Zdraste! 9 months ago you lovely folks in this sub taught me how to introduce myself and explain where I'm from before I knew any Russian. I'm hoping for some guidance once more.
I took my Russian learning seriously last month with 30 days of Duolingo, and over a week of Busuu.
Someway, somehow, I can read Cyrillic (but I pronounce the words horribly, apparently), yet I understand nothing! Am I going about my learning wrong? Is it normal to be able to read this soon with basically 0 vocabulary? Am I overreacting? Any advice?
Pic was drawn by me, and is somewhat unrelated.
I caп vead bиt doп't undevstand
Brat!
O donta want a wisconsin beer brat donta know?
Moa tvoa ne ponimat, bozar na normalnom, ekdrnai babai. Blin.
yes it's normal to know the alphabet before knowing what words mean. children learning languages learn the same way, e.g. they will understand C-A-T before working out that it says 'cat'
You just woke up a memory of me being in the 1st grade knowing how to spell “Spider-Man” but not knowing how to read “Spider-Man” Good times.
Okay, so I am indeed overreacting. Bless my poor heart. Thank you!
I don't think you know the alphabet though
It's expected because the cyrillic alphabet is not difficult to learn, but also you should work on correctly writing because you are confusing letters у and ч as well as и and н. Also, the hard and soft signs are mandatory to write in words that have them.
It is better to learn the alphabet first so you can memorize vocabulary normally instead of using transliterated versions.
Sounds like I wrote a grammatical nightmare. Can you let me know the correct way I should have written the statement?
Also, thank you, I'll keep what you said in mind.
((Edit))
God I want to burn my sketch out of embarrassment now lol
Spelling wise (wonky letters bolded)
✗ я уmею уитат ио ие пониmаю
✓ я умею читать но не понимаю
Your comment explained everything the clearest, I appreciate it,
...I shall go back to my lessons in shame now XD
nay! go back in pride of the difficult task of: risking being wrong, trying, then asking for & accepting help on your journey forward! None should journey alone, for its up to the journeymen and masters to help guide the apprentices along the way!
learning is a thing to be proud of
No shame, only struggle. Life is grey and dull and full of hardship. Толко по трудовой роботы можно построить новый мир. Вперёд, брат.
Did you use "роботы" (robots) intentionally, or did you want to say "work"?
Your phrase looks odd but also kinda cute either way. Except in one case it motivates humans to work more, and in the other case it says that only robots, not humans, are capable of achieving anything!
Dude, this guy meant the word "рАботы",in the sense of "work",he was just in a hurry to write his message and accidentally...
Shouldn't it be "понимаю"?
Ooops yes I mixed the two lines up originally and missed that
Без проблем! I'm just glad I knew enough Russian to catch the mistake. :D
Other commenters explained well but also these are basically orthographical errors not grammatical. Try doing some tracing of written Russian letters (not typed) to get used to handwriting, because some letters can be easily confused (for example you wrote т instead of м, because the written form of т looks similar to an English written m).
я умею читать но не понимаю
you wrote я утею уитат ио ие понитаю (complete nonsense)
at the second word you used a way of writing т (the letter T) instead of м (letter M; умею), third word you used a у (letter U) instead of ч (tsch sound; читать), last word once more a т (letter T) instead of м (letter M; понимаю)
It’s not a grammatical nightmare. It’s just similar letters that were misused. It’s okay for someone who’s in the language just a little bit deep.
the sketch is very cute btw, better save it for the future:)
also forgot, wherever you have used Н (n), it is better to write it how you see it, with the line in the middle centered, like in this comment and how you did the lowercase ones, otherwise it turns to И (i)
Ие умеете вы уитат.
Duolingo isn't sufficient to learn Russian, and it is extremely slow. The Duolingo course spends weeks teaching you the Cyrillic alphabet without giving you any prompts beyond "Тим и Том там". I don't have any experience with Busuu.
Learning Cyrillic can be a matter of just a few days. Being able to read it without having a vocabulary is perfectly normal - how do you want to build a vocabulary if you cannot read/write the words?
Find a teacher or - probably much cheaper - a textbook that has an actual curriculum and explains the pronunciation and grammar rules to you.
In your pic, уитат should be читать (you confused the first letter and used 3rd person singular instead of infinitive), and Ио Ие should be но не (again, confused letters)
The alphabet is the easiest part. The hardest part is literally everything else. I could once only phonetically read and understand nothing. This is a very normal rite of passage.
The other thing I have noticed, with Russian particularly, is that there seems to very much be this widespread rush to learn it by tomorrow morning at 6 AM. This language in particular is extremely humbling and all but demands patience and persistence. This is not a quickie in the laundry room language. It requires your full love and attention.
It took me anywhere from 18-30 months to even start to get my sea legs with it
Yup, that's why I was worrying if me knowing how to read Russian so soon was me inadvertently rushing through it.
I'm more than willing to put in the time for sure, even if it means writing more garbage like I did just now in order to learn from it.
Even when you actually begin to understand what the words are, due to the word order flexibility and the vast array of prefixes and forms and all that, it will take time to actually understand what is being said. As long as you embrace the journey and just do some every day (and personally, unlike others here, I find Duolingo to actually be a very suitable resource in concert with others due to the repetitive drilling and exposure), you’ll eventually start picking up way more than you actively realize
I wouldn't consider understanding Cyrillic the same as reading Russian, but I know where you're coming from. With just 30 days of duolingo and a week of busuu, cyrillic and some basic words is really all you can expect to understand. You won't be able to properly understand and read Russian sentences for a while, unless you put in a lot of effort and hours (consuming russian media, reading textbooks, learning grammar, talking to speakers). Assuming English is your native language, it'll take around ~1,000 hours of intense studying to learn the language. I'm sure you'll see your understanding of Russian increase with time, you got this))
"Ya uteiu uitat io ie ponitaiu". That is what you wrote.
