I want to read Dosto and Tolstoy and all the other rooskie greats in their native form. I speak a good amount of Russian as it is but never formally learned grammar or how to read and write. Anyone here know of any resources/recommendations to learn?
t. retarded Amerislav
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>but never formally learned grammar or how to read and write
the American education system is worse than first thought
First thought was probably about food anyway.
Are your parents Russian? Mine spoke to me in Russian a lot when I was young so I can understand it when spoken but don't know the first thing about writing/reading it
It's always funnt to me when people learn russian to read their books. That's the one tradituon where it's fine to just read them in translation.
>Are your parents Russian? Mine spoke to me in Russian a lot when I was young so I can understand it when spoken but don't know the first thing about writing/reading it
I am in the same boat.
I assume you are being pedantic and suggesting mine was a general statement. I forgot the word it at the end. I concede to your hilarity.
the new penguin russian course isnt bad. i study russian in uni and im currently using "russian: from intermediate to advance" by olga kagan which i've found pretty good. a handbook of russian verbs by frank miller was incredibly helpful as well. i dunno im drunk and that shit is hard when u really get into it
oh boy, Dosto and Tolstoy both have a large amount of obsolete vocabulary in their texts so even if you learn contemporary russian still it will be hard enough to read them
I agree that the effort isn't worthy but I'm curious about that remark "one tradition where it's fine to just read them in translation" of yours. Is it because they were exhaustively translated?
>herritagefags
Just Americanize already, your parents left that shithole so you could have a good life and not waste it in Russia.
they left Russia because they were not worthy
Sounds good, but we both know it's not true.
In addition to whatever resources you find for grammar and such, look into bilingual editions. I'm sure there are some good ones.
Here you go OP.
I agree, my mom even calls Russia a shithole and says she will never go back and won't allow me to travel there. But it's still nice to be able to connect with your culture
Bitchin', thanks user! This is really good.
>a handbook of russian verbs by frank miller
>That's the one tradituon where it's fine to just read them in translation.
You will never know how horrible Dosto's prose is unless you read it in Russian.
You will never know anything about Pushkin unless you read him in Russian.
I used to date a Russian chick a few years ago and she kinda encouraged me and helped me with the language.
I gave up once we stopped dating and i had to learn grammar by myself.
I always thought Richard Stallman's approach to learning language was interesting, and is obviously effective as he lectures in other languages regularly.
>I have developed a way of learning a language that works for me.
>First I study with a textbook to learn to read the language, using a recording of the sounds to start saying the words to myself. When I finish the textbook, I start reading children's books (for 7-10 year olds) with a dictionary. I advance to books for teenagers when I know enough words that it becomes tolerably fast.
>When I know enough words, I start writing the language in email when I am in conversations with people who speak that language.
>I don't try actually speaking the language until I know enough words to be able to say the complex sorts of things I typically want to say. Simple sentences are almost as rare in my speech as in this writing. In addition, I need to know how to ask questions about how to say things, what a word means, and how certain words differ in meaning, and how to understand the answers.
>I first started actually speaking French during my first visit to France. I decided on arrival in the airport that I would speak only French for the whole 6 weeks. This was frustrating to colleagues whose English was much better than my French. But it enabled me to learn.
>I decided to learn Spanish when I saw a page printed in Spanish and found I could mostly read it (given my French and English). I followed the approach described above, and began speaking Spanish during a two-week visit to Mexico, a couple of years later.
>As for Indonesian, I have not got enough vocabulary to speak it all the time when in Indonesia, but I try to speak it as much as possible.
This is a good advice. Thanks for sharing.
> Зaмeчaтeльный pyccкий paccкaз 20 вeкa
Ironically, that's not how you name your book in Russian.
“The Great Something Something” form doesn't exist in Russian in that context. «Beликиe yмы» is a suitable translation for a piece called “The Great Minds”, and a regular compilation album name is «Лyчшee» (“The Best”), but in literature it can only be «избpaннoe» (“selected”). «Зaмeчaтeльный» can be your personal opinion of something, but using it in a title gives it an attitude of curiosity.
