Just watch Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. You will have a realistic Russian accent down in no time.
“Moose and squirrel, moose and squirrel, meester beeg”.
BWAAAAHAHAHAHA!
Exactly! I took Russian when I was deployed to Uzbekistan and at first talked like Boris Badenov (”Look, Natasha! Is moose and squirrel!”)
But I discovered that speaking close to the front & roof of the mouth, almost nasally, made for a more authentic sound. The rolled R is more subtle in Russian than Spanish, this is true.
The greatest initial hurdle is to learn Cyrillic and to hear it the same way as with the Latin alphabet. When the sound of a printed Cyrillic word comes to mind, then it is no longer an impenetrable code. And it’s much easier to learn if you think of it as modified Greek, which it is.
Basic Russian phrases & sentences are learned much faster when you don’t have to transliterate.
I met a guy that came over from Russia when he was a teen. He had NO Russian accent - it was hard to believe. I asked him how he learned to speak English so well.
“I watched a lot of cartoons when I first came over.”
Exactly what I was going to say...Rocky and Bullwinkle, language teachers. Or at least accent coaches...
LOL! Boris!
My Grandfather went thru the Russian Revolution as a teenage. The only Russian word I remember is peeva but my Russian accent isn’t bad.
Boris & Natasha were so good. Heh.
Cartoon of moose and squirrel, just!
Boris Badinov!