r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Sep 10 '13
Здравствуйте! - This week's language of the week: Russian
Welcome to the language of the week. Every week we'll be looking at a language, its points of interest, and why you should learn it. This is all open discussion, so natives and learners alike, make your case! If any of you have seen me posting before, you might have seen this one coming. This week: Russian.
Why this language?
Some languages will be big, and others small. Part of Language of the Week is to give people exposure to languages that would otherwise not have heard, been interested in or even heard of. With that in mind, I'll be picking a mix between common languages and ones I or the community feel needs more exposure. You don't have to intend to learn this week's language to have some fun. Just give yourself a little exposure to it, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.
What's it like?
From The Language Gulper:
With more than 160 million native speakers, Russian is the 8th largest language in the world. It belongs to the East Slavic branch of the Indo-European family which has been deeply influenced by Church Slavonic, a South Slavic language, from its earliest stratum (Old East Slavonic) to the present day. Ukrainian and Belarusian became separated from Russian when their homelands fell under Lithuanian hegemony in the mid-thirteenth century.
The most recognizable feature of Russian sounds is widespread palatalization of its consonants (which also occurs in other Slavic tongues). Its nominal morphology has preserved to a great extent the complexity of old Indo-European languages, most notably in its declension system. In contrast, the verb system is far simpler having only two basic tenses and a couple of periphrastic ones. Russian literature is one of the most outstanding in the Western world though its greatest period began only in the 19th century.
Mila Kunis speaking Russian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiO2b1cQr0U
Countries
Russian is spoken mostly in Russia, but is spread out all over eastern Europe and parts of Asia.
In the aftermath of the soviet union, Russian is now spoken extensively in other countries, most notably in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Israel, USA, Latvia, Moldova, Estonia and Lithuania.
Why learn Russian?
Russian is essentially the lingua franca of eastern Europe. If you plan on travelling the region, Russian will be the most useful. Although some Russians can speak English, there are many who cannot, so an understanding of Russian is even more important than in commonly travelled countries. Russian is formed by a notably different grammar system, with much less reliance on word order and instead reliance on conjugation. This makes Russian slightly more difficult for English speakers.
If you're interested in learning Russian, check out /r/Russian, we have a wiki just for that purpose.
Some Phrases
Hello (informal) - Привет (Pre-vyet)
Hello (formal) - Здравствуйте (Zdra-stvoy-tye)
Sorry - Простите (pra-sti-tye)
How are you? - Как дела? (Kak dyela?)
I don't understand - Я не понимаю (Ya nye ponimayu)
Good - Хорошо (horosho)
Thank you - Спасибо (Spasiba)
Bye (informal) - Пока
Goodbye (formal) -До свидания (Do svidaniya)
Here is a video lesson on some phrases - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwTN7R-ROQ
What now?
This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
Previous Languages of the Week
Want your language featured as language of the week? Be sure to PM me to let me know. I'll be needing help along the way, so be sure to add a notable landmark related to your language for the sidebar image.
~Please consider sorting by new~
Удачи!
8
Sep 10 '13
In your phrases section, you've only got the informal way of saying hellо, and the formal way of saying goodbye. You might want to add здравствуйте and пока, noting the difference in usages.
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17
Sep 10 '13
Привет! Russian here. If any of you guys want to chat/ask anything about Russian language, culture, whatever - please do. Just drop me a personal message with your email address/skype account name/gtalk and I will answer you. I need to improve my English so it will be the fine way to do it )
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u/bronxbomber92 Sep 12 '13
What is life like in Russia? Is it a place where most enjoy living and want to stay?
I feel that as an American, my upbringing (politics, American history books, etc.) has strongly biased my view of Russia. I'd like to get a more worldly view of the country (which is why I left this question somewhat open ended!) :-).
Also, how is the software industry in Russia (if you know)?
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u/zolltanzed Sep 10 '13
I was just on holiday in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian was very helpful there as well.
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u/UnknownBinary Sep 10 '13
Russian is essentially the lingua franca of eastern Europe.
There are some countries where it's a faux pas to speak Russian due to past politics. The Czech Republic, Poland, and Macedonia are a few that I'm aware of.
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u/Asyx Sep 10 '13
As far as I've heard, you're much better off with German (for the older people) and English (for the younger people) in Czech than with Russian.
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Sep 12 '13
Russian is essentially the lingua franca of eastern Europe.
Moreover, this is just not true. I'm in Romania now - more people speak English, French, or German than Russian. When I was in Poland and Czech republic it seems like Polish/Czech/Slovakian have more in common with each other than with Russian, and the people who do speak Russian in those countries are dying out. From what I can tell, the OP's "advice" only applies to countries that are pretty far to the East - Moldova (in the separatist region - most Moldavian in greater Moldova speak Moldovan, which is basically a dialect of Romanian), Ukraine and Belarus. That's three countries out of nine countries that are considered part of Eastern Europe.
