Why am I learning Russian?

A friend of mine emailed me today with a few personal updates. Also in the email was this:

Since you study Russian, I was wondering what actually attracts you to it and to the people and the country. I can imagine someone studying a language on a purely theoretical basis, but it makes more sense if you actually admire or like the culture behind the language. Just thought of this while watching the news actually: Putin, Yeltsin, the protests, the riots in Estonia… It’s all very fascinating.

He also mentioned that the answer to that could prove to be an interesting blog post, and I agree, so here we are.

While I’d love to say that I have a solid reason for wanting to learn Russian – admiration of their culture, preference towards a communist state, plans of visiting Russia in the future – I’d be lying if I said I had such a reason. I began studying Russian right around the beginning of 2007, when I received a copy of The New Penguin Russian Course as an early Christmas gift. That doesn’t really help much in regards to why I started studying the language, though, because I specifically asked for that book as a gift. Now that I try to think back and remember of any particular thing that said “learn Russian!” to me, I’m coming with a bank.

I suppose it’s just a variety of things that led to my studying it. For one, I’m just a language geek in general, and enjoy learning languages. I’ve been studying German for about 4 years now, and felt that it was time that I try to add a second foreign language into the mix. I know one influencing factor was my interest in World War 2. Due to the Russians playing such a large role in the war, I was interested in learning more about them in general (because I knew next to nothing about them). I guess this desire to learn more about Russia and its peoples simply bled off into the language department. When I decided to learn Russian, it wasn’t a thought out, planned course of action, but more of a “hey, what the hell, why not?” thing.

While I hadn’t thought of this reason specifically, I’m glad I selected Russian. As I progress in my study of it, I’m finding that I enjoy the language, particularly how it sounds. I’m also glad that it’s a Slavic language, because by learning it, I’ll have given myself a good base to learn other Slavic languages, if I were so inclined. I don’t know how knowing it will help me professionally, or if it will at all, but I can’t help but think that knowing even the basics of a fairly difficult language will help me at some point, somehow.

When I get a decent base down for my Russian, I’ll probably start working on Spanish. For that language, I do have a reason: it’s practical for where I live. Spanish is the most often spoken foreign language in the U.S., and I’d say knowing some of it would help me career wise. If nothing else, it would let me communicate with all of the Mexicans who have appeared in my town during the past 5 years or so.

So, to give a short answer to my friend’s question: no particular reason. I just kind of decided to learn Russian. (Regarding politics though, communism doesn’t look too bad, on paper, anyway. It’s never actually worked like the theory prescribes, though, so we have no historical example to judge.)

My first steps with Russian

For our family Christmas passing party this year, I asked for The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners. Seeing as I knew what I was getting (and the person I’m purchasing for also knew what he was getting*), we agreed to swap presents early. So, I was able to get my gift a couple of days ago and start working with it some.

I’ve not really gotten into any grammar, or even real Russian texts as of yet: I’ve been learning the Cyrillic alphabet, along with the pronunciation. As of yesterday, I’ve covered all 33 letters, which were broken down into 4 groups. With a little reviewing of the last group, which consists of letters totally unknown in English (coupled with quite a few sounds that are generally not used in English), I’ll be able to move on to lesson 2. When I first started working on the Cyrillic alphabet, I thought the biggest hurdle would be remembering all of these oddly formed letters. Now that I’m mostly through with the first lesson, I know otherwise. It’s not overly difficult at all to remember the letters; it is, however, difficult for my American tongue to produce some of the sounds that are called for. For example, in Russian, there is a letter that is called a soft sign. What it does is combines with the previous consonant, and blends a y sound into it. Now think about trying to say a rolled r at the end of the word, with y blended into it. The author stresses that you should try to not separate the sounds. They should be together. It’s doable – I’ve achieved it a few times – but it’s not easy. Luckily I don’t feel too bad about it, because in the book, the author notes that the r sound with y blended into it is one of the most difficult Russian sounds to make. I can see how he could come to that conclusion!

