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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Elsa Maria
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Elsa Maria » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:22 pm

I have finally settled on a textbook: Nina Potopova's Learning Russian. Out of the ones that I had the chance to look through, this is the one I like the best.

For audio, I am using whatever free stuff catches my fancy. Right now, I like bookbox.com.

Scriptorium is one of my favorite learning activities, but I can't figure out how to do it properly with Russian. Does anyone do scriptorium for Russian? Do you do the cursive or the printing? Copying things as they will look in books is what helps me imprint the word, but knowing that Russians do not print their letters makes the work feel somehow off. That, and I can't print the letters pretty enough to suit myself :) I am also practicing cursive for a few minutes each day, but that doesn't amount to many words.
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Ogrim
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Ogrim » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:31 am

Elsa Maria wrote:Scriptorium is one of my favorite learning activities, but I can't figure out how to do it properly with Russian. Does anyone do scriptorium for Russian? Do you do the cursive or the printing? Copying things as they will look in books is what helps me imprint the word, but knowing that Russians do not print their letters makes the work feel somehow off. That, and I can't print the letters pretty enough to suit myself :) I am also practicing cursive for a few minutes each day, but that doesn't amount to many words.


I don't really do scriptorium as such, but when I started Russian classes I worked a lot on my cursive writing, because the teacher would just refuse to mark any written exercise written in print letters, Russians never do handwriting with print letters. Currently I do most of my written exercises on my tablet (an iPad), as my handwriting is horrible no matter the alphabet. It is easy to switch the virtual keyboard to Cyrillic, and the autocorrect is also a nice feature, as it highlights if I misspell a word.
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Arnaud
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:14 am

I write in print letters. I almost can't read cursive writing.
That's not a problem as what I read is always printed or on screen (I can read italic if the text is short), but I'm pretty sure I couldn't read a manuscript letter if I had to.
There is a font called "Propisi" in Libre Office that imitate the russian cursive, for those who need to train to read or write...
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Teango
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Teango » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:23 pm

Arnaud wrote:I almost can't read cursive writing.

Surely not...Russian cursive is a piece of cake! :o

Image

Image
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aaleks
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby aaleks » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:59 pm

:lol:
Well...
The first text:
С.1. Функции гос-ва в условиях рынка, правовая (определение правовой основы), экономическая (регулирование экономического поведения), производство товаров и услуг.
С.2. Виды регулирующих правил (норм):
1) Зональные, 2) Соблюдение техники безопасности и охраны здоровья, 3) Строительные, 4) Анти... законы...

I'm probably able to decipher the whole text, but I've already got a headache by doing that :roll: .

The second text has been written by a doctor so I won't even try to read it :mrgreen:
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Ani
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Ani » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:00 pm

Oh my goodness.. I think I am going to give up my meager attempts at Russian cursive now. Clearly a lost cause...

And has aaleks been adopted as our official fairy godmother yet?
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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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MamaPata
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby MamaPata » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:15 pm

aaleks wrote::lol:
Well...
The first text:
С.1. Функции гос-ва в условиях рынка, правовая (определение правовой основы), экономическая (регулирование экономического поведения), производство товаров и услуг.
С.2. Виды регулирующих правил (норм):
1) Зональные, 2) Соблюдение техники безопасности и охраны здоровья, 3) Строительные, 4) Анти... законы...

I'm probably able to decipher the whole text, but I've already got a headache by doing that :roll: .

The second text has been written by a doctor so I won't even try to read it :mrgreen:


That's very impressive! If you weren't already, that definitely means you have to become our fairy godparent!
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Ogrim
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Ogrim » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:46 am

That sample by Teango almost looks like my handwriting, only more legible!! :lol:

Ani, don't worry too much about handwriting unless you plan to write a lot of Russian text by hand. Do however learn to recognise cursive, because you will come over it in books, on websites, in newspapers etc.

I also vote for aaleks to be our покровитель. (I hope that is the appropriate word in this context.)
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Cavesa
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 03, 2017 1:58 pm

It looks like all the russians write like doctors. :-D

I may have signed up for learning Russian recently. One of the reasons is Rdearman's experiment. Russian is a language in which I have no preference whether I wanna be in the control group or the input one.