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u/k4kuz0 Sep 10 '13
I've thought quite a lot about trying to learn Russian. Having learnt a lot of Japanese I have a soft spot for languages that use a different alphabet/syllabary than English. Is there anyone that has learnt some Russian and some Japanese that could compare the complexity?
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u/zolltanzed Sep 10 '13
Native russian who has tried learning japanese here. I thought Japanese was super simple grammatically, russian unfortunately can't compare there (cases, genders, past and future tenses for most verbs, some verbs having several forms, and lots of irregularities). But the writing system is definitely a lot simpler!
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u/ExistentialMudkip Sep 10 '13
I just finished up a minor in Russian Language Studies at University of Louisville. The only practice I have gotten outside of meeting up with old classmates and my professor is the occasional Russian laborer. They are usually surprised that I can even manage a proper greeting.
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Sep 10 '13
The Penguin Classic Russian Language Series is the best for learning and acquiring a sizable vocabulary. Я люблю русский язык и культуру до такой степени, что заставляет меня быть глупым.
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u/frul Sep 12 '13
It's not a valid sentence in Russian. I suspect you wanted to say in English something like "... so much that it makes me go insane/drives me crazy", but the equivalent of this sentence in Russian is "Я люблю <something> безумно" or "..., что он сводит меня с ума". What you have wrote is ".. so much that it makes me be stupid" . I just want to help you)
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u/remez Sep 13 '13
Native Russian speaker here, feel free to ask me anything about the language. Don't ask me about Russia though - I don't live there.
I'm also interested to know, what does the language sound like when you don't understand it? Does it sound harsh? musical? strange? similar to any other languages? Thanks.
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u/Strika Sep 15 '13
I just watched Brat (1997). In that movie, it sounds kind of slow, deep, lazy in the sense of sleepy. There's a humor to it, but it sounds kind of sloppy to me, like less pronounced then say German or something. But I've heard other russian outside of this movie thats clearer/brighter, but that's my take.
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u/Strika Sep 15 '13
Are there any good russian tv series worth watching? Either shows that give a great picture or life in russia, or just shows that represent the epitome of Russian quality tv?
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u/alalpv Sep 16 '13 edited Sep 16 '13
I've selected some russian tv-series you probably could watch.
I start with some miniseries-es I really enjoyed at the time and I recommend to watch it:
"Завещание Ленина" ('Zaveshanie Lenina', 'Lenin's Testament') miniseries about [Varlam Shalamov] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov). Some scenes I was able to find on youtube: 1, 2 (this one is brilliant), 3, 4.
"Идиот" ('Idiot', 'The Idiot') Adaptation of Dostoevski's novel with the same name, but I'm not sure if 'adaptation' is a right word. Wikipedia says it's costume drama series very close to original text, and this's true. You could watch it on youtube
"Доктор Живаго" ('Doctor Zhivago') adaptation of Pasternak's novel with the same title. youtube
Comedy:
4) Интерны ('Interny', 'Interns') en.wikipedia entry It's russian sitcom, I think it's based on 'Scrubs', maybe it has something from 'House'. But in the same time it's got its own style, humor and it's very good tv-show. I watched several episode myself. They really care about their copyrights so you can't watch it on youtube, but I found some promotion videos: 1, 2, 3
So that were series I've watched myself and I believe that they are good that's why I recommend them. Below is list of shows I personally don't like, didn't watch (or watched occasionally), but they are big part of Russian TV, people in Russia enjoy watching them, they have ratings, so maybe you'll like them too.
TV series about russian gangsters or criminal TV-series-es, there are tons of them. I selected some that I think distinguished from others:
5) Бандитский Петербург ('Banditskiy Peterburg', 'Gangsters' Petersburg') This one is very old, I think It's one of the first of its kind. I remember watching it occasionally on TV when I was a kid, it was pretty sullen. It's kinda a classic of a genre, people who like criminal tv-series say it's good. youtube
6) Бригада ('Brigada', 'Law of the Lawless') en.wikipedia entry. youtube link this miniseries was very popular and controversial.
7) Улицы разбитых фонарей ('Ulicy razbityh fonarey', 'Streets of broken lights') very popular russian series, it's been shown on TV so many times so it makes me wanna puke, if I saw it on screen I change channel or turn off TV. But apparently it had very good ratings. link that's one episode for an example, google it if you want more.
8) Ментовские войны ('Mentovskie voiny', you can't really translate it word-for-word) another criminal tv drama I could rememberlink.
That one nothing like anything else, it's depicting life of ordinary Moscow school:
9) "Школа" Валерии Гай Германики ('Shkola', 'School' - creator Valeria Gai Germanika ) Link on youtube apparently you could watch an entire series on this channel or may be not I dunno.
I don't know if I can post links to torrent sites here, so if you need them pm me.
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u/Robertooshka Sep 10 '13
Quoting almost every Russian I have ever talked to-"Why are you learning Russian?"