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Learning a foreign language is fun. And also a challenge.
I enjoy a good challenge. The more difficult, the better. Bring it on, I say!
But languages are not generally… my thing.
It’s funny. I always hated languages at school, feared them. Even my English grades were just above the passing mark. Could I ever think that I would start learning such a difficult language as Russian? Let alone, love it? And completely and utterly fall in love with it?
Nope.
The thing about languages is you can decide that you want to learn a language. You can start learning it with an app, books, online courses, a teacher… doesn’t matter. But do you always get the job done? You don’t. You see that it’s hard and you drop it. You’re not patient enough and you are afraid you’ll fail. So you just stop.
Different people want to learn Russian for different reasons. Me, I started learning Russian because I had a trip planned and wanted to know something more than just basic words like “привет,” “спасибо,” “пожалуйста” “как вас зовут?” So, I started. Just like everybody. And it wasn’t easy. I wanted to give up.
But here is a thing. I struggled through it, I persisted. I got some basic knowledge, some vocabulary, grammar.
It is only when I arrived in Russia that I understood how my lessons paid off.
When you land at the airport, the one thing that you realize is – hey, I can read and understand some of it! Here is a sign that says “Туалет.” That’s a bathroom. And here is the popular airport café, “Шоколадница” – to me it says chocolate is close by. Some gift shops with “Матрешка” – a Russian nesting doll.
I read the road signs and I understand what they mean. I read everything I see. Small letters, big letters, shiny letters. Hotel names, company names, billboards, movie posters. I just read them all.
All of this, this entire experience is what I call language magic.
Just knowing the letters, knowing how to read them is already a lot.
It’s like you are a kid again and you are learning to say your first words.
Something new that you try and it works for you and that is just the most amazing thing in the world!
And this magic, this accomplishment is what pushes you further. You want to know more so that next time you can order your food in a Russian restaurant with just Russian menus. Or have an uninterrupted conversation with a native Russian about something trivial. Like weather or a movie you two like. Or help out a tourist, who cannot explain what he/she wants but you do!
Why? Why learn more? Because if you have already accomplished this much and you feel the joy of it, the ecstasy of “oh my, I can speak and read one of the most difficult languages in the world!!” maybe in a year you will be able to read Russian classic literature. Just like Tolstoy and Nabokov and Pushkin and Dostoyevsky wrote it. Or see one of those magnificent Russian films that you couldn’t before because those films were never dubbed in English or in your language.
That’s the ultimate high, I say.
And I want it. Desperately.