Liudmila Culicova

Five Simple Keys to Learning Russian



Posted: Wednesday, February 02, 2011

by Liudmila Culicova

For most people, the common questions about learning a new language are; "Which manuals shall I use?" and "It looks so difficult, what shall I start with?"

We have outlined for you here some key steps to start learning Russian. Russian isn’t really so difficult, as you have ready tools in a software course.

Learn how to read the Cyrillic alphabet. If you learn Russian learn  characters, you will be able to read in Russian! Look at these characters, listen to the pronunciation. Associate sounds with images, recall letters again and again and you will memorize the alphabet quickly.

One more piece of advice: take a piece of paper, or start a separate notebook, and draw these intricate Cyrillic symbols. You even may use different color pencils for consonants and vowels! And it is fun!

Listen to beautiful melodic Russian songs! Why listen to songs? - Rhythm, repetition, melody and rhyme can all help activate your memory. Just realize how many ancient Greek stories were told by storytellers who relied solely on their memories. The use of rhyme and repetition helped the storytellers memorize these long stories.

Learn vocabulary in dialogues. Read and translate them to your native language. Start with asking for directions, order lunch in a café, have telephone conversations. It may be quite difficult to remember a large number of words from a long passage or dialogue, break up the information into small bits that you can learn one step at a time and you may be surprised at how easy it can be.

Hearing a native speaker is a great way to help you learn Russian. It will help you to not only remember the words, but it will also help you to say the words correctly. Once you feel more confident, you may start “live” communicating with native speakers.

Repetition is still a great approach to learning a new language. As new objects are added, the old objects are repeated. Learners can often remember a large number of objects this way. It helps with both pronunciation and vocabulary. Your objects may be a list of words, phrases, idioms or special terms. Copy down the words  that  you  hear online. Try to remember 3 items on your list without looking, then add the 4th, repeat the list from the beginning, add the 5th, the 6th and repeat again. Go on this way.

All these keys are good for learning any language online, but   for   learning Russian are a challenge you can do to make your experience easier and more enjoyable.
Liudmila Culicova is a freelance writer and an art historian.  She studied arts at the S-Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts.

Liudmila Culicova writes about travel in Russia. To request your free article click here.

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