Having never studied Russian before, having only heard bits and pieces of it occasionally, and having always looked at the Cyrillic writing in awe (and with more than a bit of trepidation), I was surprised to find that there are some words that are cognates in English. At this point I have no idea how to produce Cyrillic on my computer, so here are some of the pronciations provided by the book:

• mye-tró – metro, underground
• tra-llyéy-boos – trolleybus
• kó-fye – coffee
• rye-sta-rá-ni – restaurant

While not specifically about the Russian language, I think it’s fitting to mention this here. I’ve always had trouble gauging my progress in German, particularly once I got past the beginning stages. Sometimes I’d think, all of this work and so little to show for it! I often felt like I was making no progress at all. After dipping into Russian I feel completely different. Starting a new foreign language has brought to my attention just how much German I do know. In my Russian book, I’m seeing basic words that I have no idea how to say – words which I’ve known how to say in German for a long time. It’s serving as an excellent reminder that, yes, at one point, I knew absolutely no German, so I should be happy with my progress.

* The person I was buying for was my older nephew. I had no idea what he’d want and he had no idea what I’d want, so we agreed to just tell each other what we’d like. Hence, there wasn’t much point in waiting a couple more weeks to swap gifts, because the mystery aspect was gone. If you’re curious, he wanted the Dungeon Guide to World of Warcraft.

Is learning a foreign language fun?

I came across this post, which asks: is language learning fun?

I personally find language learning exceptionally enjoyable and dreadfully frustrating at the same time. Anyone who has studied a language seriously probably knows what I mean. When you’re making progress, it’s a great feeling. It’s like finding a door into another universe and successfully picking the lock, because learning a foreign language lets you see the world through different lenses. Once you’re advanced enough, you actually have to begin thinking in the foreign language, because languages are never word-to-word translations. Experiencing the switch from thinking in one language to another is a bit of a rush, I think.

The other side of the coin is, of course, when you feel like you aren’t making any progress, or god forbid, you’re going backwards. It’s when you’ve read the chapter on the past tense subjunctive four times and you’re still not getting it. It’s when you’re consistently getting the words for embassy, businesses, and pinecones mixed up. “Ah, hello, have you been to the new pinecones downtown? They’re quite marvelous!” It is, basically, when the language you’re trying to learn says to you, “You, good sir (or madam), are far too dumb to learn me! Move on! Take up checkers, or perhaps counting pennies!” Every language learner experiences this, I think – many times. At least for me, my language learning experiences have always been a case of two steps forward, 1 step back.

Having said that, while language learning often drives me crazy, I keep going back to it. And, ultimately, it has to be because I find it enjoyable, because I have no real presure on me to learn them. I live in a small city in southern Ohio; do you know how many German speakers there are here? I haven’t ran into anyone yet. And Russian? I know of one person, and that person is the wife of one of my family members. (Which, come to think of it, will come in quite handy if I decide to stick with Russian…) Essentially, they serve no purpose other than letting me communicate in the language when I meet someone who uses it (or actively seek them out through a service like eTandem). And, after all, generally Germans know some English and will want to use it if you go to Germany. And Russians? I’ve read that generally they learn English extremely well. So, I can’t use the “I want to communicate with Germans and Russians” card, because I can already do that with English.

There is one other point to it, which I touched on a moment ago: they let you get a taste of the culture of a people unaltered by translation. Maybe that is the primary reason I keep going back to languages. Being a history geek, and, attached to that, a lover of foreign culture, languages are the key to the door. You can learn about a culture via your native tongue of course – you don’t have to learn ancient Greek to learn about ancient Greece, obviously – but you’d be amazed at how much you do learn about a culture by learning its native tongue.

So, what’s your take? Do you enjoy learning foreign languages? Do you hate it? Have you even tried it since you dropped out of that terrible French class in highschool?

You’re never “done” with a foreign language.

A typical language learner come evening time…

Something made me smile a few days ago. I mentioned to my mom that I’m interested in perhaps learning some Russian. She responded, “But you haven’t finished with German yet!”

No, I’m not, nor will I ever be!

