Lesson Four Is Kicking My Butt

So I’ve been struggling with my Russian lessons. Particularly Lesson Four, which I’ve been dealing with all week. I just can’t get it.

This lesson adds more words to my vocabulary: tell me, please; where; here; there; street; city square; red; I speak; you speak. However, the cds no longer sound out the words. In the first three cds the speakers would teach you the word by saying each syllable alone, from the end of the word to the beginning, until you could say the whole word.

We’ll use the word “example” as our example.

Pull. Pull. Zam-pull. Zam-pull. Eggs. Eggs-zam-pull. Eggs-zam-pull. Eggs-zam-pull.

That’s how it would teach me to say Example.

But now it presumes I can figure out the pronunciation more easily, and so it ripped right through “tell me” and “where”, which are difficult words to pronounce involving dt sounds, tv sounds and all kinds of other stuff. And the speaker whizzes through it so fast and moves on to the next word that I’m forced to rewind. And rewind. And rewind again. And I still can’t wrap my head around how to say these words. It’s very frustrating but I know I can’t go to Lesson Five until I have these words down pat. It’s gonna take FOREVER.

Russian vocabulary for the day: And you? Ah-VWEE?