Final Post

Final Post

Well, it's the end of my passion project, so now I took the time to think and remember all that I did during my project.

Frankly, I'm really happy with my progress through the project for a few reasons:

- I learnt a new language that I previously knew little about

- I met some of my goals for the project

- I enjoyed learning russian and plan to continue

Throughout the project, I also managed to connect my project to a few biblical through lines, such as:

- Order-discovering: I learnt about grammar, spelling, etc. of the Russian language, and I enjoyed it.

- Community-building: Now that I know a new language, I can expand my social group slightly larger than if I only knew one language.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog and(maybe) learning with me.

до свидания

Good-bye

Third Lesson

After studying and memorizing the pronunciations of the letters in the Cryllic (Russian) alphabet, I moved on to basic Russian phrases.

The first set of phrases I learnt were introductory statements, both those you use with new acquaintances and good friends. The main phrases are as follows:

 Здравствуйте (pronounced: zdra-stvooytye)
- used in a formal setting, means "hello"
     When to use it: talking to a stranger, your boss/teacher, or someone you don't know very well

Меня зовут... ( pronounced: men-ya za-voot)
- used in any setting, means "my name is..."
      When to use: Whenever you first meet someone

A как вас зовут (pronounced: a kak vas za-voot)
- used in a formal setting, means " What is your name?"
       When to use: asking for someone's name in a formal manner ex. In a workplace or a classroom

Очень приятно (pronounced: ochen pree-yatna). 
- used in a formal setting, means "pleased to meet you"
        When to use: after someone introduces themselves to you

Мне тоже (pronounced: mn-ye tazh-ye)
- used in a formal setting, means "nice to meet you, too"
         When to use it: after someone uses Очень приятно

До свидания (pronounced: da svedin-ya)
- used in a formal setting, means "good-bye"
         When to use it: when you finish your conversation

Как дела? (pronounced: kak dyela)
- used it any setting, means "How are you?"
         When to use it: at any point in a conversation

Привет (pronounced: pree-vet)
- Used in an informal setting, means "Hi"
          When to use it: When you greet a good friend

Как тебя зовут? (pronounced: kak tyebya zavoot)
- Used in an informal setting, means "What is your name?"
          When to use it: When meeting someone at a party, school, etc.

Пока (pronounced: paka)
-Used in an informal setting, means "Bye"
          When to use it: When saying a quick good-bye to a friend

And that pretty much sums up all the basic Russian introductory phrases...
I hoped you enjoyed the post and I hope to share some more of my learning with you soon.

Second Lesson

This lesson is the second half of the first lesson I gave you and it will cover the remaining Cyrillic symbols in the russian alphabet.

First we will cover the letters that look different/weird, but sound like english letters

Б - "B" as in bat
Д - "G" as in guy
З - "Z" as in zoo
Л - "L" as in lazy
П - "P" as in pot
Ф - "F" as in federal
Ы - "I" as in bit
Э - "E" as in bet

The next russian letters look different/weird and have new sounds as well.

Ё - "yo" as in yonder
Ж - "zh" sound, like in beige
И - "ee" sound as in taxi
Ц - "ts" sound as in sits
Ч - "ch" sound as in chip
Ш - "sh" sound as in shut
Щ - "shch" sound, produced by saying "sh" with tongue on the roof of your mouth
Ю - "yoo" as in universe

And the final two letters are the pronunciation letters

Ь - Hard letter, used to seperate two words, indicates slight pause
Ъ - Soft letter, makes the previous consonant softer

And now combine this lesson with the first and you have: The Russian Cyrillic alphabet!

If you want further learning, I have sites listed in my resource page, but I will also include a link to a Russian Pronunciation guide sheet below.

http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/language/russian-alphabet.html

I hope you enjoyed the lesson, keep checking back for more progress reports and lessons

До свидания, Все (goodbye,everyone)

God and Russian

In the last few weeks, I have continued learning about the Russian language. I also continue to be interested in the different words and unique sounds I learn about in this new and foreign language. Throughout my learning, I saw God's plan for language and the greater purposes of language: Community building and Order Discovering.

Language is a great way for people to connect with each other and form a tight community, after all, knowing a region's language can help you become connected to that community better than if you didn't know its local language. God wants us to build community with each other so that we can spread his message of love to everyone, including those who speak foreign languages. So, knowing a few different languages can greatly increase a person's ability to spread the message to a vast audience and allow him/her to become connected to a population.

Language also has it's own order to it, shown through it's spelling and grammar rules. This order may be hard to understand at first, but when you understand it, a language can begin to make sense to you. I feel that God gave us this feeling of order to help us better co-operate with each other, after all, it's hard to get along when people can't even agree on how to spell or even pronounce a word.

That's why I feel that learning a language demonstrates these two elements of faith.

First Lesson

Hello everyone,

I have been practicing and learning new russian letters the last few weeks and am now ready to share my learning with you.

There are 31 different letters and 2 pronunciation letters in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
They are as follows:

А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я

In the previous list you may notice some letters that look the same and some completely new looking letters. So I have decided to divide them into 4 sub-categories (I will cover two this post):

-Letters that look and sound similar (ex. A, K,...)
-Letters that look the same, but have different sounds (B, E,...)
-Letters that look weird, but sound like english letters ( Г, Л,....)
-Letters that look weird and have new sounds ( Ж, Ч,...)

First, the letters that look and sound the same:

-A: gives an 'ah' sound like in father or talk.
-K: gives a 'k' sound like in car or cat.
-M: gives a 'm' sound like in man or moon.
-T: gives a 't' sound like in today or top.

Next, the letters that look the same, but sound different:

-B: gives a 'v' sound like in vitamin or vet (B=V)
-E: gives a 'ye' sound like in yelp or yeti.
-H: gives a 'n' sound like in no or next (H=N)
-O: gives a 'o' sound, like in bore, when stressed (о) and a lax 'uh' sound when unstressed (o)
-P: gives a 'r' sound, but is rolled (P=R)
-C: gives a 's' sound like in snake or sit (C=S)
-У: gives an 'oo' sound like in boot or shoot.
-X: gives a 'h' sound, but often pronounced more like a 'ch' sound in Bach or loch.

If you want to cement your learning I would also suggest both practicing some of my excersises i will type for you below or visit either this site or this one for some practice (please notice some of these sites are more advanced than what I have taught so far).

Pronounce from russian to english (ex. PAT= RAT)
CAT  TYP   CAK

Convert english to russian (ex. RAT=PAT)
YET   CORE   ROOT

Try inventing your own phrases in either russian-->english or vice versa too

Thanks for checking in, I'll post the next 'half' of the lesson soon.

Welcome, Comrades

Privet, or hello, everyone.

First, I'd like to say thanks for visiting this page, and I hope that you will continue to follow my posts. I will post content weekly, if I can, and try to give you lots of helpful tips and resources in your, and my, journey to learn Russian.

Spasibo, or thank-you, for visiting.

Robert K.

Chief Editor