[Russian] Русский практика

[xrefation]

Originally Posted by Jessica

My name in Russian is...Джессика

is that correct?

yes that is correct

[Rusty]

Jessica, your name isn't Russian. However, it can be spelled using the Cyrillic alphabet (which is what you've done) and a native speaker of Russian will be able to read and pronounce your name, almost the way you're used to hearing it (but with a lovely Russian accent).

That spelling, by the way, is the nominative case, or subject, form of your name. The ending vowel would change if it played a different role in the sentence.

For instance, here is Jessica Alba's name in the nominative case:
Джессика Альба
If you wanted to say "Jessica Alba's biography," her name must then appear in the genitive case:
биография Джессики Альбы

[Fazor]

Originally Posted by Rusty

For instance, here is Jessica Alba's name in the nominative case:
Джессика Альба
If you wanted to say "Jessica Alba's biography," her name must then appear in the genitive case:
биография Джессики Альбы

And that's the kind of thing that brought my studies to a grinding halt!

But Tara (girlfriend) got a coupon for Borders (bookstore) so I'm going to go there tonight and see if I can find a decent textbook. There's also a few sitting in my 'shopping cart' queue on Amazon.com.

[Rusty]

The cases in Russian (6 of them) are probably the biggest stumbling block for English-speaking students of the language. You just have to understand how they relate to English parts of speech and learn the appropriate endings (considering spelling rules, gender, and number). Remember to also apply the same rules to the adjectives, which must agree with the noun.

Piece of cake. NOT!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Piece of cake. NOT!

But it would be fair to point out that this declension of nouns and adjectival agreement is not a purely Russian difficulty, but present in all inflecting languages including German, Sanskit and Latin. The degree of difficulty varies, for example ancient Greek has about 14 different noun declensions with their own sequences of endings which must agree with half a dozen or so adjectival endings, whereas inflection in English is easy and very limited.

[ookami]

Does anyone know a good online Russian - Spanish/English dictionary? (especially with pronunciation [accents]) I can't find one and I'm really starting to need it.
Спасибо

[Rusty]

You can have Russian words pronounced here.
My preliminary searching didn't yield any Russian-English online dictionaries that show the stressed syllable (often done with an accent mark in bilingual dictionaries).
It's interesting to note that the stressed syllable in Russian doesn't go up in tone, but down (just the opposite of Spanish). And, unstressed vowels are often pronounced differently than the stressed form, like the final 'o' in Спасибо. It's pronounced the same as the final 'a' in hola.

[xrefation]

http://masterrussian.com/vocabulary/...mmon_words.htm

most common 1000 russian words given with their pronounces. it was very useful for me when i was learning it. russian is a complex one, expecially with its grammar. it is completely different from english. it looks much spanish and turkish. падежи ( cases ) are a bit difficult to understand in the begining. all you have to memorise the suffixes.

[ookami]

Thanks both. That last website seems excellent for what I want.
For me the declination thing seemed very logical and "expected" since the first time I read about it(for German), even more than languages that uses "word order" (whitch is their formal name?)

I'm actually studying declination, I have already memorize all nouns declinations, now I'm starting with adjetives ones. What I have found difficult in Russian is the memorization of vocabulary. I think it's because of a huge difference in pronunciation with English and Spanish, the accent(that I never know where it goes unless it's marked) and the cirilic alphabet.
But I'm sure this will be definitely my second language, Я люблю русский язы !

Now I'm searching an equivalent of Tomisimo for Russian... impossible? yes :P

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by ookami

Я люблю русский язык!

Now I'm searching for an equivalent of Tomisimo for Russian... impossible? yes :P

Perhaps Word Reference has what you're looking for. And their dictionary shows the accent marks.