Hi folks, just have a quick question. I've noticed in alot of the "translate to english" exercises in this course, many of the words seem to contain the letter "u". However, when going over the table of Cyrillic letters and their Latin equivalents, I did not see "u" listed among the Cyrillic characters. So, what gives? Is the "u" actually used in Russian? If so, might someone explain how it is pronounced? Or is my browser simply not rendering the character correctly? (could it possibly be the the Cyrillic "tse" rather than the Latin "u"? They do look a bit similar.)
Anyway, hope someone here can clarify this for me, I find the Russian language to be more than confusing enough without any extra, unnecessary confusion.
Charles
Hi Charles. I've just been registered.
In relation to your question about Cyrillic "tse", it has nothing to do with the russian "u". The equivalent in Russian for letter "u" is the letter "y". Example: The English word "chair" is translated into Russian as: "стул", being pronounced "stul".
Have you understood?
Regards, Maggie.
Hi Charles and Maggie,
Yes, as Maggie said, 'u' has nothing to do with tse. 'U' is often used as a transliteration (i.e., a guide to pronunciation) for the Russian letter 'У'.
So as Maggie said, some people will transliterate the word for 'chair' (стул) as 'stul'.
However, I personally think this transliteration strategy can be confusing for some people as they read 'stul' using a 'u' sound as in 'umbrella', which is incorrect. Instead, I prefer to transliterate 'У' as 'oo', and therefore write стул as 'stool', so there isn't any confusion.
It's best if you can listen to the sounds directly, so I've put a comprehensive Russian alphabet page together which you can find here: http://listen2russian.com/lesson01/a/index.html .
Please feel free to ask more questions!
Warm regards, Jon.
I think the question was what the letter written as "u" in the russian words was, I just begun the beginners course and had some trouble figuring out that too. But I think it ought to bee the letter that lookes like a N backwards, since there is a "u" with that little sign over too. Is that right?
There is also a letter that lookes like 6 backwards, is that d?
Well, in that case the letter "u" or "и" in Russian is to be pronounced like "ee" in English. Example: "Lee", would be "Ли".
The letter that you compared with a "6" is like a "b" in English. Example: "brother" = "брат"
I think the following link will help you a little: http://www.geocities.com/colosseum/track/7635/alphabet.html
thank you!
But the "6" was not what I was looking for, perhaps it is my settings for language in internet explorer that is wrong?
In the first exercise on the beginers course, have not gotten furhter, when the font is changed for the exercises, so is the letters, compared with the explanaitions, but I think I have figured it out now, its the handwrittenlike letters is it not? like inte the word фундамента'льный from the exercise, д ought to be d, does it not? and m-T and й-the letter sounding something like j? "funдamenmal-something".
But д is also written as a "g" in handwriting according to one of the guides in the links in reasources, so which one is right?
haha, it changed when I posted it! I guess then it is probably something with the language for internet or something. I see the "D-letter" as a backward 6, T as m and "N-upsidedown" as u.
that's the russian cursive alphabet, al the letters you described are the cursive versions of the russian letters, well the the lowercase forms at least, and the russian lowercase D looks almost like a six, except the tail on the top goes right instead of left, heres a link theres a picture of all the letters written out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cursive_alphabet
ahhh I see .. originally I thought it was a transliteration issue, but it's more to do with the cursive alphabet.
It's unfortunate that some of the cursive letters are different from the standard Russian letters, and more annoying is that some resemble English letters but have a completely different sound!
In Russia I found it very difficult to read handwritten notes, and many shops use this cursive script to advertise their products. So it's still important to know.
I've made a side-by-side comparison of the cursive script and standard script here, in case anyone is interested.
http://listen2russian.com/lesson01/b/index.html
daf stretchie!
Jon.
You are right Jon. Thank you.