Archive for the ‘Russian’ Category
Aug
Aug
Don’t think grammar is important? Think again!
I’m noticing a troubling theme in the language-learning and language-blogging community: people who are looked to as subject matter experts, time and time again, encouraging their readers and followers to forego grammar.
I’m deeply troubled by this.…
Sep
Sep
Beginner’s guide to Russian nonsense
Into every conversation, a little nonsense must fall. And it should come as no surprise that a rich language like Russian is rich with nonsense!
Sometimes there’s just not a word to express what you want to say. Other times words are too long. And besides, when one little grunt can get your message across,…
Dec
Dec
More Russian coming in 2011
I wrote a few posts about the Russian language this year, some of which were somewhat popular, but it seemed that most of my readers were either people interested in Italian, or people interested in language-learning in a broad sense. Thus, I didn’t make Russian much of a focus in my writing this year.
However,…
Jan
Jan
Russian vowel reduction
A few months ago, I showed you how easy it is to learn the Russian alphabet. If you’ve been through that, you should already be able to read Russian text, sound out words, and even recognize several cognates. Today, I want to take a look at the really interesting phenomenon of Russian vowel reduction.
In…
Jan
Jan
Using one language to learn another
The very first thing I learned about Turkish this year was actually an interesting revelation about languages and translation tools.
On New Year’s Day, I commented on a friend’s Facebook photo, and decided to do it in Turkish, since this is my Turkish year. However, since I began the year knowing no Turkish, the only…
Mar
Mar
Hard and soft consonants – a look at palatalization
When you decide to learn Russian, you’re immediately greeted with a few interesting challenges right away on day one. You have to learn a brand new alphabet just to read and write in this new language!
Fortunately, it’s really not hard to learn the Russian alphabet, in fact, I think it’s easier and better than…
Mar
Mar
That’s a beautiful language!
Category: General, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish · Tags: pronunciation,sounds
This morning I was talking with David Mansaray about languages that sound beautiful, and about their tendency sometimes to lose their luster. This provides me a great introduction to a related topic that I’ve been thinking about lately.
How our view of a language changes
I remember when I first started learning Spanish. I was…
Mar
Mar
Guest reading: Евгений Онегин, chapter 31
This is the second installment of my new weekly feature, based on non-English speakers reading in their native language. You can hear native pronunciation, while reading along, and hopefully it will help you to improve your comprehension.
Today’s contribution comes from Natasha, a native Russian speaker who is working hard to improve her English.
She…
Apr
Apr
Guest reading: Moab is my washpot
Hey, guys. I’m Roman, a fellow language addict and aspiring traveler, eager to explore the cultures of the world we live in. The first language I acquired was English. It came sort of naturally to me, and only recently I realized what an amazing skill I have, because it allows me to communicate with you…
Apr
Apr
Polish, for Russian speakers
A large part of the reason for my ability to rapidly pick up on Polish was the fact that it is a Slavic language, and as such, it shares a lot of similarities with Russian, a language which I already know quite well. I had already overcome many of the most difficult aspects of learning…