- Pravit, 10-2-07
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Frequently Asked Questions
Interested in Russian
What is my name in Russian?
What's some good Russian music?
How to say "I love you"
What is the best way to start learning Russian?
How do you learn the Russian alphabet, and how long does it take?
How long will it take to become fluent?
Beginner's Questions
How to set up your computer to type in Russian
What is my name in Russian?
How to pronounce Çäðàâñòâóéòå
What is the best way to start learning Russian?
Books for learning Russian
What are the best websites for learning Russian?
What is the best software for learning Russian?
How do you learn the Russian alphabet, and how long will it take?
How long will it take to become fluent?
How do cases work?
What's some good Russian music?
How do you pronounce the prepositions “â”, “ê”, and “c”?
How do you roll a Russian “r”?
How do you pronounce unstressed "o"?
How do you pronounce unstressed "¸"?
Do you recommend “Unforgettable Languages”?
Improving your Russian
Reading strategies
What are the best websites for learning Russian?
What is the best software for learning Russian?
What are the endings -îþ and -åþ that I see sometimes in poetry or songs?
How do expressions of time work?
Is there a site that has clearly spoken Russian with transcripts?
Where can I find Russian radio online?
Where can I find some Russian video clips online?
I have to look into the dictionary often when I read.
Technical Problems
How to set up your computer to type in Russian
I'm reading a webpage/e-mail written in Russian, but it's just random uppercase and lowercase Cyrillic letters.
I'm reading a webpage/e-mail written in Russian, but it's just letters with funny marks over them.
Now that my encoding for everything is Cyrillic, some pages written in non-Russian languages are displayed funny.
I'm trying to use a Russian program but it just gives me letters with funny marks over them/question marks.
I sent an e-mail in Russian and they said it was just a bunch of ASCII symbols they couldn't read with any encoding.
Setting up ICQ for Russian
After setting up Unicode support and so on, AIM still won’t work with Russian!
I sent an offline message on ICQ in Russian and they said it had a bunch of question marks.
Notepad/Word won't allow me to switch languages.
I wrote something in a text editor and when I tried to save it asked me if I wanted to save it as Unicode.
How to set up your computer to type in Russian
(For Windows 2000/XP users)
1. Click Start, then go to Control Panel.
2. Double-click on "Regional and Language Options."
3. Click on the "Languages" tab of the window that opens.
4. Click on "Details..."
5. Click "Add..."
6. For Input Language, select "Russian"
7. Click on OK until you're back out to the Regional and Language options window.
You may also want to set Russian as the default language for non-Unicode programs. This will also enable you to have filenames and folders in Russian. Be careful, though - if you run a non-English version of Windows, any special characters your language uses(such as accented or umlauted characters in French or German) could possibly be replaced with Cyrillic letters.
Setting Russian as the default language for non-Unicode programs
1. Click on the "Advanced" tab.
2. See that part where they say something about Unicode? Click on the scroll list and select Russian.
3. Click on OK until you're completely out.
(For Windows 95/98/ME users)
1. The process is the same as for XP, but you can't change the default Unicode setting. Also, you will need to go into "Keyboard" in Control Panel and add a Russian keyboard layout.
Congratulations. You can now type in Russian by clicking on the small box that appears on the Start Bar(it says "EN" unless your computer's default language is something other than English) and selecting Russian. Alternately, you can hit "Alt-Shift" to switch back and forth, or select your own key combination(I use "Ctrl+Shift"). If you use more than one input language, you can even select key combinations like Ctrl+Shift+1 for English and Ctrl+Shift+2 for Russian to save you time from switching through all the languages you have installed.
What is my name in Russian?
Your name doesn't change from language to language. I don't know about you, but if my name is John, and I go to Mexico, I still expect to be called "John." That being said, most of the time people mean to ask one of the questions below when they ask this question.
How do I write my name using the Russian alphabet?
Write it out phonetically, don't go letter-for-letter. Examples:
Mary - Ìýðè
John – Äæîí
Lindsay – Ëèíäçè
There are no "standard" transliterations of names, so they'll vary a bit depending on who's doing it.
What is the Russian "equivalent" of my name(for example Michael = Ìèõàéë)?
