Pimsleur CD's for sale anyone?

[Jack]

Does anyone have any Pimslear Russian CD's for sale?

If so please holler at me.

[Jack]

Thank you ConnerVT

[acrzybear]

www.PimsleurApproach.com

[ConnerVT]

Пожалуйста.

[Turboguy]

I love that quote on the Pimsleur site.

"You really can learn everything you need to speak Russian fluently in only 45 hours! "

I have Pimsleur I and Pimsleur II and have probably spent 1000 hours listening to them and am lucky if I can say hello, how are you, nice to meet you.

Add to that all the time I have spent with my other 5 or 6 learn russian fast programs and I think I am hopeless.

[jb]

Turboguy,

Russian is a toughie, I live in a house where Russian is spoken daily.  My spoken Russian is so-so, but every now and then my wife is overcome with fits of giggles as I mangle some word or another.  I'm convinced there are some sounds my southern tongue was just not designed to make, and the Russian language is full of them.

So don't be too hard on yourself.  Learn to laugh and have fun with it, it will improve without you having to beat yourself up over it.

[Turboguy]

I don't get too hard on myself.   I just keep listening to my Pimsleur CD's, Running my Rosetta stone program on my laptop, My Language Now program on my desktop, my Russain Fast and Easy on my cassette player and when I get bored I dig out my Barron's Russian the offical program of the State Dept and listen to it for a while and then wonder why I don't understand any Russian.

I agree with you about the sounds.   There are some sounds in the Russian Language that I could never make.  I just got back from Russia and my gal was trying to get me to roll my R's.  It is amazing what she can do with the R's

 

[Elen]

Can you pronounce ТИШЕ(more quiet)  и ЧИЩЕ(more clean) so that it would be two different words?:D

BTW Children in Russia can entre any language (English-German-Frensch -so on)  special secondary school if they can't prononce R's in Russian way (that's the rule:?)

But you should not worry about R's. There is a lot of announcers at our radio and TV now who can't prononce that sound properly too.

[jb]

The rolling R is a pretty easy sound to make, if you speak Spanish. (I do). Simply place your tongue up to the roof of your mouth and breath/blow out.  The noise you get, if you think RRRR at the same time, is pretty close to the real thing.

I've discovered that the principal difference between a native English speaker and and a native Russian speaker is the placement of the tongue within the mouth. English holds the tongue low in the mouth, while Russian requires the tongue held higher.  You will get entirely different sounds in this manner.

[Turboguy]

Thanks for the tip JB.  I think I just swallowed my tongue trying it but it did seem to work to an extent.   As soon as I get my tounge back I will try some more.  That was interesting.

[jb]

[Turboguy]

Actually JB that is amazing.  I am here rolling my R's every bit as well as my gal did.  I had played with that before without knowing the secret and did not have much luck.  With your little tip there is nothing much to it.  Now I can start working on the other sounds I can't make in Russian.

[jb]

Turboguy,

Having been engaged to, and now being married to, the same RW for about 5 or 6 years has some advantages.  Just wait til you have one in your own house.  You'll be passing some tips on to the other newbies in good time.

[TheArrow]

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Bookstore/3230/index.html

Russian language course with sound samples

[TheArrow]

http://www.russnet.org/learn.html

Russnet is a repository for Russian Language Resources.

[jb]

Turboguy, Arrow, et al.,

Hearing a word in Russian on tape is helpful, but it often does not help the listener to know how to actually make the sounds of the word. For that you need an experienced language teacher to show a person how to position the lips and tongue within the mouth.  This is the main reason so many people who learn a foreign language speak it with such strong, and sometimes terrible, accents.  They've learned what they know from a non-native instructor.

I learned my basic Russian from an elderly Russian woman who worked for the Berlitz School of Languages. She was a jew, when I went to Russia I wondered why everyone asked me if I was Jewish, appearantly Russian Jews speak with an identifiable accent and I was copying her sounds when I spoke.  I have since corrected the problem.

I don't denigrate the value of these study courses, I think they are a marvel, but the real learning experience will come when you are actually among the Russian speakers. (If you can get them to slow down for you)  You will catch on a hundred times faster when you are thrust into a situation where you either order a meal in Russian or go hungry.

[TheArrow]

Good note, JB. I have been speaking English since I was 8 y.o. but still have an accent. Americans and British have their own accents. I must say, sometimes I do not understand what my American friend says when he calls me  Is it true that every American state has it's own accent (it's own manner of spelling words)?  I do  not mean slang - I mean the word spelling.

[jb]

Is it true that every American state has it's own accent (it's own manner of spelling words)?

No, this is not quite true. We all study from the same books in school.  With the coming of nationwide television we all now speak pretty much the same form of English that we hear on the TV.  I once read somewhere that TV producers deliberately choose news reporters and commentators from middle America, places like Chicago and Saint Louis, because they have a very subtle, soft, mid-western accent that is easily understood throughout America.  We tend to mimic what we hear all the time.

That's not saying if you go to the back woods of West Virginia or Georgia you won't hear some strange and hard to understand accents, the same with Minnisota and the Dakotas, there are still strong regional accents around, but for the most part, we do speak the same Americanized English.

[Turboguy]

There is some truth to that.  I can often tell what state someone is from listening to them but I think TV and movies are  changing that a bit.

Even many cities have their own words and pronunciations.   I live near the city of Pittsburgh in the State of Pennsylvania and you will find small books that cover what we call Pittsburgheze.    Some of the words here are "creek" that we pronunce like crick and "younse" is a Pittsburgh word you ususally won't here elsewhere, just like "you all" is a southern thing.

[TheArrow]

Thanks, guys. Gotcha ya all.

[ConnerVT]

This is an interesting (yet certainly unscientific) online test to see how much southern (and other regional) US accent is in your English.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/lgrob/southern_dialect_quiz.htm

 

[TheArrow]

This is an interesting (yet certainly unscientific) online test to see how much southern (and other regional) US accent is in your English.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/lgrob/southern_dialect_quiz.htm

 

 The score is: 57% (Dixie). Barely into the Dixie category. But I am not American - I am Russian.

Anyway, that test was very funny

[Bruno]

Sh*t... i am contamined ... 48% (Yankee). Barely into the Yankee category.

Normally, i have a horrible French accent when i speak... more for the south of US...

[Elen]

53% (Dixie). Barely into the Dixie category.

Though I have not idea what that means:?

[Bruce]

American newscasters are trained to speak with what is generally perceived as the proper American accent - The Northwestern accent.  Take it for what it is worth, but the Northwestern accent is not close to Dixie.  This is by no means meant to denigrate any of our English as a second, third or fourth language speakers on this board.  I am amazed how well all of you communicate on this board.  However, accents are a different issue and I am just trying to steer you all in the right direction.  By right direction, I mean potentially understood by the majority of Americans you may / will meet.