Well, I'm currently trying to teach myself how to speak, read, and write Russian. I was having a bit difficulty with the pronunciation at first, but I'm getting better. The reading and writing part is kicking my ass due to it being so different from English. Can anyone here recommend some learning tools that are preferably computer based that I can use to learn and practice what I've learned? I'd appreciate any help. -- CK
What is great about Russian is that everything is usually pronounced the way it is written. So once you've learned the cyrillic alphabet you can read the notes you made out loud while traveling and be understood no problems. I shared a room with a russian guy in boarding school who told me the cyrillic alphabet and some basic expressions. Sorry if I am of little help. How about Assimil effortless Russian?
If anyone can help me pronounce здравствуйте, I'll give you cookie. Rosetta Stone just sucks for russian, I'm pronouncing it exactly the way it's saying it, and it keeps telling me it's wrong. So I play a google audio recording for it, and that's wrong, fml.
www.forvo.com is a great website to help you learn a language, almost any popular language. They feature recordings from users, natives and foreigners, pronouncing the words. So you can learn the pronunciation from a native speaker, then upload your own recording and let the users rate your pronunciation.
Seems neat, I'll look into it, I appreciate it. Sadly, my Russian vocab is probably that of a 3 year old.
In Soviet Russia, Russian learn you! On a more serious note, my suggestion for learning a language's alphabet is to do what you did in 1st grade, trace all of the letters out over and over again. To read, just get a Russian for Dummies book. To pronunciate, if you don't plan on going to Russia soon, go to .ru sites and look for videos of people speaking; which is why learning Latin is a dick.. Haha yea best advice I can give.