I've occassionally read bits of this group, so I am looking forward to joining you a lot, if I may. :-)

Why Russian? Sci-fi books. Lukyanenko and many other authors. For example, I have been postponing the Metro 2033 by Glukhovsky for too long. And the classics like Strugacky brothers and others. Yes, some of the conventional classics like Bulgakov are great too, but I don't think I'll ever be a Dostoyevsky or Gogol fan. And Russian is a practical language on the internet. And a secondary reason: I suppose Russian shouldn't be too hard. Not as easy or Polish or hypereasy as Slovak, but still not too hard. It might be fun to experience what I have always envied a bit to the romance natives :-D

Goals: Read in the language, listening comprehension might be fun too. I have no particular need or desire to speak it in the near future, perhaps that will change one day, perhaps not. I will learn the pronunciation of course and do my grammar exercises etc, in order not to learn nonsense, but passive skills are the goal. No language exam on my mind. Travelling? Perhaps one day, a few places are on my long list of destinations to travel to "when I have the time and money", which may also mean "not in the next decade or two". St.Petersburg is on the list. And Moscow of course (I'd love to see the places the Night Watch series describes :-D ).

And another thing I'd like to understand are the media. Especially the voices that get "lost in translation", as they don't have the money or power to reach out from the country and its language zone. I am sure there must be a fascinating plurality of information and opinions, we just get to hear only the loudest ones usually. So, I am curious. I am not writing this to begin any political discussion, despite the fact you probably know my position on this, but I'll welcome any tips on news, blogs, podcasts, and so on :-). I just think Russian is a great example of a language that still works as an information filter, even in this century. Majority of the planet can look up any kind of info about current events in the anglophone countries and make our own picture. France or Germany get covered in various languages and from various angles, anyone can make a more or less informed opinion on them. Most countries are not in this position. For example, the media image the Czech Republic gets abroad is extremely twisted and quite horrible, because the media abroad don't bother to translate more than one or two sources and even those very rarely, as my country is quite worthless. But Russia, China, Arabic speaking countries,Poland, or Japan are not unimportant, yet our idea about them is probably just as twisted. So, I am curious what I'll learn about Russia and russians. Truth be told, I have no clue what I'll find under the translated (scary) surface, and I am looking forward to having my ideas about it enriched. :-)

How: Rdearman decides. :-)

Previous experience: A few hours on the introductory coursebook lesson, or perhaps I may have gotten to lesson 2, and learning the basics of writing (which I have forgotten again) and the basics of reading. Long ago. My current level is 0.

An important question: What tv series or movies would you recommend, please? In case I am in the input group, the choice of books to start with is pretty obvious. But Rdearman recommends in his email to start hoarding listening material (curiously without mentioning reading) and I have simply no clue. Any recommended dubbings of good quality? Or not too hard originals, perhaps crime series?
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neofight78
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby neofight78 » Mon Jul 03, 2017 4:38 pm

Cavesa wrote:I've occassionally read bits of this group, so I am looking forward to joining you a lot, if I may. :-)


Welcome aboard, the more the merrier!

Cavesa wrote:Why Russian? Sci-fi books.


A good reason! :D Веляев is a good starting point - sci-fi written with a fairly simple style. Also a well respected author amongst Russians.

Cavesa wrote:An important question: What tv series or movies would you recommend, please?


Go back just a couple of pages and you'll see a bunch of recommendations from myself and Arnaud on various TV shows. We both recommend Игрушки as one of the easiest options from a listening point of view. Кухня is also very popular amongst learners (and natives). In the next day or two, I'll try to compile a list of good films and post them here...

Cavesa wrote:But Rdearman recommends in his email to start hoarding listening material


If it doesn't need to be video, audiobooks are extremely popular in Russia so that may be a useful route to go down too.

If shorter videos are useful http://www.1tv.ru has plenty of clips with transcriptions. The articles can be a bit daft, but https://shkolazhizni.ru is a good resource of matching text and audio.

Hope that helps for starters!
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