I think a lot of people who have never really studied a foreign language in earnest have this misconception that you study the language for a certain amount of time, and then you’re “done”. You’ve learned the language, you know all of the words, and it’s time to move on. Nicely done, here’s your certificate that says you “know” such and such language. Unfortunately, this is far, far from the truth. Learning a foreign language is a lifelong process. There will always be new words you don’t know, new idioms that come up in the language – in other words, there will always be more to learn. Even if you decide to stop actively learning the language – stop studying new grammar points, stop learning new words – you have to use the language to maintain what you have learned. Learning a foreign language consists of both learning new material, and keeping up on what you’ve already learned. I know from experience that taking a break, even a short one, can be extremely detrimental to your language proficiency. Longer breaks can often throw you back to the very beginning. You’ll relearn the material faster than you learned it the first time, but often, you will have to relearn it. You have to keep using a foreign language for you brain to keep hold of it. It’s like a muscle that isn’t used: eventually it weakens, and then atrophies.

I’ve often had people make remarks about being “done” with a foreign language. I quite often lug a German dictionary around with me, or perhaps some flashcards. People who know about me learning German, but haven’t seen me in a while, will often say something like, “Oh, I figured you’d be done learning German by now! How much longer do you think it will take?” Hah – a long time. A very, very long time!

Image under CC by DanielJames.

A major mistake I made in learning German: I didn’t listen.

As I often word it when people ask me how long I’ve been learning German: “I’ve been learning it off and on for quite a few years now.”

In learning German, I think I’ve come to learn how to learn languages – or at least started to learn how. One of the major points I stupidly ignored when I started (and actually for quite a while, up until just recently, actually) was listening. The first foreign language I dabbled in was Latin. It being a dead language, I simply studied it through my Wheelock’s text; I didn’t listen to any CDs of it, or news broadcasted in Latin (but I could have if I’d wanted to). There was a need to be able to sound out the words in my mind as I read along, but I didn’t have to have any real listening ability. When reading texts, I could take my slow, sweet time in translating them. I learned vocabulary by rote memory, along with grammar rules, and then did exercises.

I think that my initial learning strategies for Latin bled off onto learning German when I started learning it a few years ago. I think I came to assume that if I could read and write German, I could automatically listen and speak well, too. How wrong I was! They’re all very different skills. Being able to do one excellently does help the others, sure, but it doesn’t make you good at them. You have to practice them all independently. One of the big eye-openers about this for me was when I started working with a language partner through eTandem. When I first started working with Marcel, my partner, we just did emails. After a while we started chatting some over MSN Messenger. And after a bit longer, we tried some voice communication via Skype. While I generally always had questions about his emails in German, I could figure out what he was trying to convey (usually). The same went for our chats; while I wouldn’t know every word, I could generally get some idea of what he was talking about. And then we tried voice communication, and I suddenly felt like I didn’t know any German at all. He’d fire off a sentence and I’d be left going, “Uhhh.. say what?” When he’d type it out and I could read it, it would sink in: oh, that’s what he was saying!

This was a good indication to me that my ears simply weren’t trained in deciphering German spoken at a normal pace. In spoken conversation, you don’t have time to look at a word repeatedly like you do in a written text, wondering what it means. You don’t have time to study the verb conjugations or the word order. You simply have to be able to listen and understand. If you pause even briefly to try and think something through, the speaker has already said a dozen more words, and you’ve missed a sentence or two. You can quickly fall so far behind in the conversation that you might as well not bother! Since having this realization smack me in the face, I’ve been really been trying to listen more. I figure I’ve neglected listening so long, it might do me some good to really focus in on it for a while. I’ve started a small collection of German podcasts, and I try to listen to a few of them everyday. They’re only 10 to 20 minutes each, but even in such short podcasts, there are huge amounts of words that I still don’t know, so it’s plenty for now. While I’m still far from fluent, after a few weeks of regularly listening to German podcasts, my ears have gotten better at picking out words. Even if I don’t know what the words mean, I can at least tell, audibly, where one word ends and another begins. I’m happy with my progress so far.

Does spelling really matter?

I was playing an online game yesterday (Red Orchestra) and something happened that got me thinking. Some guy was advertising his clan, and at the end of his text message, he said:

but be warned this clan isnt for the week hearted

Being the language and spelling geek that I am, I said:

Heh, I believe that should be weak hearted.

