Learn Russian with Andrew & Bred

An Experiment in Alternative Language-Learning Methodology OR like Hell I’m Takin’ Class
Purgatorial Intermediacy, or How Not To Learn A Language
Andrew: Pryamo, napravo ???
Brad Experience

An Experiment in Alternative Language-Learning Methodology
-OR-
Like Hell I’m Takin’ a Class

I bought a really thick book to teach myself Russian, and I use it every day: by value of its sheer (linguistic) mass it keeps an entire stack of I Spy Teacher’s Book photocopies from scattering on the wind when I open my window to clear out the cigarette smoke. Everything has its place.

Still, I don’t want you to think that I’ve given up my studies already. After reading the introduction to a book on language-learning methodology, I’ve simply decided to embark upon what you might call an adventurous socio-linguistic study. For the sake of posterity and furthering science, I’ve decided to examine man’s capability to learn a foreign language solely by listening. With the assistance of TV, radio, loud neighbors and a ridiculously long metro commute, I’ve been absorbing as much linguistic input as a baby.

Russian music has proved something less than invaluable in my research, however. Still, just by listening – keep this in mind: in the name of linguistic study, I’ve never even used a dictionary – I’ve adopted several Russian phrases into my vocabulary. Tequila Jazzz has taught me "ýòî ìîé ñàìîë¸ò," which I disappointed myself by not using on a recent trip to Sheremetyevo, and Ñïëèí is responsible for the prayer "ñïàñèáî, Ïðàãà, çà ïèâî." If not for Íåáî Çäåñü I would not have been able to tell that nasty old woman at the post office about "Krishna core," to say nothing of "Krishna consciousness." (I realize that that one’s in English, but it’s still foreign to me.) Their uses are limited, I admit, but the results have at least been more predictable than that time in France when I decided to increase my vocabulary by studying the lyrics of Zebda, a Toulouse-based group composed of Algerian-born men: in the weeks following September 11, by chance, I managed to accidentally convince several dairy-farming Franc-Comtois that I was, in fact, a very pale North African. The study became more socio-cultural than socio-linguistic.

Regardless, the listening method has lead to the recognition of more everyday phrases, which has allowed me to react like a native speaker. When Radio Maximum boasts "íîâàÿ ðîê ìóçûêà áåç ðåêëàìû," I instinctively anticipate their war-cry "ðåêëàìà ìàêñèìóì" and put on a CD while lamenting the death of Radio Ultra. Just like a local. I’ve also learned that, when asked at a metro station if this train goes "íà ñòàíöèà something-ñêàÿ," you always say "äà." And if, God forbid, you’re on a green-line train and you hear the announcement "russki-russki-russki Âàðøàâñêàÿ russki-russki," you need to run like hell before it’s too late. The results are very encouraging, I think – given the fact that I’m hardly doing what you might call "trying." I may well be at the edge of a revolution in language education, I shit you not.

Of course, the skeptics will ask if simple listening can ever lead to the development of productive skills. Of course, they’ll say, answering "íåò" when asked if you ïîíèìàåøü ïî-ðóññêè is not legitimate progress, and neither is uttering a tired "äàé" when the lady in the little kiosk tries to correct your pronunciation of "Marlboro" before making the sale. Skeptics be damned – the evidence comes next.

A seven-year-old student who had been absent on the day of the last test insisted upon explaining this to me in English. "Test no!" he said. "Yes, I know," I replied. His quest for confirmed understanding somehow unfulfilled, he tried again: "Test no!" I repeated my response. Being a tenacious little ankle-biter, he tried again, in Russian. "ß íå ïèñàë òåñò!" he said, seven times, until – without even thinking about it, mind you – I said "Äà! Çíàþ! Sit down!" "Ooh … ïî-ðóññêè," he said, awed. Not convinced? I have more.

Ïîëèíà, four- or five-years old (and sometimes ten, depending on her mood when you ask her) was looking a bit concerned. I asked her what was wrong, and she said "ß ïèñàòü õî÷ó." Imagine her surprise when I offered her my pen. "ß ïèñàòü õî÷ó!" she declared, forcefully. While frantically shifting her weight from one leg to the other. Now, someone learning from a book might have lingered in confusion until just beyond the point of no return, but my passive language acquisition skills kicked in just in time. "Oh, right! Go! Òóàëåò!" I commanded confidently. The day was saved.

But here is the strongest proof. Faced with three bribe-seeking sixteen-year-old boys with badges and a license to serve and protect, I was able to repeat "íåò" as well as any phrasebook-reading tourist in this fair city. And when threatened with a trip to the police station I was able to say – and this is by far the most Russian I’ve ever produced at any one time -- "Ëàäíî, ïîéä¸ì. Òàì åñòü òåëåôîí?" They decided to let the ó÷èòåëü go.

