Added: 12/04/2005 |
Learn Russian deliberatelyThe Russian language is the official language of the country of Russia. There are many reasons to learn Russian language. Russian is spoken as the first language by over 160 million people. Russian is also widely spoken in the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern and Central Europe, where many people learn Russian as a second language in schools. In addition, Russian is one of the official languages of the United Nations (along with English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic).
Russian belongs to the East Slavic branch of the Slavic subfamily of Indo-European languages. Other languages in this group include Belorussian and Ukrainian. Linguists believe that the Slavic languages have retained the features of the original Proto-Indo-European language to a much greater extent than have the Germanic and Romance languages. Today's written script exists since 1918, but goes back to the original Cyrillic alphabet. It contains 33 letters, 21 of which transmit consonant sounds, 6 - vowel sounds, and 4 combinations of [j] and a vowel sound. The Cyrillic alphabet was created in the 9th century based on the Greek written language by adding several letters. The spoken Slavic languages show a great deal of similarity to each other. So, for some people it is not so difficult to learn Russian.
As you learn Russian vocabulary, you will notice some words that bear a resemblance to English. But be on your guard against false resemblances! For example, the Russian word replica means "report" or "stage cue." The word is actually means "from" in Russian! And the Russian word sam is pronounced just like the English word "some," but means "by himself."
Many people who learn Russian agree that one of the most difficult aspects of Russian to master is the correct placement of stress within words. The stress is mobile, and does not follow strict rules. In the Russian language, nouns (as well as adjectives, and most pronouns) decline in six cases. Because Russian is so highly inflected, the word order in Russian sentences is fluid (unlike in English). The declined endings of Russian nouns identify the subject and the direct and indirect objects, as well as other meanings.
Russian verbs possess a feature called "aspect." The aspect can be perfective or imperfective, showing perpetual action and action that is completed. A variety of prefixes that help create perfective verbs can let a single Russian verb convey shades of meaning that frequently require several words in English, or defy translation altogether.
On the reason that the Russian alphabet is so different from the English letters, for instance, and because Russian pronunciation is fairly difficult to master, regular practice is necessary to learn Russian well. That's why good Russian software and other Russian products can be so important. It's easy to learn Russian and to begin to speak Russian with the language resources and Russian language software from Transparent Language, as an example. With RussianNow!, Before You Know It, PDQ Russian, and other language learning products, you will speak Russian, learn Russian alphabet, understand Russian grammar, and master Russian pronunciation very quickly.
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