, but try to find something that is easy in that category. If you like Russian comics, then look for an easy (and fun) comic. The story being engaging is more important than it being easy. I've dropped easier material for harder material because I couldn't bring myself to continue reading the boring ass story. Meanwhile I was fine spending 5 hours, struggling line by line, reading something I was really into.
6) start to try to write simple Russian sentences. For example, if you watch Russian youtube videos, try to type a simple comment. Then submit it to chatgpt to get feedback on your mistakes.

Most important is creating a schedule that doesn't burn you out. I find anki very boring. If I take more than 30 minutes I start getting distracted and doing anything other than continue studying. I start putting off starting anki. Now I reduce the number of new cards as soon as it started going north of 20 minutes (anki tells you how long you have been studying). If I knew I would be busy soon, I would set new cards to 0, so I would have a thin deck when the busy time happened. Doing a little bit every day is more important than doing a ton in a few months and then dropping it. Some periods you might spend 3 hours per day totally engaged, some periods you spend <1 hour per day just doing your bare minimum (anki, 1 short video, 1 or 2 news articles, 1 grammar point). But the people that keep doing the bare minimum are the ones that make it.

Also, different things work for different people. Some autists don't get bored if they grind 4 hours in anki and have 99% retention. If you can do a million cards, just load of listening, vocab and grammar and go nuts. You'll get there in 6 months. But 99% of the people would go crazy and drop out entirely.
 
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Experts recommend that you should immerse yourself in the language completely to ensure most effective learning. Personally, I recommend joining the volunteer squad of the Special Military Operation. They'll teach you the Russian language and culture like you've never been taught before.
 
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@Waffle Iron Your advice is genuinely extremely useful and I'm going to try the Anki Deck method to start. That's a really good pointer!

Waffle Iron said:
I don't know what you want to learn Russian for
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I just love the way it sounds when spoken or sung- even when the most slavic ass trash niggas speak it, it's weirdly beautiful? Maybe I'm delusional. Consider it love of the language.
 
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my advice is to try to surround yourself with the language
Playing the game? put Russian subtitles or VO on
try to listening to Russian music. i dont know what kind of genre you are into but heres something i like
its a Russian metal song based on LOTR
you know something like that
 
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