9 months and you can't write н correctly?
I only asked how to introduce myself 9 months ago. I started putting in the effort to learn a month ago.
Okay but like still. No offense intended
It was a mistake. I drew the sketch out of frustration at the end of a work day. I still accept all accountability and will redeem myself soon.
I look forward to it!
умешь читать, но не умешь писать) просто шучу, но в твоем предложении есть немного ошибки - между буквами "и" и "н", "ч" и"у", и т.д. но это не слишком большая проблема, мне кажеться что много из буквы русского языка иногда может сбивать с толку тех, кто к англискому языкам привыкли. на пример, для тебя, формы "и" и "н" выглядят несколько схожие, поэтому они может друг с другом путать.
и ты написал что умешь читать по-русски без понимание. ну, думаю что все нормально, для новичока. много людей, которые хотят учить языки, буду с тобой сочуствовать об этом, мне тоже. это обычное чувство)
you can read, but you can't write :) just kidding, but there are some mistakes in your sentence - between the letters "и" and "н", "ч" and "у", etc... but this isn't that big of a problem, it seems to me that many letters of the russian alphabet can sometimes be confusiong for those who are used to the english language. for example, for you, the forms of "и" and "н" appear somewhat similar, therefore they can be confused with eachother
and you wrote that you can read russian without any understanding. well, i think that this is all normal, for a beginner. many people who want to learm languages will sympathise with this, me as well. it's a very common feeling :)
I tried to improve my Japanese with Duolingo, but it gave me examples with errors. It might have the same problem with Russian.
So, are you a budding artist? Could you share a link to where you post your work?
Good luck with your language learning.
I realized that Duolingo wasn't the best at teaching basic grammar, so that's why I started Busuu, since I heard great things about the app, as well as there being opportunities for natives to give corrections.
As for my art, ehhh-... For now, I actively post random sketches on this Reddit account. I've only recently started sharing my art online so I can get over my nervousness and to prepare to start posting seriously this year. For now, I just have a YT channel where I posted a singular animation of my persona (this same character) a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/@Berylviana
That's about where I am, plus a decent (I think) understanding of basic grammar rules. I still need to look up most words I see but I think being able to read them and write them will help me a lot with learning and remembering more vocabulary going forward :3
You won't be learning how to speak Russian in a month lol. It's one of the most difficult languages to learn starting from English, but learning cyrillic is the first big hurdle. Just be sure not to confuse и and н like that.
I've been learning for maybe a year by myself and I know maybe 200 words, most grammar is still beyond me. But if you stick with it and buy textbooks/hire a tutor your learning will go faster.
A big thing that helps when learning any language is consuming media in that language. Try getting instagram or tiktok or what have you to recommend russian videos. Listening to Russian music also slaps, the post punk scene in eastern europe is incredible. I recommend Кино and Ploho as good entries to Russian music, Молчат Дома are also really big in English speaking countries now too and they're very good, sing slowly and (mostly) clearly.
So yeah just keep at it, don't be cocky and don't stop learning.
Да какая разница, если кошка имба
I think the translator butchered this sentence, but that's a bat (летучая мышь) with very big and fluffy hair, not a cat haha! What exactly were you trying to communicate?
I meant that if you can draw like that, you can solve any problem 🤣
Ohhhhh! "имба" was a slang! Everyday you learn something new, huh?
Thank you very, very much for the compliment! That's a good way of looking at things, learning to draw is already a challenge in itself, what's a little Russian learning then? lol
Yo ye lol it took me a minute to catch it
Ооо, чувак, у меня с инглишом так бывает, я думал никогла не встречу такого пня, как я, хы)
🤣🤣🤣 Not for long if we keep practicing!
Ну привет,начинающий русовед))) This is greetings from Russia, you probably met Russian people here) Let me teach you a little grammar. In Russian, there are parts of a word such as an ending, a word stem, a prefix, a root, and a suffix. Let's break down the word "school"; it's simple... The root is "shkol," the ending is "a," the basis of the word "shkola."... End:Only the last letter of the word, which changes depending on the case, is used. If we don't observe such endings, we still mark the empty ending; it is considered "zero." Root word: This is the whole word without ending. ...Good luck in learning Russian!...
We've got sorta similar issues 😂 only I can pronounce and spell really well, and even have come across a few comments/posts on VK that I could read and understand, but grammar is killing me.. 😔 and I don't think ill ever get how one word can have so many different spellings! Ie: grammar related.. 😂 let me know if ya have any luck, maybe we can correspond to understand this language! 👍
https://preview.redd.it/qp8dmvrjficg1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08d550c3e2264847355dc7e394599bdb5e8ffa49
That's exactly why you have two different tests: reading and comprehension
N looks like I bro, but otherwise it's okay
yes: reading, audition, speaking, writing and having a huge vocabulary are different skills and you have to train them separately via different activities (even if you're native and immersed in the language environment and can't notice this)
Nice pic ^
Да уж дружище, ситуация не из легких , как завещали нам предки век живи — век учись ты главное: семь раз отмерь — один раз отрежь, и потом, ты же знаешь что , работа не волк. Поэтому всё впереди, не всё коту масленица. Главное не сесть в лужу и не водить за нос людей. А остальное придет приданным.
Сказал как отрезал, по чаще бы таких людей встречать на просторах нашей необъятной, Глядишь и другие начнут увлекаться нашим языком
У меня то же самое с английским. Читать могу, даже быстро и с выражением, но не понимаю, что означает прочитанное. Учи значения слов, если хочешь понимать. Наверное, других вариантов нет.
Что там за второе слово? Чуток не так пишешь н и м, но почерк красивый