Dear friends.
I have added to the Russian library more than 20 texts for beginners and created two courses.
I am going to make even greater contribution to the library, but I’d like to better understand what kinds of texts are needed.
I look forward to your comments.
Link: http://www.lingq.com/learn/ru/store/search/?search=&category=&type=&level=&provider=505&sort=date
This should work better: http://tiny.cc/6xN8L
I like your texts, just like Rasana’s, but I have not read them all, especially I had not noticed some of the beginner material yet. Your accent is different, but there are many different accents, I suppose.
The texts about baths and from your blog and recipes are my favourites for now, but see that there are other interesting texts too.
I’d appreciate if you would record some poems.
Thank-you for adding the texts. I read one of them, and hope to do more this month!
Thank you very much, most of the texts are the right level and length to be of great help to me. I have read some of the texts where people introduce themselves as well as some of the texts about baths and saunas (a very relevant topic when one lives almost on the Finnish border)…
Thanks for these lessons. They are good for Beginner 1. I’ve listened to the hobbies and greetings. They have the kind of basic conversations that a beginner would like to start with. And your voice is very pleasant to listen to. I like the accent, too! Hee! I’ve found some phrases that I’d especially like to learn for conversing. For me, I really like lessons with conversations, because my first desire is to converse and speak to people. I like other kinds of topics, too, but some things (like books) are too difficult at my level. Lessons with a story to them are interesting though, because I want to learn the words in order to understand what is happening.
Anyway, thanks!
Good morning Iomsa
I am just working through the chapter of baths and saunas. I like that theme and I like also your slow speaking. Generally I prefer short text. Why not a song of a famous Russian band?
I enjoyed listening to your recipes. I also like conversation material. I agree that your voice is pleasant to listen to but I personally would prefer, I guess, faster speech as the Russian language is actually spoken. There is already a ton of interesting Beginner lessons and if anyone actually gets through all of them, they are already not a beginner. Sirob, which band are you interested in? You can find the text to Russian bands on the internet. Or are you just asking Lyudmila to sing us a song?
I do not know any Russian band apart from the famous two Russian girls at Eurovision Context who, ten years ago, sang an awful song . But besides that I think it would be interesting to know what’s “in Vogue” in Russia.
Actually, Lomsa speaks with a typical Moscow pronunciation which is accepted as a standard for Russian mass media, teaching, etc. In Russia, we’d say that Ludmila had no accent. This means ‘no unusual accent’. I’m from Moscow, too, and I can compare Lyudmila’s pronunciation with what I hear every day. No difference.
Rasana (Cakypa) has a regional accent (I think so), although it’s very slight and not a reason to worry.
If you prefer faster Russian speech, that’s great, that means you’ll be able to understand spoken Russian in various cases. But really fast speech with reduction or even fall-out of some sounds or groups of sounds is only suitable for informal situations.
I did not intend to say she has an accent. I was only agreeing that she was pleasant to listen to and disagreeing with Sirob about the slow speaking. It seems that sometimes the providers intentionally speak slowly in order for those studying Russian to more easily understand. I don’t think it is necessary. For me, if I don’t understand words that are read fast, I wouldn’t understand the same words if they were read slowly. I may be wrong but I wonder if you don’t speak as you normally would, at a normal tempo, you can easily lose natural pauses and intonation. Russians usually say I speak Russian with Ok pronunciation, but way too slow.
I have enjoyed Lomsa’s content and especially appreciate her putting content in there about hockey. I prefer content read at normal speed since I am used to listening to Echo Moskvi and audio books.
I have noticed from the interviews at Echo and elsewhere that some Russians, like Lomsa, or Сергеи Поркхоменко, (one of my favourites at Echo) have a gutteral “r” but otherwise pronounce the same as other people who roll their “r”. Is there a particular reason? Can someone explain?
Людмила, баши уроки - просто отлычные! я хотела бы, что вы говорите немного быстрее, но техы - очень хопошо. Болсчое спасибо для них!
