Добро пожаловать в Россию!!
Looks confusing, right? Not only is the Russian language foreign to our ears, it's foreign to our eyes as well! Russians use what's known as the Cyrillic alphabet and to our Latin-alphabetized eyes, it looks pretty outrageous. You'll find that even the characters which are familiar are often deceptive and are not what they seem, while others are inverted or upside down and become even more confusing for us.
However, as with our Latin alphabet when we first began learning how to read many years ago, it's not impossible to understand and, with a little help from an experienced teacher, you can pick it up in no time at all!
When planning a trip to Russia, you have to face the facts -- you are going to be immersed by these strange sounds AND symbols, and it might be a little intimidating. Although part of the interest in experiencing a culture can be how unfamiliar it is to you, you may also find that doors to the cultural experience open up to you through your basic experience of the Russian language.
Either way, if you feel it's important to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with an important part of the Russian culture, we've offered you an intro to the Cyrillic script in order to push you in the right direction: How to read in Russian
Looks confusing, right? Not only is the Russian language foreign to our ears, it's foreign to our eyes as well! Russians use what's known as the Cyrillic alphabet and to our Latin-alphabetized eyes, it looks pretty outrageous. You'll find that even the characters which are familiar are often deceptive and are not what they seem, while others are inverted or upside down and become even more confusing for us.However, as with our Latin alphabet when we first began learning how to read many years ago, it's not impossible to understand and, with a little help from an experienced teacher, you can pick it up in no time at all!
When planning a trip to Russia, you have to face the facts -- you are going to be immersed by these strange sounds AND symbols, and it might be a little intimidating. Although part of the interest in experiencing a culture can be how unfamiliar it is to you, you may also find that doors to the cultural experience open up to you through your basic experience of the Russian language.
Either way, if you feel it's important to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with an important part of the Russian culture, we've offered you an intro to the Cyrillic script in order to push you in the right direction: How to read in Russian
05.31.2010