You might want to try the following sites(surprisingly, all were found by a search for “Russian names” on Google):
http://masterrussian.com/index-27.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/7635/names.html
How to pronounce Çäðàâñòâóéòå
Listen to these voice samples and repeat until you have it:
http://russian.dmll.cornell.edu/loras_dialogs/part1.htm
A common error is to pronounce this "zid-ravst-vuitye", but there is no "zid." Consonants need to be pronounced together unless there is a vowel in between them.
How to say "I love you"
ß ëþáëþ òåáÿ. Ya lublu tebya.
How do you learn the Russian alphabet, and how long will it take?
This site explains it much better than I could. In fact, this was the first encounter I had with Russian:
http://www.langintro.com/rintro/
As for how long it takes, a lot of people underestimate themselves and think it'll be amazingly difficult, but it's really one of the last things people ever complain about when learning Russian. It should take only a couple hours to learn all the letters and no more than a week to fully familiarize yourself with it. Have faith in your own abilities!
How long will it take to become fluent?
It depends on your definition of fluent. I assume you really mean "How long will it take until I'm satisfied with my knowledge of the language", which of course varies from person to person. What exactly do you want to accomplish with this? Do you want to just be able to read your favorite authors in the original Russian? Or do you want to be able to carry conversations, watch Russian television, read everything, etc. I hate to give you estimates, since people learn at different paces, but I know if you’re asking this you just want some kind of number.
If you just want to read:
Anywhere from 3-6 years depending how quickly you learn languages, how often you learn, and how much help you have(books, radio, people, MasterRussian forums, etc.) This is only a rough estimate, though. You may be an extraordinarily skilled language learner and take only 1-2 years, or you may take longer. If you have already read all the Russian books you intend to read in translation, you will probably have less of a difficult time than if you tried to read a book you had never read before.
If you want to be fluent in terms of being able to speak, understand, read, and write at a near-native level:
Impossible to give an estimate. Depends again on how quickly you can learn, how much help you have, etc.
I would dare say that if you never had any real contact with spoken Russian, you'd never be able to achieve a fluent level of listening comprehension and speaking. Is it a full-immersion environment? Then it would probably take you much less time than if you learned it on the side as a hobby. But it'll take you several years, at least.
How do you pronounce the prepositions “â”, “ê”, and “c”?
”B” is usually not pronounced alone, and in a sentence it sounds like it’s attached to the beginning of the next word. Example:
ß èäó â ìàãàçèí = ß èäó ôìàãàçèí(“I’m going to the store”).
Îí æèâåò â Ïåòåðáóðãå = Îí æèâåò ôïåòåðáóðãå(“He lives in St. Petersburg”).
Sometimes, however, you will hear the “â” dragged out in speech when the person is momentarily unsure about what they’ll say next. It sounds like they’re saying “ôôôô...”
“C” is similarly “affixed” to the beginning of the next word.
Ìû ñ òîáîé î÷åíü ïîõîæè = Ìû ñòîáîé î÷åíü ïîõîæè(“You and I are very similar”).
Îí âåðíóëñÿ ñ Êàâêàçà = Îí âåðíóëñÿ ñêàâêàçà(“He returned from the Caucusus).
”K” is just that – a quick “k” noise, a puff of air.
How do you roll a Russian “r”?
There are two ways of rolling an “r” in most languages. The first is trilling the tip of your tongue, like in Spanish and Italian. The second is a harsher guttural sound, like in “theatre” German or Scottish. The Russian “r” is the first kind. You roll an “r” by sticking the tip of your tongue up and then exhaling until the tip trills. However, some people are physically incapable of rolling an “r”, including many Russians(Lenin himself couldn’t roll an “r”!). If this describes you, try to pronounce it as “L” instead. Under no circumstances make a nasal English “r”!
How do you pronounce unstressed "o"?
You pronounce it sort of like the "o" in "ton", an "uh" sound.
How do you pronounce unstressed "¸"?
¨ is always stressed.
Do you recommend “Unforgettable Languages”?
No, I don't. Even if their claims of remembering hundreds of words instantly were true, you don't learn a language by remembering strings of words. You learn a language by learning how to use those words with each other. Besides that, I doubt the vocabulary you could learn from it is anything more than superficial everyday phrases, and it's not good to be chained to English every time you speak Russian, either. I say "chained to English" because their system of remembering words is based off of coming up with silly ways to remind you of the English word: for example, to remember the Swahili word "matunda" which means "fruit", they tell you to imagine putting a "mat under" some fruit. While funny, I don't see why people couldn't think up this kind of thing for themselves if it really helped them to memorize words. Even if you only used this system as a means of increasing your vocabulary(and you learned the grammar in some other way), I believe that words learned by rote memorization are among the hardest to actually remember and use when you need them most(as opposed to words learned by picking them up from context or repeated occurence).
