Ambiguity Land

Over the past few weeks we have focused primarily on trying to learn this challenging Russian language. The Peace Corps’ “Self-Directed Language Learning Manual” tells us that successful language learners are able to live with a lot of ambiguity in everyday situations. Well, we have no choice but to live with lots of ambiguity. We often find ourselves in the situation of having been told something in Russian, without having understood all of the words. We then go through the following logical exercise: Well, if she said X, then A will happen; if she said Y, then B will happen. We then figure out how to be ready for any of the possibilities or, if it’s really important, we ask again to see if we can’t get better understanding of the situation. We met today with our landlady, who speaks no English, in order to take care of our rent payment, and to discuss getting Internet service to our apartment. We got a lot of what was said, but no matter how many times and ways we tried to get clarification, we couldn’t get the details. We know that Internet in our apartment will be possible, but not what’s involved, or what the price she was quoting would pay for (is it for installation, a fee per X-megabytes downloaded, a monthly fee for unlimited access, or?), nor what the delivery mode would be. It is in these situations that we go to our fallback position, and bring in our wonderful language tutor, who will kindly call the landlady, get the information, and in general represent our interests.

So, how tough is this Russian language? It starts with the different Cyrillic alphabet, which has some letters that are identical to ours and represent the same sounds (“true friends”), some that look like ours but make different sounds (“false friends”), and some that are completely new symbols to us (“new friends”). The good news is that once we have the alphabet down, word pronunciation is completely consistent. That is, each letter always makes the same sound. We start learning vocabulary, which is fine but often hilarious, because a simple word which in English is one short syllable is translated into a multi-syllabic multi-consonant mouthful. “Please” becomes “pa-ZHA-luy-sta” and “hello” is “ZDRAV-stvooy-tye.” There are three genders and six cases, which take effect by changing the endings of nouns and their adjectives, not always in the same ways. Verbs come in perfective and imperfective pairs, which are usually the same word but with prefix or suffix changes. To further complicate things, the alphabet in handwritten cursive, or Italic when in print, includes such extra challenges as the lower-case “t” looks like an “m” and the lower case “d” looks like our “g.” It took us the longest time to figure out that what we thought was the “salami” section on restaurant menus was actually the “salads” section. (“Salat” is Russian for “salad”) Recall also that Ukraine is a bilingual country, and that the official language is Ukrainian which is just close enough to Russian to tantalize but confuse. Most official signs and notices are written in Ukrainian. We’re sometimes uncertain of the reason for our not understanding something. Is it because it’s in Ukrainian or just because it’s advanced Russian? Suffice to say that our brains are forming all kinds of new neural connections, albeit much slower than we’d like.

We just returned from a wonderful visit with our first host family. We had been exchanging text messages over the weeks since we left, and they’d been encouraging us to come back for a visit. So we booked spots on the overnight train to Kiev, spent one night there to do some sight-seeing, then took the 2-hour marshrutka ride back to our first city. While there we enjoyed their great cooking and company, another picnic in the forest with friends, and another Sunday night at the banya. We’re excited to think about bringing our kids to meet them in December.

The start of school is just around the corner. Classes begin September 3, and faculty meetings will be held next week. We’ll finally begin in earnest our official Peace Corps work. Excitement and anxiety combine as we realize how little we know about what to expect. All will become clear soon though. We’ll meet the faculty and students of our respective universities, and find out if the lessons we have planned are on target for the students’ level of English and previous instruction.