What makes up a Russian noun is like a candle flame...

[Kenneth E Udut]

Well, I'm trying a bit of everything.  I practice listening -
quite a bit in fact - Russian radio that's on the web, using
audio and videotapes, plus some cassettes that Russian friends have
made for me.

Speaking - well, I practice speaking along with the tapes,
and when I read, I don't read aloud *but* I do pronouce the words
as best I can, in my head.  The extensive reading seems to provide
the most help.

You see, there are some things that can be just accepted -
for example, that nouns have case, number and gender, and never don't
have these things.  Verbs have tenses, and 'person' (I don't know the
word for it - I, thou, he/she/it, we, you, them) and one or two other
things I think
that I haven't 'gotten' in my head yet.

And I accepted those things when I started learning Russian, but I knew
that something was missing in my understanding.  It all seemed disjointed
and unnecessary.

Then it 'clicked' in yesterday - that's what was so exciting to me.  I'm
finally able to accept these particulars about nouns, adjectives, the
things about the verbs - these assumptions that I just couldn't seem to
accept before on some level.

Now, I look at a noun (I keep using noun as an example) - the fact that
it has case, gender and number (and is sometimes made up of a
prefix/root/suffix) - is now a reality in my brain - it doesn't take any
extra thinking power.

Knowing how to match up the adjective and the noun in their particular
case, gender and number, is *1000%* easier now, you see.  It's not all
automated yet - but my mind seems to have crossed over a 'hump' - a
hurdle - a rough spot - that it's been unconsciously and consciously
struggling with.

Instead of looking at all of the individual parts - (sometimes I would be
reading along, word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after
paragraph, page after page - and a word would just *stop* me - *boom*.  I
couldn't move on.  It is a puzzle, an enigma, a challenge.

I'm going to put together some drawings to help explain what it 'is' that

finally 'clicked' in.  Once they're done (and assuming I did them
correctly), I'll be able to put my mind at rest about these basic aspects
of grammar because now I'll have a mental representation of the MECHANICS
of Russian grammar, how each affects the other automatically, like gears.

It's really quite simple, and why it took a year to 'click in' - I don't
know.

-Kenneth

On Sat, 22 Jan 2000 00:12:44 +0200 Alex <as at TICOM.KHARKOV.UA> writes:
> Dear Kenneth!
>
> A five-year old Russian child has no idea about such things. And
> nevertheless it NEVER confuses gender, cases or prepositions.
> Except of some nasty mistakes borrowed from adults. This is because
> it never learns grammar BEFORE listening and then speaking and then,
> perhaps, reading!
> So if you want to be as close as possible to native speaking do not
> try
> to learn grammar before LISTENING, SPEAKING and then reading.
> Otherwise
> you are  going to learn Russian as long as I was learning English
> (over 40 years!) only to realize in the end that you were wrong
> from the very beginning!
>
> Regards
>
> Alex

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