Russian Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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neofight78
Blue Belt
Posts: 539
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2015 8:02 pm
Location: Novosibirsk, Russia
Languages: English (N), Russian (B2+), Spanish (A0)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=833
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby neofight78 » Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:02 am

If you get stuck on any of the exercises you can find the answers here:

http://www.explaura.net/learnrussian-rt-com/
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MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:44 pm

I've recently been reading this book, which I think might be of interest to some Russian learners.

Image

It's called Gay Propaganda: Stories of Love (Пропаганда гомосексуализма в России: Истории любви). From a language learner's perspective, it's a really useful option. The book is divided into two parts: the front (or back, depending on which way you pick it up) is in Russian, and the other half is in English. It's a nice step up from parallel readers because you can't just look at the opposite page, you have to find the text in the other half of the book. As it's also not a language resource, the translations are more natural, rather than a closer to word-for-word translation, that you sometimes get in other places. Finally, it's not сказки! (Is it just me or are most parallel books about fairy tales? It drives me a bit mad).

The stories are all taken from interviews, so it's very natural day-to-day speech. The interviewees are all talking about their lives, their love stories. I find it a lot easier to read than literature, because my focus has been so conversational. But if you're worried that you don't have enough exposure to conversational speech, it would be a great resource to improve that. Obviously this is not an apolitical book, but the editors are very clear that their emphasis was about people's stories, though the timing of publication was political.

Personally, I got a copy at Gay's the Word bookshop in London, but I am sure you can order it online.
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Soffía
Green Belt
Posts: 261
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 3:20 pm
Location: England
Languages: English (N), Icelandic (B2 reading, B1 listening), Hebrew (basic)
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Soffía » Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:44 am

MamaPata wrote:It's called Gay Propaganda: Stories of Love (Пропаганда гомосексуализма в России: Истории любви). From a language learner's perspective, it's a really useful option... Personally, I got a copy at Gay's the Word bookshop in London, but I am sure you can order it online.


Wow! Thanks for the rec, that looks like a really fascinating book. My Russian is currently non-existent (well, I've learned Cyrillic and have a vocabulary of a few dozen words...) but I think I'm going to order it for the English content, and keep the Russian in reserve.

For anyone who can't get to Gay's the Word, it looks like it's available direct from the publisher in print or as an ebook. And an ebook only in Russian is available for free, which is a great service to LGBT Russians. I'm really impressed.

http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/gay-propaganda/
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Tihama
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:48 am
Location: Netherlands
Languages: Native Dutch, english (C1) German (B1), French (A2)
Studying Russian

Long ago: ancient Greek and Latin
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Tihama » Sun Feb 11, 2018 8:40 pm

Well, my first message in this study group.

Why I decided to learn Russian?
My family has asked me the same question last week: many times. Why on earth did you choose to teach yourself Russian?

Last week, browsing Youtube, I watched polyglots explaining how they taught themselves new languages. And suddenly it occurred to me: why not give it a try? It has been over 25 years since I did a last attempt to learn another language (Spanish). But according to the polyglots: the second best day to start is today.

But why Russian?
With the languages I already know, I am able to get by in a large part of the world. But there are a mayor white spots like Russia, China, many other Asian countries as well as the Arabic countries. I expected that Russian is less harder to learn than Arabic or Mandarin. :lol:

So exactly 6 days ago I started. I downloaded at least 4 different apps, which I am now still using in the first free chapters. I want to buy one of them, but I am still not certain which one. Only one is dutch-Russian, the rest is english based. Since dutch is my mother-tongue I suspect that this is the best way to get it stuck in my head.

So far I have learned almost 400 words, the Cyrillic alphabet already feels more comfortable. Many words sound familiar through other languages. The word for heart sounds a bit like the german word for heart. The word for house is almost the same as the latin word. And so on.
I am not aiming at reading literature. Way to hard.
I pick up the grammar from http://www.masterrussian.com. The frequency list of words is really helpful. I got a Russian playlist on my Spotify. So during work I listen to music I absolutely don't understand.


My goal:
I would like to be able to understand Нюхач without subtitles. ;)
Reading a menu and being able to have some small talk with natives. Luckily I know some Russian people and I am going to ask them to practise with me.

