I have decided to take up learning a bit of Russian while I continue my endeavors in German, after all Russian is offered at the Uni I will be attending, and I need to learn at least one full language besides German (or 2 languages up to reading level). Whichever way I take Russian is towards the top of the list.
Anyways, I’ve found that most of the beginning content in Russian on lingq is too complicated for my feeble mind even on some of the most simple lessons the speaking is overly fast for me to be able to truly understand how certain words are pronounced, which makes it difficult for me to learn. Can anyone point me in the right direction for slowly spoken beginners Russian transcripts?
I’ve found much of Cakypa’s beginner content extremely helpful and more slowly spoken. I’m hoping that I can continue to find more. Or perhaps I just need to interpret the Cyrillic alphabet while it’s being spoken faster.
My apologies ahead of time if this is not the best thread for such a question.
Andrew,
I am going to record some more beginner content. But first, I want to (and a little bit ‘have to’, as everyone is waiting for it) finish the wall-newspaper devoted to coming Men’s Day. For the whole this year my coworkers have been telling me that I cheated the last year, as I just told them ‘Guys! Happy Men’s Day!’ and did not draw a wall-newspaper about the life of our division. I will warm up my creativeness on the wall-newspaper and then will restart the recording of Beginner content. Perhaps, you have some requests?
If you like Cacypa’s content, don’t forget to greet her on the Women’s day!
When I lived in Russia, I always suspected that the women’s enthusiasm about the Russian Men’s day (Feb. 23) was due to the fact that the Women’s day (March 8 ) was approaching. Women were hinting men at not forgetting the women’s day. Othrewise the men could have forgotten it, the women couldn’t have forgiven it, and it would have been… However Russia back then was not the country free enough to say what you think aloud.
Ilya,
exactly the same situation is in Japan! They celebrate St.Valentine’s Day, but in this Day only woman give presents (usually it is chocolate) to men. Just to every man their know — fathers, brothers, bosses (it is crucial!), friends, coworkers. And March, 14 is the White day. This day men give presents to women. And I think that men form the final list of women that should be congratulated at Valentine day’s evening. They sit down on the sofa, open their briefcases and begin to count chocolate plates. ‘Aha, that nice girl from the sales department gave me this chocolate. Well, let’s write down her name. My sister gave me this chocolate, well, write down her name too. Ah! Listen! Where is any chocolate from my cousin? No chocolate from my cousin?! Well, my dear cousin Tomoko-chan, you will not receive chocolate too!’
I think that if these holidays were changed — first women’s day, then men’s day — it would not work at all
BTW, there are 7 (and now even 8) men in the room where I work. And I am the only woman. Of course I can’t buy presents for all of them, that’s why I draw a wall-newspaper. And they give me flowers and a souvenir for Women’s day. But the last year I did nothing. And they still presented me flowers and the very nice souvenir.
No problem. I’m still burdened with German anyway, and I may get a hold of a cheap Teach Yourself Russian book/CD combo soon anyway. So I can hold over until you are ready to upload more content. I am in no rush.
In regards to requests, aside from slow speaking, perhaps some shorter and simple Russian poetry or the like? I learned most of my German through German poetry (which explains why I can’t speak it in social situations, haha), and part of the reason I wish to learn Russian is the vast amount of literature. Although I recognize most of it is too advanced for beginners content, if there are any even children-oriented poems or the like that would be wonderful. Then again I’m not the only one learning Russian, so whoever else is beginning that wishes to chip in please do speak up! Then again all beginners content is good content, so I am content with whatever you upload (no pun intended).
In regards to Women’s Day, and all other such days, I can’t celebrate them because, just like Steve, I always celebrate them. Happy Men AND Women’s Day ahead of time though!
@ der wanderer. Like you, I enjoy Cacypa’s lessons. She is the only one I can actually understand and diferentiate words. The rest, no disrespect , they speak so fast and perhaps they dont realize begginers need to be told slow, very slow. As for the type of material, I am happy that all providers take the time to gives the learners something to learn. I for that, thankful.
Besides Sakuras’ very good and useful content there are many other usefully collections in the library.
For beginner 1:
Collections →
Simple dialogues (from Lingq), very slowly spoken and good comprehensible.
Greetings and goodbyes (from Lingq), short texts and good comprehensible.
Здравствуйте! До свидания. (from Iomsa), perfect collection. Very usefully for beginners.
And in my opinion the best rookie content is: 101 Первые слова (from pkok).
Once you have finished all these collections I am sure Sakura will have finished the new Beginner content.
The collection “Who is she” is in my opinion not a Beginner 1 level. Better Intermediate 1
I’d say if you just spend a couple of hours with the cyrillic alphabet, that will make listening along much easier. The visual clues in the writing will help you keep track of where you are, and prepare you to hear the sounds coming up next in the text.
I’ll see if i can find a list of common english/russian words, so you can see how the alphabets match up.
There, not extensive by any means, but the Russian spellings are pronounced roughly the same way as the English counterparts (ignoring the parts in the brackets).
Hopefully this gives some idea of how cyrillic works.
I got from no knowledge to beginner 2 using this free course:
(Then I discovered LingQ).
I forget now who the author is, but if you find his e-mail anywhere, do drop him a line to say thank you! He put in a lot of work and hasn’t asked for any money from us in return.
Thank you everyone! Sirob11: I shall search for and take a look at that exercise! Always good starting with greetings and goodbyes, helps one understand the most absolute basics and work their way up.
Maths: My biggest problem is the amount of characters in the Cyrillic alphabet. And the fact that I’ve noticed certain ones are pronounced differently depending on their position in the sentence and if there is any modifier. Perhaps I’m looking too much into it. I’ve got the majority of the words figured out, except I often confuse the pronunciation of the duplicate characters with slight modifiers.
Perhaps the hardest part is following along with the transcript while it’s being fastly spoken: even if there are only a few characters left for me to completely memorize, it’s still hard following along with a brand new alphabet so quickly. Granted if I keep at it it shouldn’t be too difficult to overcome.
skyblueteapot: Thank you. Although I keep running into problems with downloading the files… Sad too because being a course from a Princeton professor for free I am sure it is quite good quality. Unlike some of the other free courses I’ve seen online.
It’s always harder to read in a new script/alphabet. Your reading speed just drops so dramatically. So it’s really just practice and practice, eventually you won’t even think about it. Good luck!
Don’t sweat not knowing all the letters and their variations straight away, just so long as you have enough of a handle on them to follow a text.
And I think the lesson collection “an introduction to spoken Russian”, which is listed as beginner 2 (?) is close to native speed, so maybe not the best thing to listen to if learning from scratch.
Anyway,you’ll get the alphabet in a couple of weeks, you’d be surprised ow quickly your brain will associate a sound with a new symbol.
even on some of the most simple lessons the speaking is overly fast for me to be able to truly understand how certain words are pronounced, which makes it difficult for me to learn. Can anyone point me in the right direction for slowly spoken beginners Russian transcripts?
Sad too because being a course from a Princeton professor for free I am sure it is quite good quality. Unlike some of the other free courses I’ve seen online.