Post: #1

Gentlemen, I have decided to embark on a new language journey. In this one is none other than Russian.

I have been learning it for approximately 1 month now, and so far the progress has been good. Slow but steady. I do not attend any classes, and I do all the studying by myself.

I am making this thread mostly because I want it to be a thread where I can ask fellow RVF Russian speakers questions about Russian and hopefully get some answers. I know there are other Russian threads, including one from Roosh. Also I wish this thread to serve as some indicator of my progress in the language, and hopefully this way I can motivate others in learning as well, no matter which language.

As of now, this is pretty much what I know:

• I can read and write the Alphabet
• A handful of common and important nouns (семья, друг, пива, радители, etc.)
• A few common and important verbs with most of their conjugations (говорить, работать, слушать, знать, смотреть, жить, есть, пить, понимать, быть)
• Infinitive, present, and past form of above verbs for all persons
• Pronouns (я, ты, он/она, мы, etc.)
• Greeting words
• Noun endings for gender/number
• Possesive Pronouns (мой, моя, etc.)
• Conjunctions (и, а, но, тоже)
• How to ask and answer 'where' (где, в, но)
• Use of locativus case for answering the above
• How to ask and answer when (когда), and how to change the the time's ending
• Asking and saying nationalities and languages
• Use of time-nouns (утро, день, вечер, ночь) and how to change their endings accordingly
• More time-nouns (сегодня, завтра, вчера)
• Adjectives in nominative case, and their endings (большой, плохой, хороший, etc.)
• Other useful helpful words (кто, что, правда, это, ещё, уже, всигда, etc.)
  

And so many basic stuff I am yet to learn (numbers, days of the week, months, etc.) but I will get to it eventually.

I am still getting familiar with typing in Cyrillic, I am slowly remembering where each letter is on the keyboard.

Like with all things I start studying, I always have a handful of questions. But I won't be a dick and copy and paste 10+ questions and expecting them to be answered. I will slowly post and ask one or two every now and then. Hopefully these questions will be a good indicator of my progress with the language.

Post: #2

A new question:

If дорого means “expensive” and is an adjective, why doesn’t it end with the common adjective endings for each gender and noun? At the same time, how does it differ with дорогой (which does have the ending).

Post: #3

(10-05-2014 04:13 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  A new question:

If дорого means “expensive” and is an adjective, why doesn’t it end with the common adjective endings for each gender and noun? At the same time, how does it differ with дорогой (which does have the ending).

Дорого might be an adverb. You probably meant дорогой.
You know that there are three genders in Russian - masculine, feminine and neutral.
Это дорого! - neutral gender

Keep in mind that there is another word spelt similarly -
дорога - road; and in a phrase like "by road" it will be "дорогой"

Post: #4

Best of luck!

I studied Russian for a few years so I'll try and help answer any questions that pop up, although there are a lot of excellent Russian speakers on this forum who are light years ahead of me.

Out of curiosity, what are you learning Russian for? And what are your means of studying it?

Also, this is a great website:

http://russianpodcast.eu/

It's more for intermediate speakers, but a resource to keep an eye on for down the road.

Post: #5

If you aren't already doing so I strongly recommend you set up your keyboard layout to phonetic cyrillic (I assume that's an option for Russian) - the majority of the keys will then be in the same locations as their latin equivalents.

When I bought a laptop here in Bulgaria (shows both latin and cyrillic letters on the keys) I initially figured I would try to learn the completely different standard BG layout. It turned out to be a hell of a lot easier to switch to phonetic and just memorize the minority of keys not in their latin equivalent locations. Learning to touch type from scratch with the standard BG keyboard would have taken months. With the phonetic layout I'm not much slower typing cyrillic than latin.

Post: #6

The google translate virtual keyboard is pretty neat. You type the word phonetically using Latin letters and it converts them to Cyrillic.

Post: #7

(10-05-2014 08:08 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  The google translate virtual keyboard is pretty neat. You type the word phonetically using Latin letters and it converts them to Cyrillic.

Unless I need the translation I prefer this one - http://translit.cc/ - it has options for a handful of languages.

But now that I've gotten further with my studies I really prefer just switching keyboard layouts in Windows (I have alt+shift set up to switch back and forth between English and Bulgarian phonetic) so I can type directly into documents, Skype, whatever, without having to copy/paste from a website text box.

Post: #8

You already have a base it seems so you can soon start with pimsleur and beginner podcasts. Don't agonize over small details of specific word usage - that will come naturally when you're
More familiar with the language. For now just get the basic grammar and key vocab/sentences under your belt.

Post: #9

(10-05-2014 08:51 AM)Northern Wrote:  

(10-05-2014 04:13 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  A new question:

If дорого means “expensive” and is an adjective, why doesn’t it end with the common adjective endings for each gender and noun? At the same time, how does it differ with дорогой (which does have the ending).

