>Feel in love with Russian literature and poetry
>Really want to read them in their native language, as /lit/ told me translations were not the same
>Spend years learning perfect Russian
>Actually pay to take afew classes and hours a day reading textbooks and online resources
>Finally think im ready to attempt it
>Buy the original russian text on amazon
>It just arrived today
>Cover is cyrillic, looks really cool
>Open it up
>Its all French
>>7721552
>losing your russian virginity
>actually ordering the book from overseas
>it's published by Aзбyкa
Nigga what are you doing
Pretty sure the best introductory text to Russian lit is Moscow-Petushki. Considering this boards jerks off to both postmodernism and Russia, and the book is also good, I find it weird that it doesn't get reccommended in every second thread.
sux2bu m8
Anyway, I think I share your love for ruski lit and have just started taking the Duolingo course. How hard was learning it? Did you have to converse with any native speakers?
>>7721577
Duolingo a shit
A Russian course that allows the Latin alphabet is shit.
The alphabet is much easier to learn that most people think, after you know it, spelling word phonetically in Russian is easier than in English.
Plus duolingo doesn't teach grammar at all, which is the hardest part
Rossiyaboos are alright in my book
>>7721592
you could add cyrulic keyboard in settings, at least that what i did on iphone
>>7721577
If your aim is reading then I (not OP but quite all right reader of Russian) heavily recommend lingq.com. It's subscription based, which sucks a bit, but it's excellent for vocabulary acquisition and reading skills. You most likely won't come out a great speaker though, but I wouldn't know since fuck talking to actual ruskies
>>7721571
Do you have any more recommendations for entry-level Russian literature?
>>7721645
Gogol is the sort of guy you could enjoy both at 14 and 30. As a bonus, he technically counts as a high-brow literature.
Brothers Strugatsky. They redeemed the entire genre of russian science fiction. Roadside Picnick is good and all, but they actually produced tons of better material, ranging from easy-reading sci-fi, quircky social satire and to existential leviathans of bitterness.
You have Lermontov and Turgenyev, I guess, but Lermontov is edgy as fuck, and Turgenev is apathetically unoffensive.
Don't fall for the meme of Metro 2033 and like. It's shit.
>>7721645
Oh, and poem-wise I need to mention Brodsky, but don't be that guy.
>>7721665
>Turgenev is apathetically unoffensive.
although this is kind of true, some of his shorter novels are pretty enjoyable.
>>7721645
Life and Fate by Vasiliy Grossman
Oblomov by Goncharov
Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn