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Hi, my name is Spencer. I'm a CS graduate focused on systems programming, Linux, and low-complexity design. Other interests: metal, hiking, guitar, rationality.

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[Part 2] Learning Russian: Change of Plans

Calendar icon September 20, 2020

Clock icon 2 min read

Folder icon #russian #vocabulary #cyrillic #learning #pronunciation in language

RT’s Learn Russian

RT’s Russian course does not have working audio anymore. I wrote to their support email address to ask if it would be fixed and was told that the project is no longer maintained and will not be updated. As a result, I have decided to go with the RussianLessons.net website instead.

Progress

Pronunciation

I’ve become comfortable with most of the alphabet and can sound out Russian words written in Cyrillic, albeit slowly. So far, emphasis and stress has been the hardest part of pronouncing words for me. The letter ‘o’ always gets me as it is pronounced like the English ‘a’ when it is not stressed. I am not comfortable with the hard and soft sign characters yet. Otherwise, listening to Russian speech should help me find the rhythm of words.

Vocabulary

I can now count to ten, and have learned a few words such as Спасибо (thank you), Привет (informal greeting), хорошо (good). Before I began studying, I really only knew да (yes), нет (no), and товарищ (comrade, thanks Hogan’s Heroes). I recognized the word спасибо (thanks) in a Батюшка (I can now pronounce that) song, but noticed that it sounds more like “спасубо” and I wonder if it’s just the manner of singing or if the word is slightly different in Old Church Slavonic.

Observations

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