Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Zdrastvuite, Ya Svetlana! Welcome to Russianpod101.com’s Алфавит Made Easy!
The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Russian Cyrillic alphabet: the Алфавит!
In the last lesson, we met two more New Friends, “Д” and “З”. I hope you remember how to read and write them!
In this lesson we'll continue with the New Friends category.
Our first new friend is “И”.
Because it's just a backwards English EN, “И” really isn't that scary. As it's name implies, “И” is pronounced just like the hard English EE. In printed form, size is the only difference between the upper and lowercase versions.
Here’s the uppercase.
И (print, upper)
And the lowercase.
И (print, lower)
“И” isn't such a nice friend when it comes to the cursive letter - it looks similar to a cursive English “You” and not very much like the printed version. With a little practice, you shouldn't have as much trouble recognizing and writing it. It is written in one stroke and connects easily to the next letter. Again, the lowercase version looks similar to an English You, so hopefully this means it should be easy to write. Just remember that in Russian, a “Why” looking letter sounds like “oo” and a “You” looking letter sounds like “ee”.
Now we’ll write them.
И (cursive, upper)
And the lowercase.
И (cursive, lower)
Let's move on to another New Friend.
The second letter we'll learn in this lesson might look like a pair of posing legs -- Л. While it may look strange, “Л” has a pretty familiar sound -- Л. Despite how it looks, it sounds exactly like the English EL.
Here’s how to write the printed versions.
Л (print, upper)
And the lowercase.
Л (print, lower)
In cursive, uppercase “Л” is pretty easy to write even though it looks quite different from the printed version. It's one stroke, and we don't have to pick up our pen before connecting to the next letter. The lowercase is where it gets interesting. When on its own, “Л” looks the same as the uppercase, but smaller. But remember the Russian “М”? It has a hook on the left when it follows other letters. “Л” is exactly the same, so it looks like this when it comes after another letter.
Time to write it for yourself.
Л (cursive, upper)
And the lowercase.
Л (cursive, lower)
Okay! That's it for our New Friends in this lesson. Now it's time to expand your Russian vocabulary!
First up is a word that uses both of our new letters and is very easy!
[short pause] Pronounced “или”, this is a pretty common word that means “or.” So "он или она" means “he or she.” Writing it isn't too complicated either, so try writing this one with all lowercase letters.
или (cursive)
Good!
Next up is an incredibly important question that uses “л”. Try reading it aloud. [wait a sec]
как дела?
“как” was our first word, and you must remember that it means “how.” “дела” is kind of like “things” or “activities”, but when we use it here, it means “How are things?” or “How are you?”
Got it? Then try to write it. Remember to start with an uppercase letter.
_07 как дела? (cursive)
Now it's time for Svetlana’s Insights.
We've finished 8 lessons and you've already learned more than half of the Russian letters! Are you feeling more confident yet? If not, just look through a Russian text -- a book, website or whatever -- and see how many letters you now recognize. It's fun when you start to recognize something that used to be incomprehensible!
That's it for this lesson! Consider this: you're lost and don't know where to go... But you haven't learned how to say “where” in Russian yet! You'll learn how to say that, but more importantly, how to write it in the next Алфавит Made Easy lesson!
Пока Пока

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