Science and posterity will bear witness to my success. The age of language textbooks has come and gone, and the new era is here. A new era which involves no morning classes or monthly fees. And, of course, no homework. Trying is a thing of the past.

Andrew Pratt

Purgatorial Intermediacy, or How Not To Learn A Language

Well, here I am in foreign language purgatory. Unfortunately it's familiar territory. For years in the states I was an on-again off-again student of the Russian language. The problem stemmed from my deeply ingrained habit of self-teaching.

I've always preferred to teach myself something to the maximum degree possible before enlisting the aid of a teacher. This way of working gives me a sense of independence and self-confidence in my ability to improvise solutions when unexpected problems arise. This quality is important to me, though unfortunately I've recently realized how it's wreaked havoc on my ability to gain fluency in Russian.

I suppose it should be self-evident that it's ultimately impossible to learn a language by oneself. And of course, my whole point in learning Russian was so I could communicate with all those amazing Russians who had so inspired me to learn their language in the first place. But even the most sound logic often falls prey to our deeply-ingrained educational habits, and it never really occurred to me that I might be better off taking a class….not until it was too late.

Over the years I have never been able to find a class that suits my level, or even comes close to it for that matter. To begin with, there just aren't that many Russian classes available in the states. The few Russian classes I've managed to find could be divided into three categories:

1. Absolute Beginner - most of the students in these classes had so much trouble with the Russian alphabet that I wonder if they didn't just have some problem with the basic concept of 'alphabet' itself. Needless to say these classes proved useless to my efforts to move towards fluency.

2. Super Advanced Russian Conversation (aka 'Russians sittin' around talkin') - these classes are often cleverly disguised as 'Intermediate Spoken Russian' or even 'Beginning Advanced', but those titles inevitably turn out to be more marketing than anything (and are always taught by someone who's never studied even the most basic of teaching methodologies). These classes have mostly frustrated the hell out of me, leading to long breaks from studying the language at all.

3. The Catch-all level - they don't call it that of course. It's usually got some innocent, fun sounding name like 'Basic Russian for Everyone'. Even in the hands of a skillful teacher, mixed levels can be very demanding…imagine your great aunt Ida from the backwaters of Louisiana deciding she's going to teach an English course at the local church and you get an idea of what this particular class was like.

Never willing to abandon all hope, I eventually got myself certified as an English teacher so I could just move to Russia and be done with these troubles. When I arranged this job with BKC last fall my expectations spun wildly out of control. Finally! I was coming to Moscow, not just for a short stay, but to live here until I could truthfully use the 'F' word - yes, fluency. At last I would be fluent in a foreign language.

I figured it would take a year of classes, maybe two. I imagined a group of 25-30 brigh-eyed, hyper-motivated students, all the same level as me, all with a perfectly balancing slight difference of vocabularies, all struggling with similar habitual mistakes, laughing, holding hands and swaying as we sing happy Russian grammar ditties while our stern but sexy Russian vixen-teachers dream only of instilling us with their deep, philosophical knowledge of all things Slavic.

It was quite a dream. Unfortunately it met an ignominious death upon my entrance to my first class in Moscow. It wasn't a bad class at all. In fact the teacher was quite pleasant and skillful enough. Unfortunately that's really a guess on my part because as far as I can tell, the closest thing this school has to my level is my dreaded old gremlin, the conversational class disguised as Intermediate level (or simply used as a catch-all).

The unfortunate thing is that it took me all of 6 weeks to figure out what was going on. By then it was too late, my 8 weeks were over and I had spent two months thinking that either, a) there's some special, invisible technique at work here that will magically result in my sudden lingual advancement by the end of the two months or, b) I'm simply not nearly as bright as my mother says I am. Well, it didn't turn out to be 'a', and I'm not quite ready to dispute my mother's opinion on such an important matter….so I determined I would simply return to my old, self-teaching approach.

Unfortunately, I've found it virtually impossible to establish a daily exercise of Russian study because the demands facing me as a first-time English teacher are so, well, demanding. That's to say that I haven't really studied any Russian since my course ended in November. I made a valiant effort to dig into my Living Language Ultimate Russian, Advanced, textbook. As a matter of fact, my left forearm is resting on it as I type this article. I made it through the first 70-80 pages before succumbing to the overwhelming need to put more attention into my lesson-planning and study of English grammar. I think I might have learend a few things, though it's difficult to know for sure, since I haven't really had an opportunity to try any of it out in a controlled classroom situation.

