18
I can tell you as an American in your predicament not long ago, that I really benefitted from the tons of dialogs on the (free) site, learnrussian.rt.com for several reasons:
they speak at a very normal and natural conversational speed. Slow, word-for-word, unnatural Russian never got me anywhere;
the conversations aren't translated into English - so you ...
12
***we don't speak Russian at home
Вот и объяснение вашего языкового барьера. Сайты и аудио вам не помогут, нужна интенсивная практика с носителями языка.
11
I will answer in Russian because it seems that you know it well enough. I've translated some phrases which seem the most difficult to me. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
My wife is of Russian origin (we don't speak Russian at home, I've been trying to ask her but she always gets back to my native language)
У вас рядом есть носитель языка (...
9
English prepositions can do two jobs: 1) changing the noun like "on the floor", and 2) changing the verb like "to get out". Unlike English ones, Russian prepositions do only 1). For 2) we use verb prefixes exclusively.
This concept presents in many languages and even in English you sometimes say "bypass" or "foresee" ...
7
Wiktionary has IPA for most Russian words.
6
I feel I can relate to where you come from a little.
I am a programmer who has a wife who came from a foreign country and speaks a foreign language. She is from the U.S. and we speak English at home.
Soon we will have our first born and the common tongue will be English. Plus, I will teach him some Korean (my native language) so he can talk to his grandpa.
...
6
I'd say it depends on how you would react to a large number of minor differences. The way dative case endings change the preceding consonants in Ukrainian but not in Russian, the -тся/-ться distinction that Russian has and Ukrainian doesn't, and lots more like that. You might find it intellectually pleasurable to stay alert and always remember which is which,...
6
I highly recommend to read CocoPop's answer, since he is learning Russian, while most others are native speakers here.
Also you may want to check out Resources for learing Russian for educational podcasts.
I think you can listen to audiobooks. Narrators won't speak as fast as actors in a movies. Or you can search for a book that is read slowly. Or you can ...
6
My question, then, is this: How are Russian Orthodox priests educated with regards to the Russian recension of Church Slavonic? Do they learn it in the same way one might learn Latin or Ancient Greek (though with more attention to pronunciation than those languages typically receive)--i.e., rigorously studying the grammar and vocabulary? Or are they mainly ...
5
politically-neutral current news outlets and websites?
news aggregators:
news.yandex.ru
news.google.ru
not absolutely unbiased, but good for an alternative view:
BBC Russian
Reuters Russian
Deutsche Welle Russian
relatively balanced Russian:
Независимая Газета
UPDATE:
as to writers, I think it is unwise to limit your reading list to dissidents and ...
5
Words, Words, and more words—in my experience I needed to know 7–8,000 words before things became much easier. Maybe this isn't a problem for you, sorry :), but I think a lot of people can't understand a language simply because they don't know enough words. That doesn't mean one should just learn words—you have to listen and read too—but it's impossible to ...
5
Well, unless there are some Russian priests actually here, I doubt anyone else can provide you a full answer on such a detailed question. But yes, the grammars of CS and modern Russian differ much, so they must learn it more or less like Englishmen learn Latin.
Personally, I read book by Pletneva and Kravetskiy which, as the title says, was recommended for ...
5
Да, есть:
https://morpher.ru/accentizer
Если что, сайт и программу расстановки ударений разработал я.
4
For teaching resources, you should look at our resource page.
Use a course book
I would suggest that you go to any large bookshop and go through course books and find the one that you like the most. You should buy it (or maybe find it online) and follow it. All your students should have a copy of the book, or at least should keep the print-out pages you ...
4
As Artemix said, audiobooks (аудиокниги) may be very useful, but to my mind radio theatre (радиоспектакли), which is usually distinguished from audiobooks, would be more useful for training comprehension since in drama actors are talking with each other, while in audiobook a narrator just read exactly what was written in a book (often in language which is ...
4
I think you can use the method I practiced long ago when studying English. I took a bunch of songs of my favorite genre (rock) and found lyrics for all of them. Then read them carefully to understand the text and to remember it. Then I start to listen music and lyrics many times practicing my comprehension (knowing what words are to be heard) and, later, my ...
4
I am Ukrainian and yes I am bilingual. From what language start learning — it's dependent from your goal. If you need it for business or trip — you don't need to learn it both, just learn Russian language and anybody could understand you in any Slavic country.
If you want be professional in both — it's don't matter from which to start. They have similar ...
3
vk.com for one. It's a Russian Facebook clone which many people use as a Tumblr substitute (yours truly included). If you find someone you want to talk to, just exchange Skypes.
As to how to find talking partners, just browse the 'groups' ("Группы") and either search for English learners (then it'll be mutually beneficial), or for groups centred around your ...
3
Pretty much any more or less professional fontface for typing texts (not just fancy headers) supplies жирный, курсив and жирный курсив. So choose just any respectable serif font such as Cambria, Times New Roman or the like (Gothic fontfaces usually have only oblique option since it is against their nature to have a italic design)
If you mean handwriting, ...
3
If you chose between
Spending 5 weeks in a Russian speaking country
Not spending 5 weeks in a Russian speaking country
it would be a very good way to begin your studies!
OTOH, if you chose between
Spending 5 weeks in a Russian speaking country NOW
Spending 5 weeks in a Russian speaking country LATER
I would say that you should wait a bit, and get the ...
3
I believe that the main problem is the lack of self-confidence. That's not really a problem if your wife is speaking English to you. Just answer her in Russian.
It's great that you can mostly understand the posts written in Russian but it would be much better if you asked your question in it.
How to make yourself to believe you can talk Russian well, well, ...
3
i'm using English as a bridge
Using bridges brings too many problems. You could improve your English, but break up your Russian. Better not.
I've used this one month period just to break that initial barrier
I believe it's too early. You should be able at least to read and interpret "textbook-level" excerpts about one page long. Anyway, no one believes ...
3
The easiest way to start learning any language is to find a teacher or/and a course and join a target-language speaking community. Good books and motivation are also important.
Nowadays there is a possibility to study online via Skype, etc.
Self-study also helps, though not so efficiently as communicating people in Russian.
If you choose self-study, ...
2
:) To improve your listening skills I would really recommend listening to the dialogues. They are shorter than movies, so you can easily understand them. And for example, Ruspeach dialogues have both translations to 9 different languages and funny comics with them which improves understanding and makes it interesting. Besides they have little tests-games ...
2
Use the free Media Player Classic to watch some movies/shows with subtitles and slightly slowed down audio - MPC will slow down speech without making audio sound bassy.
2
Here are some links for you to look at some pictures that explain the general meaning of different prefixes. Fortunately, with verbs of motion these really have more or less fixed meanings.
http://learnrussian.rt.com/grammar-tables/verbs-of-motion-with-prefixes/
http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/vom.html
As for the overall use, I like this "...
2
The usual term in English is "verbs of motion" rather than "movement verbs". In any case, I think the best way to learn to use these is to use them a lot with native speakers. You could discuss traveling, going to other cities, arriving and departing, and so on.
There is a whole book on this topic: Russian Motion Verbs for Intermediate Students, by William ...
2
Being a Russian language teacher, I personally think that it is a good way to start learning Russian because it is an intensive language immersion, that can be very useful sometimes (it is something really individual though). After this intensive course, you will be able to continue learning Russian at your own pace.
However, I would recommend you to learn ...
2
The closest thing to a dictionary with transcription that I've found online is rhymes, which gives full declensions for nouns and adjectives, as well as full conjugations of verbs, and can optionally display pronunciation. However, the transcription is not IPA, but rather a cyrillic based system which you can easily learn.
When you enter a word, you have ...
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