Category Archives: Huliganov's Russian Course
This contains the whole Huliganov Russian Course, from the beginning at the bottom to the end at the top, in order. This is intended to help people who have difficulty finding the parts they need on YouTube.
But you are advised to “click through” into the Youtube environment to watch, as there are comments on there by viewers, questions and answers, and sometimes errors spotted in these films by viewers, so that the complete experience of the course is actually on YouTube itself, by design. This is simply a simplified way of navigating it. If you wish to join the discussion either here or on there it is equally welcome – here the discussion will thread, there it will not, but what you write will probably be seen by more people.
Title: RL101-6 The next 5 – 2/3 of the way
| Playout date: | 27 October 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | Windows Movie Maker – heavy use |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Genre: | Lesson |
| Music used: | I can’t help falling in love, Elvis Presley, karaoke. |
| Languages used: | English and Russian |
| Animals featured: | None |
We look at another five letters, which is enough to take us two thirds of the way through the Russian alphabet. That won’t mean being able to read two thirds of the words, of course, as most words are five or more letters long, and it only takes one of the these letters to be in the third not yet learned for the whole word not be readable. However from this point on, the volume of words that we can indeed understand in full begins to increase out of proportion to the remainder of the journey.
Today’s letters are still letters deriving from Greek and not looking the same as in Latin, however these letters are also not written the same as they were in the original Greek. That’s basically the idea of the course – back at the beginning we took a look at the six letters which are the same in Cyrillics as in the Latin alphabet we are probably familiar with ( hint – you’re reading it now) after which we looked at letters whose form in Cyrillics look like Latin letters but which sound different, and in each case they were also in Greek, and the Greek sound is basically the same as the Russian one. We then went on to look at letters which are pretty much the same in the Cyrillic alphabet as they are in Greek, but which don’t resemble Latin letters and are therefore less likely to cause confusion. The natural progression here is to look at the letters which really derive from Greek, but which also look slightly different to the way they looked in Greek. This will be followed by letters which derived from Hebrew instead, and then the mop up of the few letters left over at the end. That’s basically the approach we’ve taken in this course to the Russian alphabet.
Related articles
- RL101 – 5 Revision of the first 17 letters (huliganov.tv)
- Podlinniki: the Manuals of Icon Painting and How to Read Them (russianicons.wordpress.com)
- Canonical Design Team: History of the Alphabet (Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic) (design.canonical.com)
- Shape-based transliteration between alphabets? (ask.metafilter.com)
RL101 – 5 Revision of the first 17 letters
With 171 likes to 3 dislikes at the time of posting this up to Huliganov.tv blog, this remains one of my most popular pieces. The revision of the first half of the Russian alphabet contains already a list of words, 31 in total, using the letters learned so far, unlike the previous lessons, which concentrated on letter only.
The joke “I spoil that woman” and the song Katiusha sung by myself and Elena have also elicited flattering comments from the viewership.
The word-list for this lesson is as follows, in alphabetical order of both languages:
| адвокат | lawyer | café | кафе | |
| вот | here is | country | страна | |
| где | where | daddy | папа | |
| город | town, city | garden, orchard | сад | |
| да | yes | glass | стакан | |
| дерево | tree | he | он | |
| дом | house, home | here is | вот | |
| кафе | café | house, home | дом | |
| кот | tomcat | it | оно | |
| кто | who | juice | сок | |
| мама | mother | just, straight on | просто | |
| медсестра | nurse | lawyer | адвокат | |
| метро | underground train | mother | мама | |
| налево | on the left | no | нет | |
| направо | on the right | not | не | |
| не | not | nurse | медсестра | |
| нет | no | on the left | налево | |
| окно | window | on the right | направо | |
| он | he | she | она | |
| она | she | sister | сестра | |
| оно | it | soldier | солдат | |
| папа | daddy | there | там | |
| правда | truth, true | toilet | туалет | |
| просто | just, straight on | tomcat | кот | |
| сад | garden, orchard | town, city | город | |
| сестра | sister | tree | дерево | |
| сок | juice | truth, true | правда | |
| солдат | soldier | underground train | метро | |
| стакан | glass | where | где | |
| страна | country | who | кто | |
| там | there | window | окно | |
| туалет | toilet | yes | да |
Related articles
- Letter Writing 101 (susandouglas.wordpress.com)
- How do you change ‘hElLo WoRlD’ to ‘HeLlO wOrLd’ in PHP (wiki.answers.com)
The Goldlist Method and Pronunciation of a Learned Language.
I haven’t always been as explicit as I could be on the matter of pronunciation of languages, and how the Goldlist method works for that. A great question from Mitch which I saw today puts his finger on what learners could perceive to be a difficulty while using the Goldlist method and how best to approach this question.
First his question, which you can see in the page on the Goldlist Method.
Hello,
1 question. The gold list is activated after 3 days in an immersion environment. This will require correct pronunciation. How do you go about getting this for each word? Do you find audio for each word on your list? I don’t remember doing this as a child. I don’t think I asked someone how to say this for every word I found. I’m missing something.
Thanks Viktor.
Mitch,
This is actually a very good question, so in addition to answering it here I think I’ll also make this answer a fully fledged article on the front page of the blog. I’ll kick it off here and continue on the full article.
The first thing I will take issue with is your statement “this will require correct pronunciation”. I am not sure what “correct pronunciation” is, all I know is that there are people who mimic native pronunciation better than others and they may sound like better linguists when what they probably are is just better voice actors.
