Everything Essential Russian Book

Yulia Stakhnevich

• Publisher: Everything
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781440580833
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

All the basics of Russian—fast and easy! The Everything Essential Russian Book is perfect for a quick introduction to learning the Russian language. Whether you are planning a vacation or adding a valuable second language to your resume, this portable guide covers the most important basics, including how to: *Recognize and read Cyrillic letters
*Pronounce Russian words like a native
*Ask and answer everyday questions
*Ask for directions, order dinner, or conduct business
*Hold your own in a conversationWith The Everything Essential Russian Book, you will see how exciting learning Russian can be!

CHAPTER 1
The Cyrillic Alphabet

Learning Russian involves learning to read the Cyrillic alphabet. You might think this would make learning the language more challenging, but it doesn’t have to. In fact, you are already familiar with some of the letters and their pronunciations. In this chapter, you will apply your analytical skills to learn the Cyrillic alphabet efficiently without getting overwhelmed. Once you learn the alphabet, you will be able to sound out words and read Russian in no time.

The Roots of the Cyrillic Alphabet

You already know that Russian is not written in the Latin alphabet. Instead, it uses Cyrillic. The history of the Cyrillic alphabet spans more than a thousand years. Throughout the ages, it has been modified several times, and what we use now in Russian differs from its earlier forms. The Russian Cyrillic alphabet contains thirty-three letters, including ten letters for vowel sounds, twenty-one letters for consonant sounds, and two silent signs.

Cyrillic originated directly from the Greek alphabet without any direct impact from the Latin alphabet. However, scholars agree that the roots of the Latin alphabet also lie with the Greeks, so the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are related by proxy. This explains why Cyrillic contains letters that are similar to Greek (e.g. Ф, П, Г) and letters that are similar to those found in Latin languages (e.g. В, К, Н).

The Cyrillic alphabet is named after St. Cyril, a monk from Byzantium. St. Cyril and St. Methodius are credited with spreading Christianity among the Slavs in southern Europe in the ninth century A.D. Everyone agrees on that much, but some scholars argue that St. Cyril didn’t actually create the alphabet that bears his name.

St. Cyril himself may have developed the alphabet during his missionary trip to Bulgaria and Moravia where he and his brother worked on translating the Bible for newly converted Slavs. Other researchers suggest the alphabet was invented later in the tenth century, probably by other missionaries who followed in the footsteps of St. Cyril and St. Methodius. Another theory suggests that Slavs educated in the Greek tradition created the alphabet to share the word of God with the rest of their people.

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In the Soviet Union, several languages that had previously used the Arabic (Kazakh and Azerbaijani) or Latin scripts (Moldova...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Cyrillic Alphabet
• Chapter 2: Russian Pronunciation
• Chapter 3: Getting Around in Russia
• Chapter 4: Russian Cuisine: Introduction to Nouns and Adjectives
• Chapter 5: Russian Names and Family
• Chapter 6: Descriptions and Possessions
• Chapter 7: Introduction to Russian Verbs and Numerals
• Chapter 8: Making Connections: Nouns, Verbs, and Pronouns
• Chapter 9: Transitive Verbs
• Chapter 10: Happy Birthday in Russian
• Chapter 11: Verbal Aspect and Verbs of Motion
• Chapter 12: Daily Life and Impersonal Constructions
• Chapter 13: Reflexive Verbs and the Instrumental Case
• Chapter 14: The Genitive Case
• Chapter 15: Sentence Structure and the Imperative
• Chapter 16: The Conditional Mood and Complex Sentences
• Appendix A: Answer Key
• Appendix B: Russian-to-English Glossary
• Appendix C: English-to-Russian Glossary
• Copyright