Learning Russian - An Update

It's been a long time since I said anything about learning Russian - regretfully, far longer than I had intended for it to be, as I had hoped to frequently record my progress so that it would be documented for me to look back on. Since I can't go back and change the past, the only thing for me to do now is to start writing and vow to be better about doing so in the future.

First things first - as of this evening, I have read exactly forty-two pages of the Russian-language copy of Harry Potter that I bought in September. That means that my average pace has been, well, not even one whole page every week... On the upside, though, I've managed to make it through an entire FORTY-TWO pages of text spelled out in a language and alphabet different than my own. Even more significantly, I have gotten to the point where it actually feels like I'm reading instead of just tediously sounding out nonsense.

This is more or less what is going on in my head:

"And, that your cousin, that I understand, Harry? Mister Weasley... and I don't have a clue what the rest of this sentence says... yes... word that must mean 'answered'... Harry, that [is] Dudley."

"Good... this word must mean something like 'are going'... holidays, Dudley?... this has got to mean 'asked' but I've never heard anyone use it... him... I'm guessing this means 'kindly' or something of the sort since it's a bit similar to the word for 'happiness'. To [the] answer Dudley... couldn't make? couldn't find? something like that..."

So... it's still pretty slow going, but I'm getting there. My vocabulary has significantly expanded and my ability to guess the meaning of a new word is getting better; that, combined with a slightly better understanding of a handful of grammar rules and my familiarity with the story told in the book (I've read this book in English about half a dozen times), means that I can sit down, read a section from the book, and actually have some resonable understanding of what I've read.

We've been having Russian classes, four times each week, for most of the school year. Today, these lessons came to an end; we took our final exam, which consisted of a multiple-choice written portion and a short oral test. Even though we won't be having the formal classes any more, it doesn't mean that I'm done learning Russian for the year - everyday experiences like going to the theater or to the grocery store become language-learning opportunities in and of themselves, and I'm going to keep studying grammar and vocabulary on my own. 

I want to close this post with a few reflections about the process and experience of learning a language through immersion.

I've discovered myself, more and more, mixing together English and Russian in my thoughts, replacing simple English words or phrases with their Russian counterparts. I sometimes find myself, for a moment or two, thinking primarily in Russian. This usually happens in the form of a simple dialogue, often ending with either "I don't know" or "I don't understand," after which my thoughts return to English. I even once had a dream in which I spoke in Russian (unusual because I don't frequently remember my dreams and rarely speak during them), though after successfully saying one sentence, my dream-self promptly forgot how to say a word in Russian and decided that shouting the Spanish equivalent would be an appropriate substitute...

The conversations that I have with the other international students also involve a similar mixing of languages. Spanish even sometimes comes into play, though usually it's not being shouted, as a way of sorting out with my Brazilian classmate the meaning of a word, as sometimes the Spanish and Portuguese words are close enough for us to get the idea of what the other one is trying to say. Even when speaking in English, I, along with most of the other international students, rarely call the cafeteria by its English name. Instead, it is 'the столовая' (or the stalovaya). Cocoa powder is just 'порошок' (Russian for 'powder,' pronounced parashoke (-oke as in artichoke)), and the tall closet-like pieces of furniture where we store our clothes are each 'the шкаф' (shkaf). Sometimes speaking in Russian or substituting in Russian words is a necessity for communication, as it can often expand the range of our shared vocabulary when speaking primarily in English and there are also several trainees with whom I share a larger common vocabulary in Russian than in any other language.

When I listen to the Russian being spoken around me, my brain is constantly being flooded by a stream of unfamiliar words. These words are the ones that I listen to but do not hear, that I do not understand but which my mind, on a subconscious level, tucks away for future reference. When I learn new words during Russian class or from asking a friend how to say something, often it ends up being that the words which I have heard over and over again, without being able to understand them, are the ones which I remember the best. Though I might not immediately realize that I have heard a particular word being said countless times already, I soon am able to infer that I must have after listening to new conversations and hearing the word come up again and again.

After I have learned a new word like this, I find myself suddenly become almost overly aware of it; when I listen to others speak, my brain is more attentive to that particular word than to the others, as if I were reading something in which that one word were highlighted in bright yellow each time it appeared in the text. After a day or two, this feeling fades away.

The most bizarre thing of all, though, is the gradual process of starting to understand things, and the difficulty of going back and remembering just how I came to understand what I do now. Though each day feels just like the one before, it must, on some small level, be better than the previous day. Though I'm not aware of the daily changes, they add up over time.

There is a lot that I still do not understand and need to learn, but I can see that I've made progress from where I was at the beginning of the year. Now I need to work more on expanding my vocabulary and knowledge of Russian grammar and sentence structure so that I can begin to better express myself to those around me.