So far it is not as difficult as I suspected. Learning to read ancient greek in high school was much harder. Or perhaps I am now older and wiser and more motivated.
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MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:37 am

Tihama wrote:Well, my first message in this study group.

Why I decided to learn Russian?
My family has asked me the same question last week: many times. Why on earth did you choose to teach yourself Russian?

Last week, browsing Youtube, I watched polyglots explaining how they taught themselves new languages. And suddenly it occurred to me: why not give it a try? It has been over 25 years since I did a last attempt to learn another language (Spanish). But according to the polyglots: the second best day to start is today.

But why Russian?
With the languages I already know, I am able to get by in a large part of the world. But there are a mayor white spots like Russia, China, many other Asian countries as well as the Arabic countries. I expected that Russian is less harder to learn than Arabic or Mandarin. :lol:

So exactly 6 days ago I started. I downloaded at least 4 different apps, which I am now still using in the first free chapters. I want to buy one of them, but I am still not certain which one. Only one is dutch-Russian, the rest is english based. Since dutch is my mother-tongue I suspect that this is the best way to get it stuck in my head.

So far I have learned almost 400 words, the Cyrillic alphabet already feels more comfortable. Many words sound familiar through other languages. The word for heart sounds a bit like the german word for heart. The word for house is almost the same as the latin word. And so on.
I am not aiming at reading literature. Way to hard.
I pick up the grammar from http://www.masterrussian.com. The frequency list of words is really helpful. I got a Russian playlist on my Spotify. So during work I listen to music I absolutely don't understand.


My goal:
I would like to be able to understand Нюхач without subtitles. ;)
Reading a menu and being able to have some small talk with natives. Luckily I know some Russian people and I am going to ask them to practise with me.

So far it is not as difficult as I suspected. Learning to read ancient greek in high school was much harder. Or perhaps I am now older and wiser and more motivated.


Welcome! Good luck with it - if you have any questions, or just want sympathy, just say!

I don't know if you're looking at textbooks but there's a Russian-Dutch textbook called Passport to Russia. (I have no idea what it's called in Dutch sorry, I used the English translation). My then teacher lived in the Netherlands and she really liked it. I wasn't convinced by some of it, but that was about the way it was translated into English, rather than the textbook itself. It works with dialogues to introduce grammar and vocabulary. Might be of interest anyway!
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MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Sun Feb 18, 2018 3:36 pm

In case anyone's looking for something to do in Russian, you might be interested in this article from Афиша.

100 главных русских фильмов 1992–2013

In addition to the basic film list, there's little excerpts by the directors that might be worth a read. I've seen a couple of the films listed and thought they were good (though I will never understand the appeal of 4).
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Bluepaint
Brown Belt
Posts: 1272
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:41 pm
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Bluepaint » Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:07 am

Any specific recommendations for Russian language audiobooks?

Or even just where to look so I can buy one to download onto an Android phone. (I'm a technophobe so something easy please!)

Genre and content not so important at the moment as I'll be using it to get used to the sounds, I speak nearly no Russian.
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Ani
Brown Belt
Posts: 1433
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
Location: Alaska
Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Ani » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:07 am

Bluepaint wrote:Any specific recommendations for Russian language audiobooks?

Or even just where to look so I can buy one to download onto an Android phone. (I'm a technophobe so something easy please!)

Genre and content not so important at the moment as I'll be using it to get used to the sounds, I speak nearly no Russian.


Go to Audible, type "Russian edition" into the search bar and pick something based on the cover?
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Ogrim
Brown Belt
Posts: 1009
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:29 am
Location: Alsace, France
Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Ogrim » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:31 am

Bluepaint wrote:Any specific recommendations for Russian language audiobooks?

Or even just where to look so I can buy one to download onto an Android phone. (I'm a technophobe so something easy please!)

Genre and content not so important at the moment as I'll be using it to get used to the sounds, I speak nearly no Russian.


You may also want to check out audiobooks on the Russian site LitRes. They have a large selection and most audiobooks are inexpensive. They also have an app for Android and I believe you can buy audiobooks directly through the app, as I do on the iOS version.
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Arnaud
Blue Belt
Posts: 984
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:57 am
Location: Paris, France
Languages: Native: French
Intermediate: English, Russian, Italian
Tourist : Breton, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:38 am

You can also type аудиокнига in YouTube.
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