His response was, “yeah i know but does spellig really matter?” I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but his response blew me away. I actually had a moment where my mouth was probably hanging open, and through my mind ran the thought, “What did he just say?” Does spelling really matter? Does spelling really matter? Of course it does! How can you even entertain such a question? After my shock had faded a bit, I thought about it some more. Does spelling matter? Granted, spelling does matter when, if you don’t spell correctly, the message you’re communicating could be distorted, confused, or lost completely. But if you misspell something and your audience can still understand what you’re trying to convey, does spelling matter? To me, the answer would still be yes for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s simply a matter of pride. If you know how to spell something correctly, then misspell it and not correct it (or simply misspell it on purpose for no apparent reason), to me, that’s just laziness. If you know how to spell a word correctly, please – do so.

Second, using incorrectly spelled words consistently is, to me, almost like a slap in the face to the language that’s being used. Spelling is one of the cornerstones of language; to undermine that cornerstone undermines the entire language. I suppose one could say it a shorter way: misspelled words are disrespectful to the language being used. Then again, maybe I’m just anal retentive when it comes to such things. Poor grammar also drives me wild. I cringe when I see or hear things like “I seen”. If someone truly doesn’t know the correct way to say that (“I saw”), that’s fine; but if they do know and just say “I seen” out of laziness… ugh. That drives me bonkers.

So, what’s your take? Does spelling matter? What about online? shud we all tipe lik3 thiz fr0m now in!!??

My eyes, they’re bleeding!

Modern Icelandic and Old Norse (and yet more books)

I dropped into the public library a few days ago, just for a quick browse. At one of the computers, I searched for ‘sagas’ and then ‘norse saga’ (I was looking for a compilation of some of the Norse sagas translated into English). I didn’t have much luck in finding what I was looking for, but I did end up finding something of interest: Icelandic: Grammar, Text and Glossary.

I was happy to find that the library had it because I actually had put in a purchase request form for it many months back. It turns out that they paid attention to my request and bought it; too bad they didn’t tell me they had done so. According to the stamp on the inside of the book, they bought it back in May.

So, why did I put in a purchase form for a book on Icelandic? No, I don’t plan on moving to Iceland (but I wouldn’t mind visiting; they have some beautiful scenery) No, I requested it because for those not in the know, Icelandic is extremely close to Old Norse:

It is a remarkable fact that there have been very few historical changes in the grammar of Icelandic. The difference between written Old and Modern Icelandic is so insignificant that Icelanders today can read Old Icelandic texts (e.g. the Sagas) without difficulty. The main reason for this is that the inflectional system of Old Icelandic has remained virtually unchanged, unlike the inflectional systems of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, which have become drastically simplified.

Learning Old Norse has been on my “wanna’ do that” list for a while, based on my love of the Viking era, as well as my love of languages in general. I’ve been chipping away at German for a few years now, with a great deal of help from a German buddy of mine (hi, Marcel).

Anyways! I put in the request for the book because, when I initially became interested in learning the rudiments of Old Norse, there wasn’t much available on it. There was E.V. Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse, and, well, that was all I knew about at the time. Unfortunately, as noted on the amazon.com page in the reviews, Introduction to Old Norse will surely be helpful at some point in the future, but it’s not for beginners, by any means. The first half of the book is a very terse grammar (one could even say just an outline), with tables upon tables upon tables of declensions and inflexions. The second half of the book is Old Norse texts.

One of the reviewers, however, did have a good idea though: get a copy of Einarsson’s Icelandic book, and learn through it instead. It’s far more graded in difficulty than Gordon’s book ever thought about being, and since Old Norse and Icelandic are extremely similar (almost identical, really, barring some suffic changes and word order), if you learn a reading level of Modern Icelandic, you can read Old Norse (Old Icelandic) as well.

