Russian

[Roll Fizzlebeef]

Any Russian speakers wanna share any tips and advice for learning this god awful hard but sexy language?

[skyclaw441]

I'm a beginning Russian speaker, and I'll say this right now. The alphabet is hella easy. I have a very helpful phrase (if my friend taught me right) as well: ya gavsritsi pa Angliski? (I can't spell Russian in the Latin alphabet, I just can't, so forgive me on this one, it was purely phonetic.)

[Ford Prefect]

Tried pimsleur for a bit. It was pretty effective, might have to redownload it.

<3 Russian.

[Eridani]

I just started trying to learn it using http://www.byki.com/. It's mainly for basic, common phrases I think so not sure how good it is for learning to speak it fluently. It's pretty good at what it is though.

[Revvy]

You might enjoy it at first and think it's easy, but boy, you wait until you get to those cases. You're in for a long journey.

[Sopio]

You might enjoy it at first and think it's easy, but boy, you wait until you get to those cases. You're in for a long journey.

Do you think an extensive Latin background would help with Russian cases?

[Revvy]

Do you think an extensive Latin background would help with Russian cases?

I don't know Russian or Latin, just currently learning Polish, so I'm not sure. But after a little gander I found that Russian and Latin share 5 cases:

Locative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Vocative

Obviously would have different endings, but I'm pretty sure if yu have the midnset for learning cases it'll be a lot easier for you.

Might find this helpful with regards to declension:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_grammar

[Dog]

I've been studying Russian for about 2 years, and just recently started studying Polish. It's pretty intimidating at first, but once you learn all 6 cases and are comfortable with the language's syntax, it becomes very easy, IMO. My main task now is learning vocab.

The grammar is very similar to Polish (a lot of it is really identical, though Russian may be more complex overall), and fortunately for you, Russian is easier to read and pronounce than Polish.

I'd recommend Colloquial Russian 1 and 2, and the Princeton Russian course, which is available for free online, and it's the single most extensive course for Russian you can get. (The fact that it's free is amazing, since it could easily be worth a 300 dollar pricetag). http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

[Dog]

Do you think an extensive Latin background would help with Russian cases?

If you're familiar with the concept of case declensions, then yes, you'll be better off than someone who has never met them before. That does not mean you should waste your time learning Latin if you don't already know it, however.

[Revvy]

I've been studying Russian for about 2 years, and just recently started studying Polish. It's pretty intimidating at first, but once you learn all 6 cases and are comfortable with the language's syntax, it becomes very easy, IMO. My main task now is learning vocab.

The grammar is very similar to Polish (a lot of it is really identical, though Russian may be more complex overall), and fortunately for you, Russian is easier to read and pronounce than Polish.

I'd recommend Colloquial Russian 1 and 2, and the Princeton Russian course, which is available for free online, and it's the single most extensive course for Russian you can get. (The fact that it's free is amazing, since it could easily be worth a 300 dollar pricetag). http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

Jak długo uczysz się Polski?

Tak, jestem nie dobrze :(

[Dog]

Jak długo uczysz się Polski?

Tak, jestem nie dobrze :(

Just for a few days. I can't really formulate much yet, but after learning to decipher the alphabet, and I"m finding that I can figure out quite a bit based on my Russian knowledge.

How about you?

[Revvy]

Just for a few days. I can't really formulate much yet, but after learning to decipher the alphabet, and I"m finding that I can figure out quite a bit based on my Russian knowledge.

How about you?

Nearly 4 months, but after I learnt to do pretty much all the basic things around here, my learning drive dropped completely. Only extended practice I do now really is the occasional basic conversation with girlfriend and occasionally reading a grammar book in the bus.

Need to be more serious :(

[Dog]

Nearly 4 months, but after I learnt to do pretty much all the basic things around here, my learning drive dropped completely. Only extended practice I do now really is the occasional basic conversation with girlfriend and occasionally reading a grammar book in the bus.

Need to be more serious :(

http://rapidshare.com/files/45236790/Colloquial_Polish_-_PDF_and_MP3s.zip.html

That's what I'm using now. From what I can tell it's like maybe a year and a half of college courses.

[Roll Fizzlebeef]

I'm having problems rolling my r's, it's very harsh and has a boderline "coughing up" sound.

Any tips?

[PirateJoe]

). http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

This is awesome. Thanks.

[Belle]

If anybody spent millions of dollar and hours trying to teach Russian to their staff, it was the US gov't back during the cold war. Check this out.
http://bbs.zoklet.net/showthread.php?t=13031

[reggie_love]

I hypothetically found those Pimsleur courses in every language on some torrent, so I theoretically stole 'em and cracked open the Russian courses. I learned a bunch of touristy crap but it gave me an ear for the language, and explained the alphabet, which was pretty useful. I found out that I can speak it with a really good accent, not sure why, it's just more comfortable for my mouth.

From there I jumped off into the Princeton course that got posted on TOTSE at one point, and now I'm applying some structure to what I learned organically. I'm not superb, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with it.

My dream is to get good enough to someday have a рзп battle with Серёга.

Я говорю по–русский, но только немного.

*sigh* :(