Russian in Germany

19. März 2011

Over the past few months, I have been trying to learn Russian (with varying degrees of diligence). I sit in a 9th grade class a couple times a week, meet with a Russian teacher and a GT student after school and meet with two Russian students for Russian-English conversation hour on Fridays. Despite this, I often find it difficult to stay motivated without actually having a consistent class at my level. Not to mention that I’m learning in German. Oy. I have made a decent amount of progress, though, and it’s fun. I love the way the language sounds, although my pronunciation is terrible. At least the grammar makes sense to me.



Check it out!



I anticipated that my learning curve might be steeper than with previous languages I’ve learned because first I

had to learn to read and write Cyrillic (and of course, cursive and print are fairly different, just to make it more confusing), so I’ll just keep trying. If nothing else, I can speak (very) simply and I learned to read and write, which is an accomplishment in itself! Also, I find myself being able to pick the limited words I know out of conversations in Slavic languages while I’m traveling…cool!

What I really want to talk about here, though, are the relationships that I’ve gained in my attempted to learn Russian in Germany.

First, there’s my Russian teacher, Frau Doktor T (Don’t you love the German titles?). She has so much passion for the Russian language, and I actually thought she was Russian for a while. It turns out her Mom did a Russian radio show during DDR times, so she grew up with the language. She’s been really helpful in the learning process and is now a friend in the teacher room. There are around 100 teachers at my school, and I really only have a relationship with a few because people are in and out so much, so making a new friend was definitely positive. Plus, she’s really full of life and fascinating to talk to. We speak German together, and she tries out the English phrases she knows sometimes, too.

I’ve also gotten to know “der kleine Kostya,” the GT student learning Russian. I actually knew him from my time at T’s (my former host mom) school during my previous visits to Germany, so it’s funny we’ve been brought together again. He’s very shy, but lately we walk together to the train station after Russian lessons, as he goes that way to walk home. He talks and I talk – mostly in German – and it’s interesting to hear what he has to say. Sometimes you can tell that there’s so much going on in his head at once that he can’t express it all quickly enough. You can almost see wheels spinning and gears whirring – adorable. His Mom has even said that he can’t read before bed because he starts thinking about so many things that it’s impossible for him to sleep afterwards.

Perhaps some of my favorite people are my Russian-English speaking partners, Lara and Ben. They’re 9th graders, but in the U.S. you’d never believe it because they’re so smart and mature. Lara always comes to our sessions armed with a notebook to write down any words we talk about that she doesn’t know. Smart really since she and Ben are two of the 16 students from our school who will participate in the month-long exchange program in Texas this fall. Since I know them primarily from outside the classroom setting (Lara is also in the dance group I teach in at school), I’ve really gotten to know them on a much more personal level, and I think we’ve all been able to benefit from the exchange. They’ve taught me about a myriad of things in Germany from Bleigießen (lead figures that are melted over a candle on a spoon and then dropped into cold water before their shape is “read” to show what is the come in the new year) to how to tell someone their zipper is unzipped in German (valuable information, I tell you…if someone tells me that, I need to know!) to everything under the sun about the German school system to when you should (and shouldn’t) ring your bike bell. Not to mention that they’ve helped me feel truly integrated in both the school and the culture. I only hope that I’ve been able to share as much of my culture with them as they have their culture with me.



Making guac



One night they came over and we made burritos and guacamole. They’d never had guacamole before (gasp!), and we had a lot of fun mashing the avocados. In true Chipotle fashion, I helped them learn how to roll a burrito and they really managed it quite well. I was pretty sure that they enjoyed their first foray into the realm of Mexican food, and sure enough a couple of weeks later, they told me that they made burritos with their families one weekend. That really made my day.

Who would’ve thought that such fantastic relationships would come out of learning Russian in Germany? My life here is full of wonderful people, and I am so thankful for their warmness and acceptance.



Rolling like a pro...note the pinky!



Deine,

N* 



Beautiful flowers they brought me