Welcome to the first Russian class. We will begin by familiarizing ourselves with the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet, which is made up of 33 characters. Twenty-one are consonnants, 10 are vowels, and 2 are special soundless markers called the soft and hard signs. We will learn the letters in the order in which you'd find them if you were to look up something in the dictionary, and we'll learn the alphabet in 2 parts beginning with the first 18 letters in the chart below.

I am provinding you with the Cyllic characters in their written form, the name of each letter, and an approximate pronounciation guide using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and examples from the English language. While you don't need to know IPA, it would be useful to familiarize yourself with it as I will use it regularly in our class. In future classes, I will introduce the cursive form of each letter and provide English equivalents so that you can complete written assignments.



Your first assignment consists of practicing the pronounciation of the letters in the grid above. For your next class, which will most likely be held a week from now, I'd like everyone to know the names of the letters and be able to correctly pronounce simple words that uses them. To help you with this, I am providing you with a few words below. Try to practice saying them. I will give you the correct pronounciation next week, and you'll be able to check whether you have them right. These words are very similar to their English counterparts. Can you guess what they mean?



If you have any questions, you can reach me by PM any time, or you can ask them in class. I will be more than happy to help you.

*Sits down and tries to repeat the russian alphabet* This is hard! Its a different alphabet! Thanks SeniorLady, great class!

*tries to pronounce the alphabet, and then the words*
hehe russian is tough! excelent class!


cathy

Thanks for the great class SeniorLady! *Practices the alphabet* I think I can guess the first three words but I don't know the last one!

The second class will be delayed somewhat; I'm sick.

The next class will be up tomorrow. Sorry for the delay. Stupid viruses. =)