Well, it has been an interesting day. We decided to try and find our way to church this morning by ourselves. So, we leave before Laura. We get down to the street; and Tim & I discuss which bus we are to take. I said #191. Tim said #197. (Me) “No, I am sure it is #191.” (Tim) “No, remember you said it was #131 yesterday to go downtown; and it was really #133? (Me) “I know I was wrong, but I know one of them had a “1” at the end.” Had we taken 131, I have no idea where we might have ended up. We got onto #197 and it follows the same route as the bus for #191 for quite a way. I am thinking I will hate to tell Tim he was right. I am not good at that. I very much like to be right. Then… it all goes wrong. #191 goes straight; and our bus turns. I don't remember turning before. I am pretty sure Tim is thinking the same thing. As we had only been on that bus two previous times, and last week was somewhat unfair as it was an overly crowded day on the bus. Well, it finally comes to the end of the line. The bus driver turns the bus off and looks at us like, “Well, are you going to get off, or what?” Now, for those of you who don't remember, we are in Ukraine; and they speak Russian. Tim goes up to the driver and in the best English he can says, “We got on the wrong bus.” I mean I cannot hold it together. He says this so perfect; and the driver just looks, “What?” So he gets the phone out and calls someone who at least speaks a little bit of English. Tim, the driver, and the person on the phone pass the phone back & forth until I was wanting to roll around laughing. Then, Alyona looks at me with the cutest face she could have and says, “Papa got us lost?” And of course I said, “Yes!” She laughs and says, “191, right”. (Me) “Yes, sweetheart, #191.” Then, I do lose it! So, we ride the bus back home and get off right at the same place where we started the morning at. So, this is why I thought today would be a great time to post the following. I had seen it several months ago and kept the link. I had no idea why, but I do now. I will say, we saw a lot more of the city this morning than we would have if we had not made this little mistake. I think we may have to do this again! :-)

Hope you enjoy; and for those of you who are following us soon, start studying now!

Lynn

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I am by no means an expert, but I have learned a few basics of reading Russian that have helped us tremendously on our journey. Continuing the caveat, I also cannot claim any of this to be 100% accurate, but understanding these simple basics (right or wrong) have helped us read street signs and business names, and most importantly food labels and menus.

Consonants are the key to basic understanding. If you can identify even half of the Cyrillic consonants, you’ll do just fine.

Learn Your Child’s Name

Learn to recognize a Russian stop sign

First of all, the most important advice I have is to learn to spell your child’s first name in Russian. If you memorize something simple that is dear to your heart, you are almost guaranteed to learn at least two Cyrillic consonants and at least one vowel. If you can’t or won’t learn to spell your own child’s name in Cyrillic, I believe you seriously have no chance to learn any Russian because you clearly aren’t motivated enough.

Examples: Anastasia = Анастасия; Anya = Аня; Marie = Мари; Masha = Маша; Vladimir = Владимир.

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to learn how to write your own name and your spouse’s name in Cyrillic. If nothing else, you can then sign your names onto the letters you will write to your daughter while she’s waiting for you at the orphanage. While you’re at it, practice writing out her current family name in Cyrillic so that the packages you send end up with the correct girl.

Common English first names: James = Джеймс; John = Джон; Michael = Майкл; Mary = Мэри; Jennifer = Дженифер or Дженнифер (more common); Helen = Хелен.

In just getting familiar with several easy consonants and vowels. Here are just a few:
-- Л = L, as seen at the beginning of Léna/Лена. Caution: the lowercase L in Cyrillic can be represented a few ways: λ, л, л, or an upside-down v.
-- Н = N, as seen within Léna/Лена.
-- Р = R, as at the beginning of Richard/Ричард.
-- И = the short I sound (‘ih’), seen in the middle of both Richard/Ричард and Kim/Ким. Just to confuse you, other similar short I sounds can be represented in Russian as ы or ы (single characters that look a bit like the number “61″), while Ukrainian is kind enough to sometimes use the standard Latin ‘i’. Technically, these all aren’t the same letters of the alphabet as they differ phonemically, but for our purposes it’s close enough to just accept them all as the short I sound.
-- Д = D, as in Richard/Ричард. Caution: a lowercase Cyrillic D looks familiar (or not!): д or g.

This All Looks Like Greek to Me!

Well, it should! The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the early Greek alphabet and still shares a few common letters. Here are just a few of the most useful to remember:
-- Г = G, the Greek letter “gamma”. Caution: a lowercase Cyrillic G is often displayed as one of the following: г or г.
-- Λ or λ = L, the Greek letter “lambda”. But you’ll see the capital L most often as Л, as mentioned above.
-- П = P, the Greek letter “pi”. Caution: a lowercase Cyrillic P can look like: п or п.
-- Ρ = R, the Greek letter “rho”
-- Φ, ф, or ф = F, the Greek letter “phi”.

Learn a Few Simple Words

There are a few common words you will see over and over that, once you understand them letter by letter, you will soon understand much more than you realize!
-- Ukraine = Украина (Russian) and Україна (Ukrainian) — oo-k-r-ay-ih-n-ah.
-- Kiev = Киев (Russian) and Київ (Ukrainian) — k-ih-ye-v.
-- bank = банк — b-ah-n-k.
-- stop = стоп, a sign seen at almost every street intersection — s-t-ah-p
With just being familiar with those few words, you’ll easily grasp the following Cyrillic letters:
-- У = the “oo” sound, as in “crew” or “Lou”, not like “book” or “cook”.
-- Р = R, just like at the beginning of Richard/Ричард.
-- Н = N, just like in Léna/Лена, so it’s reinforcing the recognition for us!
-- В = V, like at the beginning of Vladimir/Владимир.
-- Б = B, like inKimberly/Кимберли. Caution: a lowercase Cyrillic B can look like the number 6, б, or δ
-- C = S, just like the soft C’s in “race”, “mice”, and “Cyrillic”

A Few More Odd Characters

You’re just going to have to remember these:
-- Ж = sounds like “zh”, as in “massage”. If it helps to remember, the letter looks like a bug, and it makes a buzzing sound like a bug.
-- Я = sounds like “yah”, like the end of “Maria” or “Katya”
-- Ш = sounds like “sh”, like in “shoe” or “fish”
-- Ц = usually sounds like “ts”, as in “pizza”, or sometimes like “ch”, as in Richard/Ричард.
-- Щ = combines the two sounds above into something like “shch” or “sht”, as in “borscht” or almost as in the phrase “fresh cheese.”

Are We Done? Not Nearly!

In no way have I finished covering all the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet, but the few you’ve learned will help you figure out many Russian words. For practice, try reading the following common words or phrases using only what’ve you’ve learned above. A couple of the words below contain new letters not mentioned above, but you should be able to extrapolate the word from the letters you already know with just a little guessing.
-- минимаркет (seen on many non-residential buildings)
-- интернет клуб (many similar phrases seen on non-residential buildings in the city)
-- ресторан (very common on non-residential buildings)
-- аэропорт (you might notice this while traveling)
-- багаж (you’ll have some of this with you, hopefully physical and not mental! For another hint, if the English word was spelled phonetically, it would be more like “багадж”)
-- бульвар (seen very frequently on street signs. If you’re stuck, pretend to add a “д” onto the end.)
-- кальмары (on some menus)
-- пицца (surprisingly good.)
-- станция метро (the first word is a bit harder to figure out, but this is something often found in the most populous cities, most useful before and after work. For another hint, trying swapping the word order to see if that makes more sense.)