The Joys of Russian Grammar

Studying: Isaiah 59-61
Memorizing: Romans 2:1-3
Thoughts: Good

Our main task right now here in Russia is to become good in Russian. But to be honest I really wonder how many of our friends and family understand what this entails. I'm not looking for a pity party here, but I'd like to share some of the challenges of the language.

Learning Russian for most people is not like learning Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc. If you're already an English speaker and you want to learn one of the Romantic or Germanic languages you can do so with proper training relatively quickly. I remember a guy I graduated with going into the army to be a Spanish translator. He entered with basically no knowledge and in 8 months was considered fluent. But Russian is a much harder, much more complex language. Face it, even if you don't speak Spanish and you see the word apartamento you will pretty quickly know what it means. Compare that to квартира.

The Alphabet

One thing that so many people say when I tell them that we're learning Russian is "Boy, that's got to be hard, especially that alphabet." Well, I'll be honest, the alphabet is the easiest part. It's learned on day one in about an hour or two. There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. Some look and sound the same as Latin letters. Some look like our Latin letters but make different sounds. And some don't do either. For your reading pleasure here's the layout...

All of the following letters are basically written and pronounced the same for Russian and English.

А, К, М, О, Т,

So if you see "Том" in Russian it's pronounced "Tom" with a long "o". If you see "Кот" in Russian it's pronounced "Kot" also with a long "o". Incidentally, "кот" is the word for a grown male cat. See you're learing quickly

The following letters look like Latin ones you're already familiar with but make different sounds.

В - Nope, that's not a "B" it's a "V" actually just as in very
Е - Similar to an "E" but pronounced "yeh"
Ё - The two little dots above make a difference. This one is pronounced "yo."
Н - This is the Russian "N," just as in name
Р - Sorry, not a "P" but an "R," if you know Greek that helps a bit.
С - Similar to our letter "C" but it always makes an "S" sound, never a hard "K"
У - This is "oo," as in pool
Х - This makes a sound we don't have in English. It's transliterated "KH" but makes the sound of the ch in loch ness.

So if you see "верх" in Russian it's not pronounced "bepks" but rather "verkh" which means "top" (the place, not the object).

And finally, the letters that are totally new and different.

Б - This is a "B" Granted it looks a little like a Latin "B"
Г - This is a "G." Pretty much just like a Greek "Gamma"
Д - D
Ж - This is "zh." It makes the same sound that "s" makes in pleasure.
З - No, this isn't the number three, it's a "Z"
И - Not a backwards "N." This makes a long "I" sound, or an "EE" sound as in "meet."
Й - This letter is called "ee kratkoye" it's basically a long "ee" also, but is used in dipthongs.
Л - L
П - P, like "Pi" in Greek
Ф - F
Ц - "TS" as in "Hits"
Ч - "CH"
Ш - "SH"
Щ - "SHCH," Say "fresh cheese" together and you'll get it there in the middle
Ъ - This is a silent letter that makes the end of a word "hard," it's a little to hard to explain right now
Ы - This is not "bi," it's one letter and it has caused many Russian learners to lose sleep. It's kind of like the и, but not exactly. Mess this up and you could cause some serious laughter.
Ь - This is also a silent letter, but it makes the end of a word "soft."
Э - This makes a short "e" sound
Ю - This letter makes the sound "you" exactly
Я - Ah, the infamous "backwards r." Sorry, no "R" sounds here. This makes the sound "YA"

So "Бил" would be pronounced "beel" which means "I or he beat..." So don't go throwing this word around too much. "Я" by itself means "I"

So, now that you know the Russian alphabet see if you can read the following sentence. Hint, it's actually in English.

Лернинг рошэн из вери вери фан!

So there you have it. Now you can read Russian at least. By the way, if you ever plan to visit Russia whether it be for mission work or just for fun, do yourself a favor and memorize this alphabet. Few signs are in English over here and use Latin characters. It will make your getting around a lot easier.