As you start to learn Russian, one of the most important advantages that you have is that Russian has borrowed many words from English, French and German. There will be many words in Russian whose meanings you should be able to guess easily when you sound out these words of international origin. Try the examples in Activity 1.
Sometimes, international words will get a small modification so that they fit more easily into Russian's grammatical system.
For example, many international words for nouns may acquire a feminine ending in -а or -я. This ending shouldn't keep you from uncovering the basic meaning of the word.
Many international words borrowed into Russian may have a narrower or slightly different range of meanings than the words may have in English. Consider context as you try to identify the specific meaning that an international word has in Russian.
Other times, international words came into Russian from French and German and their Russian spelling reflects how the words sounded to Russians in the original languages. You might need to think a bit about those sounds and how they are reflected in spelling when you try to guess these words.
For example, many Russian words with ж were borrowed from French where those words contained a soft g sound, spelled as -gi- or -ge- or -j-. Some of these French words are also used in English, others are only shared between French and Russian.
When international words came into Russian from Latin, the Latin letter c, when followed by e or i, was often expressed by ц in Russian. In English the c in these Latin-based words is usually pronounced as "s." The Russian word концерт is easily recognized as the English "concert" and "concerto," and the Russian офицер is easily recognized as "officer."
Until the mid-twentieth century, when international words that contained an h or h sound came into Russian, the h was often expressed with the letter г. For this reason, Shakespeare's famous tragedy Hamlet is known as Гамлет in Russian. The г is pronounced as a normal г.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the h of English-based international words is usually expressed in Russian with the letter х. For this reason, second-hand stories are known in Russian now as секонд-хенд, and the American food item "hot dog" is known in Russian as хот-дог.
When you encounter a word in Russian and you sound it out in trying to recognize it, it is good to remember that, while there are many international words in Russian, Russian also has its own core vocabulary. Once you've sounded out the Russian word, be sure to consider whether it could be from Russian's core vocabulary or an international word adopted from another language. Most words that Russian has borrowed will be for concepts or innovations that started elsewhere and came to Russian. Context should also help you decide if the word is an international word or not.