I was wondering if this article was going to turn out to have a surprise happy ending, and I guess the answer is 'no'. No doubt I will eventually master this language, stand over it with my foot on it's back, baring my teeth and beating my chest loudly with clenched fists. My 18 year old nephew recetnly made an outrageously high mark on his all-important standardized aptitude test for university, and in his words, 'I won.' I'm sure I'll be able to say that at some point, but for now I'm trapped here in my own little 'No-Exit' of purgatorial intermediacy.

- Bred Crews

Andrew: Pryamo, napravo ???

I don t speak Russian; Russians do. This realization came early one morning, half awake on a friend s kitchen floor in Spain. The next day a week before my flight I bought a Spanish-Russian phrasebook and started studying. Two hours later I realized that I didn't t speak that much Spanish, either. And so, a few days later, I arrived in Moscow with seven words of Russian, a phrasebook I couldn't t read and some very good intentions.

Good intentions will only get you so far. They ll get you to a long empty street at midnight with no metro stops in sight. They ll get you lost. And then they re off to the bar, leaving you with seven words of Russian and a phrasebook you can t read.

And so I found myself looking nervously at the only other person around: a short, angry police officer with a cigarette stuck tightly into the corner of his down-turned mouth, scowling with determination at the blank wall opposite the car on which he was leaning. He might speak English, I thought. I already knew that I should have studied more Russian. Maybe he speaks French, I thought. Or basic Spanish. He saw me, pulled the cigarette from his lips and flicked it sharply toward the offensive wall. Maybe he likes to draw maps, I thought. But I doubted it.

Not since being chased from the lot in front of the Hungarian Parliament by armed soldiers had I felt such intimidation in the face of those who serve and protect. I swallowed and asked him if he spoke English. He forgave the wall and turned his scowl toward me. I tried French. He just blinked. Summoning all of my knowledge of Russian, I managed a meek Pozhalista, metro? Two words down, five left. If you count Big Mak. And I didn't t see how that could possibly help.

He actually lit another cigarette before answering. Pryamo, napravo. Straight ahead, on the right two more of my words! Overjoyed at having spoken Russian with a Russian, I thanked him in Spanish (fate hates an untarnished memory) and hurried off.

Since then I ve bought a Russian-English dictionary and a teach-yourself-Russian kit with eight CDs; I m saving up for a CD player. I am slowly teaching myself Russian. In the meantime, I ll get by: heading home last night, lost and looking for the metro, I had an idea. I went straight and then turned right. Damned if it didn't t work.

Brad Experience

My first experience with the Russian language came in the summer of 1991. Recently graduated from Florida State University as a music student, I had lined up a job for myself as a driver for some Russian exchange students from the Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT). One month, one extraordinary acting teacher and one beautiful Russian actress later I had fallen in love with this curiously scribbled, mysteriously pronounced language.

I continued my self-study over the next six years or so with a wide variety of contexts. For several summers I studied theatre with MXAT in Boston - for six weeks out of each year, daily I would listen to some of the greatest theatre artists of the world passionately sharing their love for their art in their native language, while it was translated for us by other Russian speakers. This is where I picked up what is apparently a semi-decent Russian accent.

I also co-founded an educational company with a Russian theatre director and lived at his flat outside Moscow for three months in 1995. During those few months in Russia I got a solid grip on basic expressions, and I also managed to have a few substantial conversations with people who were willing to engage in a sort of mime-speak conversation with me. It's amazing what one can get across with a healthy sense of metaphor and a willingness to look like a fool.

My pursuit of the Russian language is motivated mainly by these intense personal experiences I've had with native speakers, and these first impressions of the language and the culture behind it are still very much alive in me today. For years I have felt that it was only a matter of time until I made it back to Russia to finally gain that fluency that has for so long eluded me while I travelled about the world.

Of course I have tried to take Russian courses from time to time. But my efforts were always thwarted in some way. The courses were either far too difficult or too easy. Many times I was just in a place where no one spoke Russian, let alone could teach it. But, at last, here I am in Moscow, teaching English and finally prepared to begin my assault on the Russian language.

I somehow managed to test at the intermediate level on the on-line test that the Globus School offers. As expected however, I tested much lower on my verbal abilities and will be taking what I believe amounts to a pre-intermediate level Russian class beginning next week.

Rodion has asked me to keep a journal of sorts about my study of the language, so I will try to touch each month on what seems potentially useful for anyone else out there who's studying. Right now my main weakness is not so much my knowledge of grammar, but rather the application of it when I'm speaking with someone. I suspect there will be a few surprises for me along the way, but I feel generally optimistic that by this time next year I should be able to have an extended conversation with that uniformed lady in the metro who never believes me when I tell her my metro card is valid, it's just not working for some reason!