I didn’t want to buy a $30 book without checking it out first, so I looked at the library; no dice. At the time, I wasn’t enrolled at the university, so checking there (or through OhioLINK) wasn’t an option. So, I put in a request at the public library and promptly forgot about it. In the meantime, I discovered that the Viking Society for Northern Research has published a New Introduction to Old Norse through the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. The New Introduction is actually 3 books: a grammar book, a book of texts (complete with annotations / helpful pointers after each selection), and a glossary. I ended up purchasing the set from ACMRS for $45. At the time (and even now, for that matter….) I didn’t have enough spare time to truly delve into the material, but I was concerned that the books would go out of print before I got copies. (By the way, if you’re interested in learning Old Norse, they’re still available, and you can read a bit more about the set here; about 3/4 of the way down the page.)

The set’s extremely nice. They’re nicely made, and they’re all linked to each other quite well. As mentioned on the ACMRS page, the grammar is probably better tackled with the help of a tutor, but, having looked through it, with a bit of hard work, you could go it alone.

Lastly, if my jabbering about Icelandic and Old Norse has inspired you to run out and start learning Old Norse , but you don’t want to get a book just yet, I can still hook you up. There’s a free Old Norse course online with 6 lessons to start with. The course also has an off-shoot Yahoo group, where you can ask questions, as well as work with other members at slowly translating Old Norse texts.

Discarding college notes – why did I do that?

When I took a college course on American history, which covered from the initial colonies to 1828, by the end of the course, I had a notebook full of notes, along with the outlines for each lecture (provided by the professor). This summer quarter, I took the next course in the series, which covered from 1828 to 1900.

I thought it might be helpful (or at any rate, interesting) to go back and reread my notes from the first history course, before beginning the second one. My brain hopped to, “That’s a great idea, except.. oh wait, you threw those notes away when you were going through your stuff at the end of that quarter!”

Talk about a senseless move. I have no idea why I threw my notes away. It was on par with basically throwing away my money and time for that course. Sure, my academic record still shows that I took it (and got an A in the course, no less), but the fact is, it’s been a while since I took it, and I’ve forgotten most of what I’d learned.

And since I wasn’t being mindful of what I was doing, I now no longer have the notes to refer to.

 

Education is undermining creativity

Sir Ken Robinson gives a speech on education undermining creativity (and our future). Video of speech here.

“Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.”

Pretty interesting speech. I first saw the link to it over at Binary Bonsai.

Technorati Tags: education, creativity

Finals week is over

I mentioned yesterday that this week was finals week for me. Well, finals are now over, so I can take a breather. I’ve got a few weeks before I start back at the university for fall quarter.

One of the classes I took was about the history of America, from 1828 to 1900. I found it to be an extremely interesting class. I had had the professor in question before, when I took his class which covered from the founding of America to 1828. The same ‘interestingness’ that thrived in his first class was also in his second.

Basically, what I find so interesting about his courses, is that he gives a true picture of the history – not a patriotic version. Throughout my public school ‘career,’ I was given the patriotic version. All of the good guys were drummed up, and all of the horrible events throughout American history were kind of swept under the proverbial rug.

I recall from middle school that the settlement of the Trans-Mississippi West was essentially, “American settlers went out west for gold. They helped Indians onto reservations so that the Indian culture would be preserved.”

Now, certainly, I don’t expect a middle school class to cover nearly the amount of detail that a university course does. However, the version I was given wasn’t just less detailed. It was totally wrong. Killing off millions of buffalo (60 million between 1870 and 1900) to help bring about the demise of the Native Americans was not ‘helping them.’ Forcing Native American children into schools ran by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where they were forced to dress like Americans and to speak English, was not helping them. Setting up treaties and annuity payments with different tribes, only to turn around and break the treaties when American railroad companies and gold prospertors wanted in, was not helping them.

I think it’s interesting to note that, at least in classes I had in public school, the Native American question was mostly glossed over. However, reams of content was devoted to slavery. Is this because African Americans make up a sizeable portion of the American population now, and Native Americans don’t?

I don’t really get why the public school system teaches this extremely altered, patriotic version (unless they’re just going for patriotism points with the kids). Every country has their bad spots in history. I just think it’d be better if the bad spots were taught along with the good spots. Kind of like how Germany now forces Nazi Germany history into their kids’ heads. It’s a decent way to insure that the atrocities don’t happen again.

Then again, if Nazi Germany had won the war, I wonder – what would their public school system be teaching?
Technorati Tags: indians, nativeamericans, imperialism