RUSSIAN 1 COURSE
Page updated: Monday, July 20, 2009 4:05 AM

Добро пожаловать, новые студенты русского языка!! (Welcome, Russian 1 students!!)

Here are some summer tutorials to help you get started with the Russian language. This is entirely voluntary on your part, but if you continue to work on Russian a little every day, you'll definitely have an easier and more enjoyable time when class starts in August!

Russian 1 Summer Study

1. The first and most important step is to email your teacher, Mr. Holschuh (holsed@mansfieldisd.org). He needs to know if there are students actually interested pre-course tutorials. If not, there's no reason to provide fresh content.

2. The second step is to get familiar with the rest of this website. Go back to the home page and look around; please visit the links under the banner at the top of the page, from "Why Russian?" to "Студенты" ("Students").

3. Step three will be a crucial step to complete for all students when Russian 1 begins in August... That's learning the Russian alphabet! There are 33 letters. Some look like Greek, some look like English, but each letter represents a sound-- Russian is a phonetic language. Once you know the letters, you can sound out just about any word!

Task #1 - Go to Learn the Russian Alphabet in 2 Hours and learn the Russian alphabet, one group at a time (you don't need to learn them all in 2 hours, though)!

Task #2 - Once you think you've got the letters figured out, try sounding out the words at the bottom of the Learn the Russian Alphabet in 2 Hours page. You really will know most of them!

4. This step is integral, too, to the full Russian language experience: learning to type in Russian on your home computer keyboard. To set up a phonetic Russian keyboard (on which you can toggle back and forth from Russian to English), make your way back to the home page and click on the Студенты link at the top of the page, next to the date in Russian. On the student page, scroll down. If you are using Windows XP, please read the instructions. If you are using Windows Vista or a Mac, just click the corresponding link.

Task # 1 - Install a Cyrillic (Russian) keyboard on your computer.

Task # 2 - Send another email to Mr. Holschuh, with a country name spelled in Russian. Switch your keyboard to Russian (usually Alt+Shift), and in the message area of your email, type these letters (the first letter in upper case): R-o-s-s-i-q Then send the email! Mr. Holschuh will let you know by return email if you are successful!

5. If you've made it this far, you're doing a great job! Now that you know the letters (and can type them, too), try learning some simple Russian vocabulary and expressions. These webpages are perfect for practicing-- you'll get as much out of them as you put into them.

If at any time you have questions, please email Mr. Holschuh! Also, by completing all of these tasks, you will have the opportunity to start out the school year with a 100 quiz grade in Russian 1 on the first day by taking an extra credit quiz about the content in each of the five steps above!

Ни пуха, ни пера! (Good luck!)

Any additional material will be posted below.

Greetings to students who have emailed Mr. Holschuh:

Привет, Михаил (Michael)!

Привет, Росс (Ross)!

Привет, Ник (Nick)!

Привет, Алисса (Alyssa)!

Привет, Джош (Josh)!

Привет, Девин (Devin)!