RuVdrill.xls (Russian vocabulary drill program, Version 1.00.00)
Copyright (c) 2001 by Michael Hansen
Press Ctrl+M to begin/resume vocabulary drill.
Version: 1.00.00
Date: released 25 March 2001
Author: Michael Hansen
6624 Oak Drive
Alexandria, VA 22306-1629
USA
License: Please see the file license.txt or the "License" worksheet tab for licensing information.
Requirements: Microsoft Excel 97 or later
Microsoft Windows 95/98 with Multilanguage Support and a Russian
keyboard driver installed (scroll down to see technical information)
This program should also work with Windows NT, although Russian keyboard
support for NT is different from what is described below.
Bare Minimum Instructions
1. Copy RUVDRL10.zip into any directory on your hard drive (suggestion: C:\russian) and
decompress the file using PKZIP, WinZip, or a similar utility.
2. The essential files are RuVdrill.xls, wordlist.xls, and opener.xls. The others (wordlist.doc,
readme.txt, license.txt, and kbdru.kbd) should be kept in the same directory to make a full set.
Files are described more fully below and in the license agreement.
3. In Excel, open the file called opener.xls and choose "Read-Only" mode when prompted.
4. The rest of the program is menu driven, with all commands located on the "Russian" menu.
Issue the Russian / Reset command (shortcut: Ctrl+M) at any time to reset the menu and
display, or to return to the vocabulary drill worksheet.
About the Author
I teach high school mathematics and statistics at St. Albans School for Boys, an Episcopal school
affiliated with Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. I am also a beginning Russian
student. During the 1999-2000 academic year, one other faculty member and I took first-year
Russian alongside a group of 13- to 16-year-olds. We survived, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of
our teacher, Tamara Woolf. This program is designed to automate and speed up some of the
flashcard vocabulary drills that we used during the year. For more information about St. Albans,
please visit
www.sta.cathedral.org
For more information about me and the classes I teach, please visit my home page:
netword.com/*****
Worksheet Protection and Companion Files (wordlist.xls and opener.xls)
The contents of RuVdrill.xls are protected against accidental modification, as are those of the data
file (wordlist.xls) and the file that launches everything (opener.xls). All three files should be stored in
the same directory. When you open opener.xls, a macro will automatically fetch the data from
wordlist.xls and will load the words into the appropriate row of RuVdrill.xls. In a future verson of
RuVdrill.xls, multiple word lists will probably be supported. If you have other suggestions for
improvements, please send e-mail to mhansen@cathedral.org or U.S. mail to the address above.
Other Technical Information
If you have not already done so, you must first install Multilanguage Support for Windows. To do
this, use the Start menu (normally in lower left corner of screen) and follow these steps:
1. From the Start menu, choose the Settings command.
2. Choose Control Panel.
3. Double-click the "Add/Remove Programs" icon.
4. You will see a dialog box that has three tabs at the top. Click on the middle one of these
tabs, which is labeled "Windows Setup."
5. After a delay, you will see a list of components. Scroll down to see "Multilanguage Support"
and click the check box to the left of that entry.
6. Click OK and follow any additional prompts or instructions that appear.
Whew! After that hurdle is out of the way, you should install a Russian keyboard driver so that
you can enter Russian characters from your keyboard. There are many, many such keyboard
drivers available from various sources, usually free. Windows itself comes with one called
kbdru.kbd (read as "Keyboard Russian Keyboard"), which you can activate by following these
steps:
1. Begin, as before, by clicking the Start menu, then the Settings command, then Control Panel.
2. Double-click the "Keyboard" icon.
3. On the dialog box that appears, there are two tabs. Click the "Language" tab, which is the
one on the right.
4. Click the "Add..." button and follow the prompts to add the Russian language with the Russian
keyboard layout. Click OK when finished.
Now that the Russian keyboard is enabled, you can use SHIFT+ALT to switch between Russian
and English mode. If you're like me, though, you may be dissatisfied with the results. The default
Russian keyboard driver (kbdru.kbd) that comes with Windows 95/98 is (in my humble opinion)
rather hard to learn, with letters located in awkward places.
If you wish, you can instead use my alternate version of kbdru.kbd that I have included for
free with the RuVdrill program. I'm not saying my keyboard driver is the best possible, but I hope
you find it useful. Here's how to get Windows to ignore the default kbdru.kbd and to use my
version instead:
1. You must first go through both of the procedures listed above. In other words, you must
install Multilanguage Support, and you must activate the default Windows keyboard driver
for Russian. Activating the Windows version of kbdru.kbd is required even though you
will be altering it in a moment.
2. Use your favorite file management utility (e.g., Windows Explorer) to copy my kbdru.kbd
file into the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, where it will overwrite the version that is
already there. If you don't know how to copy files from place to place, please ask someone
in your office (or the nearest computer guru teenager), because it would be cumbersome to
explain here how to perform this task. You either already know how to copy files from place
to place, in which case the instructions would be boring, or you don't, in which case this is
a basic skill covered in any introductory book or video about Windows.
3. You must reboot your computer for the change to take effect. Note that if you get confused
about which copy of kbdru.kbd is original and which is "new and improved," you can
tell them apart by looking at the size of the file. The version that comes for free with
Windows is 473 bytes, and my "souped up" version is 800 bytes.
How to Find the Russian Letters on the Keyboard
My Russian keyboard layout has three basic groups of letters: obvious, somewhat obvious, and not
obvious (i.e., requiring memorization).
1. "Obvious" assignments: English key Get this result in Russian
A a
B be
V ve
G ge
D de
E e
Z ze
I backward N
K ka
L el
M em
N en (H)
O o
P pe
R er (P)
S ess (C)
T te
U oo (Y)
F ef
X xa
2. "Somewhat Obvious" assignments:
English key Get this result in Russian
J (like an altered "I") backward N kratkoye
C (think of "ts") tse
H (think of "ch") che
W (visual cue) sha
}] (vague visual cue) e oborotnoye
3. "Not Obvious" assignments (these Russian letters have to be memorized)
English Russian Result(s) Rationale
Shift+3 ë located near letter E; relatively rare
Shift+4 Ë located near letter E; relatively rare
|\ zhe | plus \ makes most of the letter zhe
~` shcha backquote is reminder of small mark at right
Shift+6 hard sign vague visual cue; character rarely used
Shift+7 uppercase hard sign found just to right of ?
Yy yeri (61) approximate sound match
{[ soft sign conveniently located just to right of English P
< « Russian double quote (Shift+comma)
> » Russian double quote (Shift+period)
Qq ya (backward R) just above the letter A
+= yoo (I0) last available standard key
If you disagree with any of these key assignments (which is certainly understandable), you may
wish to search for a better .kbd file on the Internet. There are many to choose from! You can
also create your own keyboard layout with the help of a keyboard generator program.
Speaking of keyboard generators, Janko Stamenovic's Keyboard Generator program is free for
private use, or $15 if (like me) you want to distribute .kbd files to other people. Janko's program is
quite easy to use. For more information, send email to him (janko@eunet.yu) or visit his site:
solair.eunet.yu/~janko/engdload.htm
Updates and News
For updated versions and other news related to RuVdrill.xls, please visit the RuVdrill site on the Web:
www.angelfire.com/va2/russian
