by Homero Graco
I have a memory from ten or fifteen years ago when I was watching to a Jackie Chan movie filmed in Russia. I don't remember the history in details, but the thing was that Jackie tried to find a place and felt completely lost, because every single outdoor was written in Cyrillic - the alphabet used by Russian language and a lot more. This image fixed in my brain and also brought me dreams of how nice could be to be capable of reading real Russian, like documents from KGB or the Cold War. Something childish, but still cool.
Yeah, years passed, I started to study seriously for university exams, began to work, and this dream become archived in some place inside my mind.
But last Monday I woke up, took my breakfast and had nothing to do. Not absolutely nothing, but I was free at the morning and thought about a more rich activity than read Facebook "news" feed. And suddenly the idea of learn the Cyrillic script came to my mind.
- How hard can it be? I asked myself.
So I accessed Memrise, a website that I use to learn German and which system is based in the spaced repetition technique, and found a basic course called "A Russian Alphabet with Sound".
- Yeah, seems possible, I'll try.
The Cyrillic Script - Easier than you think
Firstly, when you are starting to learn a new alphabet, forget everything that you learned from your native one. This will help you to avoid mistakes when reading and speaking words. Just think the characters as symbols for a sound, and try to store them in a new area of your brain, as this is really a new knowledge and not just a branch from your known language.
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| Screenshot from the first letters presented at the course |
So, I clicked in Plant - the button used to "plant" new words into your "garden" (in case you didn't got it, "plant" meaning "memorize" and "garden" meaning "brain") and started to play. I'll show you a table that summarize how each letter sounds in Russian - comparing to English sounds:
А а: A - like apple
Б б: B - like boat
В в: V - like very
Г г: G - like goat
Д д: D - like desert
Е е: Ye - like yeti
Ё ё: Yo - like yonder
Ж ж: Zh - like casual
З з: Z - like zest
И и: I - like eager
Й й: Y - like yoghurt
К к: K - like kale
Л л: L - like left
М м: M - like must
Н н: N - like narrow
О о: O - like orange
П п: P - like poker
Р р: R - like rebel
С с: S - like sister
Т т: T - like trust
У у: U - like up
Ф ф: F - like fair
Х х: Kh - like happy
Ц ц: Ts - like biTS
Ч ч: Ch - like choke
Ш ш: Sh - like shock
Щ щ: Shch - like shop
Ъ ъ: hard sign
Ы ы: Y - like 'ouiy' [vowel]
Ь ь: soft sign
Э э: E - like expert
Ю ю: Yu
Я я: Ya
You will say: "33 new letters! How can!" Trust me, will take like 30 to 60 minutes to memorize this, isn't painful. But be careful, some letters like "H" has a completely different sound, while others like "A" has the same.
My technique to memorize this was basically to read each letter, listen to the sound and repeat a few times - three or four - and then to do the exercises presented. Simple and painless. This way of learning has to be understood, or recovered from our childhood. Us, as adults, have backgrounds, preconceptions and also misconceptions that sometimes are useful to our daily living, but also harmful to learn a new language. We always try to learn by comparison and using old knowledge to help us, which can actually slow us down when picking a new language - specially if it comes from a different family. So, I try not to use my background from Portuguese when learning this Cyrillic Alphabet, because this can mess up my mind and turn things harder. More than this, I do not force brutally my brain to memorize concepts, like repeating a thousand times the letter sound or trying to consciously keep the new information in my head. As Luca Lampariello says, this can lead you to inadequately use your short term memory instead of the long term one, resulting in the opposite: zero learning.
With this in mind, some hours later I could read any thing wrote in Russian and decode the sound, which is the beginning, but already useful.
The Results - Decoding Words from Russian Newspapers
After the exercises from Memrise, I accessed my Google Plus profile to read some news when I was presented to a post from a guy named Игорь. Then Александр, then Виктор. These are really common names to us, Igor, Alexander and Victor, respectively. As of a sudden, I was happy. At least names I can recognize, which is good. To a more proof-of-results test, I searched through Google for content in Russian to read, like newspapers. And I was extremely astonished to see that Russian have some words from the same roots as English, Spanish and Portuguese. Look at what I found at Moscow News:
Инфографика: Infografica - Infographics
Репортажи: Reportazhi - Report
Культура: Kultura - Culture
Спорт: Sport - Sport
Фоторепортажи: Fotoreportazhi - Photoreport / Photogallery
Бизнес: Biznes - Business
Политика: Politika - Politics
Incredible, not?
So nice that now I wanna study and speak Russian.
My question now is: Why you're waiting to learn a new language? Just give it a try! Start from the basic steps and enjoy!