What are the endings -îþ and -åþ that I see sometimes in poetry or songs?
They are archaic forms of instrumental endings used to make it sound more poetic.
What's the deal with cases?
Cases show how words relate to each other, and Russian's extensive case system is one of the reasons why its word order is very flexible(however, this does not mean you can put a sentence in whatever order you want and it'll still be correct in the context its used in).
How do expressions of time work?
It's explained pretty well at the Bucknell site:
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/language/time.html
Is there a site that has clearly spoken Russian with transcripts?
For beginners:
Lora's Dialogs
For intermediate/advanced:
Clearly spoken Russian news
Where can I find Russian radio online?
BBC Russian news, my favorite: http://www.bbcrussian.com/
Russian streamed radio list(music, DJ chitchat, etc.): (to be added soon)
PalTalk: Listen to Russians sing karaoke. http://www.paltalk.com/
Where can I find Russian video clips online?
Order them at one of the many fine online Russian stores, which will sometimes let you stream a preview of the movie you want to buy. But if you mean free streaming movies targeted towards learners of Russian, you could try the link below:
Russian at Cornell
Technical Problems
I'm reading a webpage/e-mail written in Russian, but it's just random uppercase and lowercase Cyrillic.
I'm reading a webpage/e-mail written in Russian, but it's just letters with funny marks over them.
This is because the encoding is wrong. In your web browser, go up to View -> Encoding -> and you should see something like Cyrillic(Windows), Cyrillic(KOI8-R) etc. Select one of these two(whichever one isn't already selected). Russian e-mails will tend to be in KOI8-R whereas websites are usually in Windows encoding. I haven't had to use ISO or DOS yet. If none of the two work, you could try them.
Now that my encoding for everything is Cyrillic, some pages written in non-Russian languages are displayed funny.
Go to View -> Encoding -> and select the right encoding(usually Western European(Windows)).
I'm trying to use a Russian program but it just gives me letters with funny marks over them/question marks.
You have to enable Cyrillic support for non-Unicode programs.
(For Windows 2000/XP) 1. Go to Control Panel, then Regional and Language Options.
2. Click on the "Advanced" tab.
3. See that part where they say something about Unicode? Click on the scroll list and select Russian.
4. Click click click on OK and so on until you're completely out.
As for 95/98/ME I don't know if it's possible, sorry.
I sent an e-mail in Russian with Outlook and they said it was just a bunch of ASCII symbols they couldn't read with any encoding.
This is sometimes a problem on the other end; make sure they are viewing with the proper encoding.
If you use Outlook, to guarantee that your Russian e-mails are sent correctly, do this:
Tools -> Options -> Send -> International Settings -> Default Encoding: Cyrillic(Windows) (you could be like the Russians and use KOI8-R, too).
Setting up ICQ for Russian
Regardless if your encoding for non-Unicode programs is Cyrillic, ICQ will still display Cyrillic as random gibberish unless you go into Main -> Preferences -> Contact List, then Multilingual Support(select Russian).
After setting up Unicode support and so on, AIM still won’t work with Russian!
If, after setting up Unicode support, it still doesn’t work, try the instructions on the following website which helped me: http://www.qsl.net/kd4whz/russian/im.html
I sent an offline message on ICQ in Russian and they said it had a bunch of question marks.
This is a problem with ICQ when you send an offline message containing two languages. It's not a problem(that I know of) if the message is sent while online. To ensure everything you send is readable, use only one language in each offline message.
Notepad/Word won't allow me to switch languages.
Yeah, this happens. You'll be switching around languages fine when suddenly Notepad/Word refuses to allow you to switch languages. And when this happens, it doesn't seem to ever allow you again. The only solution I found is to use a better text editor.
EDIT: I just looked and found out that for some reason, my key combination for switching languages(which is usually CTRL+SHIFT) was inexplicably changed back to the standard LEFT ALT + SHIFT. Word seems to be switching normally now. However, I believe this is a problem on my other computer(where the key combination is still definitely what I set it). But I can still switch the language even if the little box doesn’t change.
I wrote something in Russian in "X" text editor and when I tried to save it asked me if I wanted to save it as Unicode. What should I do?
Save it as Unicode.
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