Writing

I wrote back in January about setting up my computer to allow me to type in Cyrillic. Setting it up was the easy part; the hard part was memorizing what English letters corresponded to what Cyrillic letters. The default Windows XP Cyrillic keyboard layout is the same one that is used in Russian-speaking countries - that is, there is little rhyme nor reason to how the letters are laid out on a keyboard based on the Latin alphabet. For example, the T key produces the Cyrillic Е, the Y key produces Cyrillic Н, and the W key produces the Cyrillic Ц.

Still having not mastered the Russian keyboard layout, I went hunting for a better solution - and found one. From this page, you can install a phonetic keyboard layout which makes a lot more sense. Instead of having to memorize the random (to English users) layout, with the phonetic layout, you only have to memorize the placement of 7 of the letters. The rest of them are fairly logical - for example, the D key produces Д, the U key produces У, and the S key produces С.

The fellow who maintains the site has a fairly complicated set of instructions, which I personally found to be too complicated. If you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista, just do this:

1. Download this zip file, and unzip it to an easily accessible (and findable!) folder.
2. Go to the folder and double click setup.exe.
3. Wait.
4. That’s it.

You should now have, on your taskbar, a button that says “EN”. Click on it and click RU to switch to Russian. The keyboard layout that you’ll be using, when typing Cyrillic, will be this:

If, at any time, you wish to remove the phonetic keyboard, just return to the setup.exe file, double click it, and click Remove.

I posted back at the end of March that Natalia of A Spoonful of Russian was making videos of how to write Russian cursive letters. In the videos, she also sounds out the letters. I hadn’t checked A Spoonful of Russian for a while - until today actually! - but it looks like she’s finished up her series. Here are links to all of the videos, along with the letters that are covered in each one:

• Lesson 15 (Letter “A”)
• Lesson 16 (Letters “Б,В,Г”)
• Lesson 17 (Letters “Д,Е,Ё,Ж”)
• Lesson 18 (Letters “З,И”)
• Lesson 19 (Letters “Й,К,Л,М,Н”)
• Lesson 20 (Letters “О,П,Р,С,Т”)
• Lesson 21 (Letters “У,Ф,Х,Ц,Ч”)
• Lesson 22 (Letters “”Ш,Щ,ь,ъ,Ы,Э,Ю,Я”)

And of course, don’t just watch the videos and leave her site. She’s got a lot of good material there, both in her regular podcasts as well as in her Downloads section.