What you definitely need to have an awareness of is how that word is supposed to sound so that you would be able to say it understandably – without having a native listener confusing what you were trying to say, and to recognise the word when another person says it.
You don’t need to worry about this mythical holy grail of “correct pronunciation” in the way you’ve formulated it in the question.
Now for most languages in the world, and surprisingly not for the so-called “easy” language of English, one of two things is true. Either the normal way of writing is a lot more phonetic and devoid of exceptions than the English is, or in the cases where this is not the case there are ways to write it more phonetically. Read the rest of this entry
Who is this mystery customer?
The following review can still be read for Derek Offord’s “Using Russian – A Guide to Contemporary Usage” on Amazon.co.uk (not the American Amazon and I really don’t understand why they don’t carry these reviews over, when I want to write for only the UK or only the US I shall forget about the internet altogether!) As it was way back in 2001 I seem to have lost the accreditation for the review along the way. At first it was under my name, but at some stage they must have had a technical blip and the older reviews became “A Customer”. but it’s mine, well enough. I don’t know if my style has changed much in ten years.
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is essential reading for those doing a Russian degree.
28 Sep 2001
By A CustomerThis review is from: Using Russian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage (Paperback)
I bought Using Russian when I was browsing in a bookshop for another language, as I already speak Russian, but when I looked at a few pages it immediately appealed as an excellent update to the way the language has developed since I did my degree. Sections in the book refer to different problems that face the English speaker in particular, such as faux amis. There are also sections on homonyms and other confusing aspects and they act rather like a checklist of what you need to have got right in your head in order not to make too many ‘howlers’ in translations or in conversation.
One particular plus in this book and as I found out in the whole series of ‘Using’ books that this is part of is the focus on register. If there is one thing that separates the wheat from the chaff among language students. it is the understanding and application of the idea of register, and this applies to Russian perhaps more than most European languages, as this is a language in which not only the vocabulary, but also the syntax, grammar and phonetics are all subject to complex nuances. This book was not available when I needed it. Now that it is I urge you to make use of it. It is the book about Russian that I would have liked to have written myself. If I thought there was demand for it, I’d offer to do a sister volume for Polish.
In any event it made me go out and by the sister volumes already in existence for French, German and Spanish. They are of a similar quality to this volume, the weakest is probably the German one, the Spanish one I would put as second favorite. It can be read cover to cover, or simply dipped into as a work of reference.
It is not material for learning the language from scratch, but would be a very useful second step after completing any of the standard self-instruction books such as the Colloquial series, the Teach yourself series or the Linguaphone course.
Either A-level or degree level students of the Language will profit from it and find it enjoyable because of its good presentation and readable style.
Related Articles
- What to make of illiterate “romaji” Russian courses, or audio only courses? (huliganov.tv)
- Still Fighting Russia, This Time With Words (nytimes.com)
- Foreign languages ‘the preserve of private school pupils’ (telegraph.co.uk)
- How should I get started with programming? (daryn.net)
- You: Russians told to mind their English (guardian.co.uk)
RL 101-3 Six letters that look the same but are different
| Playout date: | 9 September 2006 |
| Location: | Moscow Hotel |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Music used: | “All around my hat” Steeleye Spam, karaoke, with some Russian lyrics. |
| Languages used: | Russian |
| Animals featured: | None |
This time Huliganov shows the letter group BPHXCY where the usage in Russian follows that of Greek, the letter shapes in this group appear in Latin script but with different values.
The professor also warns people of the necessity to roll their ‘r’s. He finishes off with one of his all time favorite folk songs “All around my hat” as well as a rather ribald joke.
Related Articles
- History of The Russian Language (socyberty.com)
- Elektronnaya biblioteka ‘Im Werden’ – Russian language ebook literature site – hear Tolstoy! (teleread.com)
RL 101-2 The Six Letters That Are The Same
| Production date: | 20 July 2006 |
| Playout date: | 21 July 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | Windows Movie Maker – slight use |
| Location: | Home on the terrace |
| Genre: | Lesson |
| Soundtrack info: | Oy, Moroz, Moroz! Russian folksong – a capello |
| Languages used: | Russian |
| Animals featured: | None |
| Date added here: | 25 September 2010 |
| Number of days this video was up at time of posting: | 1527 |
| Number of views at time of posting: | 28822 |
| Number of views per day: | 18,9 |
| Number of comments at time of posting (don’t forget to click through to read the comments!): | 120 |
| Comments per thousand views: | 4,2 |
| Likes at time of posting: | 198 |
| Dislikes at time of posting: | 3 |
| Likes to dislikes ratio: | 66 |
| Votes per thousand views: | 7,0 |
| Ratio of comments to votes: | 59,7% |
As you can see I’ve extended as it were the table of stats that there is at the start of each of these vlog reposts. The stats aren’t dynamic – to get the up-to-date ones or to read the comments, don’t hesitate to click through to the YouTube version, just by double clicking on the film. You can do that to any film on this vlog.
Please give me feedback on whether you like the tabular approach to analysing the videos or prefer the way I did it on the earlier ones.
This is the second ever of Huliganov’s Russian lessons – intended originally only to teach the alphabet. Here we look at the first six letters – not in alphabetical order but in thematic order. They spell the word KOMETA, a comet. But even on these six letters there are minor differences to look out for so listen carefully to the explanations!
The song is “Oy moroz, moroz” a well known Russian work. Look out for the jokey switch in the last verse! A few commentators appear to have got the joke. The joke in this part is one of my favorites about the way the youth of today all look like the same gender…


