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Lesson Transcript

Zdrastvuite, Ya Svetlana! Welcome to Russianpod101.com’s Алфавит Made Easy!
The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Russian Cyrillic alphabet: the Алфавит!
Now that you've learned all of the letters, the last 4 lessons of this series will be looking at some strategies on how to read and write effectively, all while learning some fun Russian sayings, idioms, and proverbs.
In this lesson, I’ll cover the system of hooks and bars for writing Russian letters. Hooks and bars can be used when writing to help you tell similar looking letters apart.
As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of letters can be easy to confuse when written! To be more clear, many people use a small bar over their lowercase “Т” and under their lowercase “Ш” to help distinguish between them. Let's see how that looks in the word “штамп” which means stamp. See? Putting bars under the “ш” and above the “т” make it much easier to read.
Here are two notoriously difficult words to read in cursive without bars.
шишки (cursive -- pause and then add bars)
дышишь (cursive -- pause and then add bars)
Pretty ridiculous, right? It boggles the mind! But now let's add some bars.
Oh, that's much better! Can you read them now? “шишки” means “pine cones” and “дышишь” means “you breathe.”
That’s all there is to it! Let's move on to hooks.
This will be just a quick review because we've been learning these as we introduced the letters. You probably remember that some Russian letters take “hooks” when following other letters. Can you remember which ones? Well, there are three in total, л, м, and я. The reason that we write these hooks is not just to make these words easier to read. Remember, in Russian cursive, the connecting point of each letter is actually above the line, so we have to make a hook to start these letters from the correct position.
It's important to note that when the letter begins a word or stands alone, it doesn't really look like a hook.
мама (cursive, lowercase - first “м” also starts and ends above the line)
For example: “мама” means “mother,” and as you can see, it looks like the second ”м” has a hook. But if you look hard you’ll notice that the first “м” also starts and ends above the line! It's not too difficult, but we just need to develop good habits and remember to write consistently in this way.
Это мой семейный альбом. (cursive -- hooks and bars)
Here’s a sentence that has several “hooking” letters. You will recognize some of the words here: “Это мой” means “This is my” and “семейный альбом” means “family album”. Это мой семейный альбом. "This is my family album." That's not too hard, right? Try to write this sentence a few times to practice your hooks. Notice how this one has a bar as well!
To sum up, when writing in the cursive style, there are two letters that get bars: “ш” and “т”.
And there are three letters that get hooks: л, м, and я.
Nice job! Now let's try and apply our new-found knowledge to another idiom!
Here's a saying that’s popular in English too. Can you read it? [short pause] “Xорошо там, где нас нет." it has some words that you might recognize: “Xорошо там” means “It's good there”. “где” means “where,” “нас” is a form of “we,” and “нет" means “no” or “not.” So this means “It's good where we aren't.” and is an equivalent version of the English saying “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
Xорошо там, где нас нет. (cursive)
Did you remember your hooks and bars? The first “Т” won't take a bar because it's in uppercase, but then we should make sure that we add bars on the rest of the “Т”s, one more under the “ш”, and add a hook before the “м”. Nicely done!
Now it's time for Svetlana’s insights.
Now that you know how to write with bars and hooks, keep it up! As you get more experienced, you can do as the Russians do and dispense with the bars if you feel like it, but the hooks are an essential part of learning how to write well.
That’s it for this lesson! In the next lesson, we'll introduce the Russian system of accents and teach you how it affects the pronunciation of some words! See you in the next Алфавит Made Easy lesson!
Пока Пока

Comments

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18 Comments
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RussianPod101.com
2014-04-11 18:30:00

Do you know any other word that need hooks or bars to be easily read?

RussianPod101.com
2024-02-10 00:37:16

Hello Dila!

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a comment. We are happy to have you here ❤️❤️❤️

Yes, Russian is not easy.

However, you have a great reason to continue learning it! 😉 You master cases if you will practice Russian regularly.

Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions!

Kind Regards,

Evgeniia

Team RussianPod101.com

Dila
2024-02-08 04:45:49

This language is really hard.

not the alphabet or emphasis or any other things related to phonetics, but the significant changes in words themselves due to the cases.

That makes me extremely unmotivated even though I am a foreign language teacher.

Our only motivation is our many Russian friends 👌

RussianPod101.com
2022-05-15 09:22:45

Здравствуйте, Dora!

Спасибо for your comment! A great note about "шишки" 😄👍👍👍

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

Kind Regards,

Evgeniia

Team RussianPod101.com

dora
2022-05-13 22:01:05

шишки in cursive is my favourite, also hard to read. But nothing can block me if I practice.

RussianPod101.com
2020-09-14 16:25:59

Hello Laura,

thank you for your kind feedback and your question.

When you sign up, you're given a free 7-day trial to experience Premium access to RussianPod101. When your trial ends, your access to our Premium subscription features ends but you stay on as a "Free" member, or what we call a "Free Lifetime Account" and have access to all of our free learning tools.

Please, read our FAQ to find out what you get for free:

https://www.russianpod101.com/helpcenter/faqandsupport/faq

Let us know if you have any questions!

Kind Regards,

Evgeniia

Team RussianPod101.com

Laura
2020-09-13 11:14:03

Hello, i would like to know what happens after the 7 days free trial ? am i still gonna be able to see the lessons? or not .

i love this way of learning.❤️️❤️️❤️️❤️️

RussianPod101.com
2020-06-04 23:20:46

Hello Taya,

thank you for your question!

If you ask me, I use hooks (and think it's important!) but don't use bars and peoples understand my writing 😄

Kind Regards,

Evgeniia

Team RussianPod101.com

RussianPod101.com
2020-06-04 22:00:16

Hello Fawzy,

it works fine on my PC.

Do you still have the problem?

Let us know if you have any questions!

Kind Regards,

Evgeniia

Team RussianPod101.com

Taya
2020-05-02 23:52:42

Is it THAT important to add hooks and bars?

Fawzy
2020-04-28 09:26:08

The videos won't open up I don't know why?

RussianPod101.com
2020-04-26 04:13:56

Здравствуйте Beatriz,

Спасибо for taking the time to leave us a comment. Yes, we have a free Russian Alphabet eBook that you can download here: https://www.russianpod101.com/russian-alphabet/. 😉

Всего наилучшего,

Левенте (Levente)

Team RussianPod101.com

Beatriz Comte
2020-04-20 08:18:49

Hi, I cannot find texts in cursive or practice in cursive by just looking it up on the site, this is one of the few things that come up. Are there any others, a workbook, etc?

RussianPod101.com
2018-09-12 00:46:48

Hello Сolin,

It is not necessary. Some people use a bar, some don't. It depends on a person.

Elena

Team RussianPod101.com

Сolin
2018-09-06 04:26:54

Does река Ишим, which refers to the Ishim River, require a bar under the ш when written in cursive in order to be readable?

Сolin
2018-09-06 04:25:56

Does река Ишим, which refers to the Ishim River, require a bar under the ш when written in cursive in order to be readable.

RussianPod101.com
2017-02-16 17:53:58

Hello AJ,

Basically, no :smile:

Elena

Team RussianPod101.com

AJ
2017-02-16 12:35:52

Would you also put a bar under щ?

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