Дорого might be an adverb. You probably meant дорогой.
You know that there are three genders in Russian - masculine, feminine and neutral.
Это дорого! - neutral gender

Keep in mind that there is another word spelt similarly -
дорога - road; and in a phrase like "by road" it will be "дорогой"

Thanks! You were right. I never thought that adjective and adverb forms were similar but not entirely the same. These sentences explain it very clearly:

Он хороший (какой) спортсмен!
Он хорошо (как) играет в футбол.

Putting it simply, adjectives answer to какой and adverbs answer to как.

(10-05-2014 09:19 AM)Seth_Rose Wrote:  Best of luck!

I studied Russian for a few years so I'll try and help answer any questions that pop up, although there are a lot of excellent Russian speakers on this forum who are light years ahead of me.

Out of curiosity, what are you learning Russian for? And what are your means of studying it?

Also, this is a great website:

http://russianpodcast.eu/

It's more for intermediate speakers, but a resource to keep an eye on for down the road.

Yes, so many Russian speakers here. That was one of the reasons I made this thread, I wanna join the club

Well, there are many reasons why I am learning it. For starters, I would say that I felt it was time to learn a new language, one that sounded cool, and most importantly, that it is used in many countries that share but also have their own distinct cultures. This for me makes it worth it by itself.

Not to mention the beautiful Russian and Ukranian girls, and the girls from the other countries that have Asian appearances, to complement even more my yellow fever

I am only using this to study: http://learnrussian.rt.com

It is a pretty nice website, with interactive lessons with audio dialogues, pretty fun dialogues I must say. Although the page contains many mistakes.

(10-05-2014 08:03 PM)MikeS Wrote:  If you aren't already doing so I strongly recommend you set up your keyboard layout to phonetic cyrillic (I assume that's an option for Russian) - the majority of the keys will then be in the same locations as their latin equivalents.

When I bought a laptop here in Bulgaria (shows both latin and cyrillic letters on the keys) I initially figured I would try to learn the completely different standard BG layout. It turned out to be a hell of a lot easier to switch to phonetic and just memorize the minority of keys not in their latin equivalent locations. Learning to touch type from scratch with the standard BG keyboard would have taken months. With the phonetic layout I'm not much slower typing cyrillic than latin.

The keyboard I am using is not ordered like its latin equivalent. Although I am getting used to memorize the Cyrillic letter locations, I am thinking on whether or not I should change this keyboard like you say.... Does window has a version incorporated that I can just add? (Like the one I am using now)

(10-05-2014 08:08 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  The google translate virtual keyboard is pretty neat. You type the word phonetically using Latin letters and it converts them to Cyrillic.

I checked it out. It is pretty neat indeed. But I am concerned, should I use this? I don't want to get bad writing habits right from the start. Even though typing like this is way faster and actually pretty cool.

Post: #10

Дорого(й) literally translates as "dear" - either as "dear to me" or "this costs dearly."

If you're going any writing by hand, don't neglect the accents. Get used to putting them down now, it should help pronunciation.

Swype for android has a Russian keyboard. It would help you learn the Russian keyboard layout before you transition to the real thing (translit like http://www.translit.ru is good, but if you intend to do serious work in Russian, learning the keyboard will be a must...long term though, not really a priority at your level).

Installing Russian spell check into your browser, if you don't already have it, would help too.

Post: #11

(10-06-2014 06:56 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

(10-05-2014 08:03 PM)MikeS Wrote:  If you aren't already doing so I strongly recommend you set up your keyboard layout to phonetic cyrillic (I assume that's an option for Russian) - the majority of the keys will then be in the same locations as their latin equivalents.

When I bought a laptop here in Bulgaria (shows both latin and cyrillic letters on the keys) I initially figured I would try to learn the completely different standard BG layout. It turned out to be a hell of a lot easier to switch to phonetic and just memorize the minority of keys not in their latin equivalent locations. Learning to touch type from scratch with the standard BG keyboard would have taken months. With the phonetic layout I'm not much slower typing cyrillic than latin.

The keyboard I am using is not ordered like its latin equivalent. Although I am getting used to memorize the Cyrillic letter locations, I am thinking on whether or not I should change this keyboard like you say.... Does window has a version incorporated that I can just add? (Like the one I am using now)

It should be available standard in your Windows. Control panel -> change keyboards or other input methods -> change keyboards.

My settings look like this.

Post: #12

The keyboard I am using is not ordered like its latin equivalent. Although I am getting used to memorize the Cyrillic letter locations, I am thinking on whether or not I should change this keyboard like you say.... Does window has a version incorporated that I can just add? (Like the one I am using now)

I'm not sure if this totally answers the question, but you can use the Language Bar to switch between keyboard templates. You'll just have to remember where each letter is.


Edit: MikeS beat me to it.

Post: #13

Ok new question, but this one is more like three questions in one:

- I know смотреть is the infinitive form of the verb "to look". And I know "Посмотри!" is like saying "look!", so it is somehow related to the verb and you can clearly see it in both words. However, what does the по part means? (Посмотри). Is it some form that indicates Imperative?

- How does Посмотри differ from Смотри? (in usage)

- The conjugation of смотреть for 2nd person is смотришь and I cannot find any conjugation that matches Смотри, so where does this word falls into?

