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> There's no spelling bees in Russia ... but there are constant dictation exercises (диктанты) in school to force children to memorize the thousands of excepti

> There's no spelling bees in Russia ... but there are constant dictation exercises (диктанты) in school to force children to memorize the thousands of exceptions in the orthographic rules of literary Russian. A written Russian sentence is (usually) easy to read - but the reverse task, writing down a spoken sentence, can be rather complicated for a child. Especially when the distinction between words and phonemes can seem rather arbitrary in a language full of clitics.

sveolon 3y ago
In reality in Russia there has been planned a very ambitious reform aiming to radically simplify the orthography in the Khruschev time, but as he fell out of power, everything Khruschev was condemned and undone :( https://sergeytsvetkov-livejournal-com.translate.goog/1056256.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://sergeytsvetkov-livejournal-com.translate.goog/105625...
cyberax 3y ago
Back when I was at school in Russia, one spelling mistake in the final examination essay meant minus one mark ("A" to "B", "B" to "C" and so on). From today's point of view, this seems somewhat egregious. > Especially when the distinction between words and phonemes can seem rather arbitrary in a language full of clitics. Uhh... Russian doesn't have a lot of clitics. There are compound words like in German, but they are still understandable if you read them phonetically. And most children learn to read first by sounding aloud individual letters, and then just training to do it faster. It's called "reading by syllables". But Ukrainian is still even better. It's almost completely phonetic both ways and you usually can write down any word you hear without problems, even if you hear it for the first time. There are still some double consonants and a small amount of reduced vowels, but even they are still somewhat reflected phonetically.

sveolon 3y ago

In reality in Russia there has been planned a very ambitious reform aiming to radically simplify the orthography in the Khruschev time, but as he fell out of power, everything Khruschev was condemned and undone :( https://sergeytsvetkov-livejournal-com.translate.goog/1056256.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://sergeytsvetkov-livejournal-com.translate.goog/105625...

cyberax 3y ago

Back when I was at school in Russia, one spelling mistake in the final examination essay meant minus one mark ("A" to "B", "B" to "C" and so on). From today's point of view, this seems somewhat egregious. > Especially when the distinction between words and phonemes can seem rather arbitrary in a language full of clitics. Uhh... Russian doesn't have a lot of clitics. There are compound words like in German, but they are still understandable if you read them phonetically. And most children learn to read first by sounding aloud individual letters, and then just training to do it faster. It's called "reading by syllables". But Ukrainian is still even better. It's almost completely phonetic both ways and you usually can write down any word you hear without problems, even if you hear it for the first time. There are still some double consonants and a small amount of reduced vowels, but even they are still somewhat reflected phonetically.