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A Hidden Gem for Language Lovers and Learners

This article presents a unique approach for intermediate to advanced (and beyond) learners of many languages to gain exposure to interesting material in their target language(s). It has to do with a very popular website that features short (usually less than ten minutes) presentations by some of the world's greatest and most famous minds (not always both ;) on their specific areas of expertise. It's called, simply, TED, and the presentations are called "TED Talks".

The TED website itself is not geared towards language learners or educators yet is useful for both. It is especially useful for English learners, as all the talks are in English. But it's also useful for anyone learning most of the world's most-spoken languages (as well as numerous lesser-spoken ones) who want to simultaneously watch inspiring, funny, courageous, fascinating, informative, persuasive, ingenious and often jaw-dropping presentations about technology, science, entertainment, design, business and global issues - all while gaining exposure to their target language. Here's how and why...

Summary

LearningRussian.Net is a good entry point for beginner Russian learners. The site provides clear lessons on the basics of the Russian language, including the alphabet, verb conjugations and aspects, case forms, pronouns, numerals, mood and more. There is also a number of introductory level lessons on meeting and greeting, introductions, fun and games, directions and congratulations - with more lessons being added regularly.

Of special note are their Russian-English dual-language texts available right through the site! Currently the beginning chapters of two novels are available in dual-text format: Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy and Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Audio is also being integrated into the site as this article goes to press, so expect more audio soon.

From Website

Learn Russian language with Free Lessons

If you are feeling excited about learning how to speak and understand Russian, this is the right place to be. Designed to become the best online destination for Russian language study, our website offers free high-quality Russian lessons with audio recordings, online dictionaries, original texts of Russian literature classics, and other practical resources to help you learn the Russian language. Our site is absolutely free for you to use and we plan to keep running it as a totally free service for everyone.

Visit LearningRussian.Net

Summary

If you don't know about Wikipedia, now is the time to find out! Especially since it is so useful in learning languages.

Wikipedia is the "Free Encyclopedia", a collectively-authored, dynamic, online encyclopedia that is free not only as in price, but also as in freedom. This means that the content you find anywhere on Wikipedia is free and open in the Public Domain. You can reproduce, redistribute and rehash the information there. This is empowered by the GNU Free Documentation License. This same license protects and empowers the content on Free Language! (How?)

This particular resource links to the Wikipedia entry on the Russian language. This entry contains loads of information for the curious reader as well as for the serious Russian language learner, including historical and linguistic data.

Use this resource to become familiar with the Russian language and its context in today's world, to discover facts and linguistic data about Russian and its many varieties, access further information about and resources for learning Russian, and much more.

From Resource

Russian (русский язык), transliteration: Russkiy yazyk, [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the East Slavic languages; the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian).

Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards. While Russian preserves much of East Slavonic grammar and a Common Slavonic word base, modern Russian exhibits a large stock of borrowed international vocabulary for politics, science, and technology. Due to the status of the Soviet Union as a superpower, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century. Hence, the language is still one of the official languages of the United Nations.

Russian has palatal secondary articulation of consonants, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found in almost all consonant phonemes and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels, which is not entirely unlike that of English. Stress in Russian is generally quite unpredictable and can be placed on almost any syllable. Syllabic stress is one of the most difficult aspects for foreign language learners.

Link

Visit "Russian Language" on Wikipedia.

License

GNU Free Documentation License