Post: #14

It's the difference between perceptive and imperfective verbs. The " по". Indicates a definitive action that has an end rather than a continuous process. This is a difficult concept that took awhile to understand when I was first learning so you may want to check some internet explanations on the different between these two types of verbs.

Post: #15

- How does Посмотри differ from Смотри? (in usage)

Usually "Посмотри" is used to express "do it once" while "Смотри" means "do it continuously". Though in colloquial language they can be interchangeable.

- The conjugation of смотреть for 2nd person is смотришь and I cannot find any conjugation that matches Смотри, so where does this word falls into?

1) я смотрю / мы смотрим
2) ты смотришь / вы смотрите
3) он/она/оно смотрит / они смотрят

смотри - imperative mood

Post: #16

Quote:- How does Посмотри differ from Смотри? (in usage)

Посмотри

your russian gf got dressed, done make up and asked you before leave hotel room

- Посмотри, как я выгляжу?

she seeing some girl dressed in red coat and asked you

- посмотри на эту девушку, тебе нравится ее пальто?

she has watched some movie and was impressed

-постомтри этот фильм, очень интересно

Смотри

you drive riskily

-смотри на дорогу, козел!

Post: #17

(10-07-2014 08:31 AM)Northern Wrote:  - How does Посмотри differ from Смотри? (in usage)

Usually "Посмотри" is used to express "do it once" while "Смотри" means "do it continuously". Though in colloquial language they can be interchangeable.

- The conjugation of смотреть for 2nd person is смотришь and I cannot find any conjugation that matches Смотри, so where does this word falls into?

1) я смотрю / мы смотрим
2) ты смотришь / вы смотрите
3) он/она/оно смотрит / они смотрят

смотри - imperative mood

This makes sense, I figured it must be some kind of imperative form, all thought I still haven't got to that yet.

A new question:
What is the difference between всё and все pronunciation and meaning wise?

As far as I can tell, both mean "all" or "everything". But I still cannot tell what is it that makes those words different, and I suspect they are not synonyms.

Post: #18

There's no actual difference in meaning, the pronunciation just changes according to conjugation.

Post: #19

Not exact, but an approximation

Всё = ~ everything (if you'd use "much") - vsyo
Все = ~ everyone (if you'd use "many") - vse like in "eh"

Frequently in typing people will write е instead of ё, which could cause some ambiguity

Post: #20

(10-08-2014 09:03 AM)polar Wrote:  Not exact, but an approximation

Всё = ~ everything (if you'd use "much") - vsyo
Все = ~ everyone (if you'd use "many") - vse like in "eh"

Frequently in typing people will write е instead of ё, which could cause some ambiguity

+1
I feel that "все" is used with countable things while "всё" is for uncountable stuff
For example,
all apples - все яблоки
all wine - всё вино (neutral gender)

Post: #21

http://ru.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/весь

That should explain all to you. Всё is just the neuter declension of весь. Wiktionary is an excellent resource. It declines and conjugates all verbs in Russian that you may come across. I'm not a native speaker but can explain grammar usually much better than my Russian girlfriend... If you have any questions that don't get answered here, feel free to hit me up.

Post: #22

The above posters are correct, vsyo would loosely be translated "everything" whereas vsye would be "all." They can both mean "all" in some cases, and then it depends on if something is countable or not.

They are pronounced "fsyo" and "fsyeh"

You do not pronounce the "v" sound.

In practice vsyo is way more important, because you can use it as a standalone phrase to mean things like "are we done?" or "is that it?"

For example:

"Vsyo?"

"Da, eto vsyo."

means:

"Is that it?"

"Yeah, we're done."

Post: #23

Fret,

How long did it take you to get to the level you're at now?

Post: #24

Good language to learn, if you understand and speak, English, Russian and Chinese, I would say that you are set up in terms of finding work. Spanish and Arabic will closely follow, Arabic especially if you want to go into the oil industries.

Russian takes some time, as personally I don't believe the resources available are that decent. Plus people can't skip corners, if you are to learn any decent russian, you will need to understand the alphabet, otherwise everything will just become half assed.

Post: #25

Awesome responses thank you so much guys. Very clear explanation regarding the usage with "countable" and "uncountable" things.

(10-09-2014 06:22 AM)BallsDeep Wrote:  Fret,

How long did it take you to get to the level you're at now?

Well I have only been learning for approximately 1 month now, maybe a few days more than that.

(10-09-2014 10:26 AM)Constitution45 Wrote:  Good language to learn, if you understand and speak, English, Russian and Chinese, I would say that you are set up in terms of finding work. Spanish and Arabic will closely follow, Arabic especially if you want to go into the oil industries.

Russian takes some time, as personally I don't believe the resources available are that decent. Plus people can't skip corners, if you are to learn any decent russian, you will need to understand the alphabet, otherwise everything will just become half assed.

Yes, I felt that Russian was the last language I needed and wanted learn. Once I reach a conversational (and later in a few years a fluent level) I will be very happy.

By this time my Chinese will also have skyrocketed. And I will be able to speak 4 incredibly important languages (Spanish, English, Chinese, and Russian).