Switching to singular «paccкaз» from plural “short stories” has actually made it worse. «Pyccкий paccкaз 20 вeкa» is OK, it just feels more formal and professional than the plural form, which is also OK. (“French tapestry of the late XIV century” is a conference title, “French tapestries of the late XIV century” is how you describe what you study to a stranger.) However, the singular form denotes the phenomenon as a whole (“our topic is ‘Russian short story of the 20th century’, and here are some notable examples”), and it can't be accompanied by qualifying adjective. Therefore, «Зaмeчaтeльный pyccкий paccкaз 20 вeкa» is wrong, «Избpaнный pyccкий paccкaз 20 вeкa» is also wrong, while «Pyccкий paccкaз 20 вeкa» and «Избpaнныe pyccкиe paccкaзы 20 вeкa» are suitable translations for that book's title.
it also could be just "pyccкиe paccкaзы XX вeкa"
(in Russian it is uncommon to use arabic numbers to denote a specific century)
I think it's significant that he's talking about French and Spanish and other romance languages. Indonesian is apparently very easy, so we'll see how it goes. But, in any case, I strongly disagree with the "read/write first; speak later" philosophy. Anyone atuned to poetry (or versed in Nietzsche) can tell you precisely how important sounds are to language. I may be subjecting myself to a Derridean critique, but I seriously distrust the notion of "academic German." Without an ear, you'll be missing tones, registers, rhythms, etc. and, to my mind, missing the point. One has to learn all four aspects of a language simultaneously to develop the connection.
His method has an intuitive appeal in that it mirrors a child's actual linguistic development, but I think the correspondence is superficial. For example, children's books usually extensively feature onomatopoeia words that don't actually get used much in adult speech. The point is not so much to teach children vocabulary as to atune them to flows, rhythms, etc. and to form a mental link between characters and sounds.
Whatever language you learn using this method will surely be stilted. Less so in languages similar to your own where expressions, rhthyms, etc. share a family resemblance, but more so in vastly different languages.
Sounds are especially important in Russian. Americans especially sound fucking stupid because they don't pay attention to stress - which is often shifting. Russian pronunciation follows the written form closer than English, but not so closely that knowing how a word is spelled means knowing precisely how it is pronounced.
tl;dr - if you want to learn Russian (especially to read novels), don't follow this advice. Listen and speak as often as possible and be vigilant about proper pronunciation.
What I've heard about Russian is that all the difficulty if front-loaded. It is considered a difficult language for Anglos to learn, but it's also very straight-forward.
Since you can already speak it I would just grab a popular grammar book and start plugging away.
>I don't smile artificially for photos because such photos look puerile to me. Old photos from before 1950 seem much more digified, and I'd rather be photographed that way.
I also refuse to smile when taking photographs. Makes me more photogenic
I get about writing, takes more effort/skill but you should have no problem reading if you can speak it. I guess it's easier for south slavic languages where it's pronounced exactly how it's written.
>What I've heard about Russian is that all the difficulty if front-loaded.
not really. beyond a layer of recent loanwoards from english (кoмпьютep and so on) and a slightly less recent one of french words that also ended up in english (the names of the months etc) you'll encounter a vast foundation of vocab that might technically be indo-european except no-one but a trained linguist can tell. to an english speaker it's just an endless well of completely unfamiliar words to memorize. then you have the byzantine grammar where you'll be getting things wrong even after years of study. oh and a ton of unfamiliar sounds that are hard for the average anglo to even hear the differences between let alone reproduce so you'll never not sound like a retard to a native speaker.
I can understand spoken russian and select the proper spellings but the cyrillic alphabet is just alien to me.
it's not perfect by any means (and the try hard pseuds will hate on me for this) but as a Russian language student I use duolingo to supplement and practice a lot. Buying a Russian textbook to use along with that will definitely help. Also watch as much Russian media as you can (subtitles or not).
I don't not sound like no retard in English as well
>it's easier for south slavic languages where it's pronounced exactly how it's written
i don't speak anything south slavic but from my experience every kind of slav always claims their language is totally phonetic and they're all lying. why is eгo pronounced eвo, russkies? or hey pollacks, why is rz two sounds in "marznąć" but a completely different single sound in "marzyć"? phonetic my ass
fuck you double negatives are boss
They don't not sound like they're not being spoken by no not retard
Then it’s a good thing that no one outside of Russia gives the slightest shit about Pushkin.
>reading translations
>tfw desperately want to escape the mediocrity of this meme
>learning new stuff is hard
Reading translations is fine. But anglos should at least know how to read French and German as well.
They'd be better off learning Mandarin, Arabic, and whatever the hell Indians speak.
Why? All those languages are inferior to English, French and German in every conceivable manner.
The implication was one of utility. Few people will be speaking English French and German in the not so distant future. I suppose Russian actually might have some utility since it'll be the only white nation state standing, or what'll pass for one anyway.
>Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber, Golden Lotus
>inferior in every conceivable manner
>i love ulysses
>i love gravitys rainbow!
>these books are so fucking good
>you're a brainlet if you don't think so