Haha, Gotchya. This is the English forum. 
Aargh! (Goes and sits on the naughty step)
What does the word ‘gutteral’ mean? Does it mean the same as ‘guttural’? Does it mean the same as " trill ‘r’ "?
People who roll their ‘r’, producing it by means of vibration of their tongue near their upper frontal teeth are absolutely correct. This is the genuine ‘r’ sound for all Slavic languages (“раскатистый Р”, “дрожащий Р”). The soft version of ‘r’ sound (“рь”) which exists in Ukrainian and Russian can be made in the same way but it’s a bit more difficult and requires some amount of training.
In everyday speech, especially when you speak fast, it is not necessary to clearly roll all your R’s. You may pronounce short, tap ‘r’, so-called “одноударный Р”. It seems to me I heard this sound in Scottish accent of English. The sound must be produced by the tip of your tongue hitting very quickly the gums of your upper teeth. This is the most popular way of pronunciation. It is suitable for all situations. But if you want to emphasize a word, or to say something in a loud voice, or to shout, or you are playing on the stage, you may roll the ‘r’ sound as well. It will sound good and native in such situations.
Guttural ‘r’, which is produced by throat and resemles ‘r’ sounds in German or French, is incorrect in Russian (that sound can be called “горловой Р”). But it is understandable, so that people who have it usually decide not to waste their time for doing correction exercises or simply do not know about their problem. The same thing can be spoken about English type of ‘r’ sound. I heard it in Russian but it sounds unnatural. I don’t recommend both of them if you have a goal to reduce your foreign accent when speaking Russian.
Steve,
yes, some Russians can’t pronounce “r” properly (some of them have “a short frenulum of tongue” – короткая уздечка). I also at the age of 4 mispronounced some Russian sounds: “sh”, “zh”, “r” and “l”. Technically I pronounced the Russian “r” like the French “r”, but I imitated Russian “r” so well, that my parents did not even notice that I mispronounce it. My sister had the problem with her speech, that’s why she had classes with a speech therapist. This specialist recognised my errors immediately and corrected my pronunciation.
Although I don’t think that mispronouncing of “R” is common in Russia. I personally know only 2, who mispronounce it.
I meant guttural,of course.
This seems to quite widespread amongst people I hear at Echo, including politicians and radio personalities. As I said Parkhomenko has a very pleasing style and has the guttural r.
I wonder that something so common would be considered incorrect or a mispronunciation. Incorrect according to whom, or according to what law?
I notice that in Portuguese some people pronounce some words with a guttural r and some with a rolled r, and others have mostly a rolled r or mostly a guttural r. I am not sure that it relates to region. The same is true in Italy, although there it seems much less common.
In Sweden and Norway there are regions with a rolled r and others with a guttural r. The same seems to be the case in German speaking countries.
This is considered incorrect according to history of all Slavic languages. And the official logopaedics’ position is now that guttural ‘r’ needs correction.
A guttural ‘r’ is a little more common in big cities. In Moscow I hear it more often than when I listen to people who live in provincial towns. One of my colleagues, a lecturer, speaks with guttural ‘r’. I don’t know why it is so widespread. Maybe these people or their ancestors were speakers of non-Slavic languages some time ago or had some influence of them. Maybe when they were children the proper attention to their speech was not paid by their parents, or kingergarteners, or teachers…
Unfortunately, I had a guttural ‘r’ up to my age of 25. But I extremely wanted to correct it and I did not know how to do it. Eventually, I went to a speech therapist (http://logopedplus.ru, Светлана Томилина) and she gave me exercises. After half a year of training on my own (no classes, I did all exercises at home) I could pronounce standard ‘r’. I like it much more than guttural sound!
I deem that such pronunciation of the “r” sound is not the norm but my feature. I really appreciate hearing from participants of the forum.
Thank you very much for your comments.
I am going to make future records at the normal pace of speech.