Expats – brush up your Russian!

I love being back in school. It was high time to do something radical about my admittedly poor writing skills, wrongly applied cases, genders and aspects. This time I would not give up so fast.

Writing: I vaguely remember some of the purely orthographic principles (жы- is a no-no etc.) but dictations are a wonderful way to upgrade writing skills and hard-code rules and those exceptions to the rules. Essays are hard work but great fun and extremely useful to turn you into a better writer. The lessons also motivate me to write at least one email or message a day in Russian.

Reading: Kommersant, fontanka.ru and others all have news content delivered directly to your mobile device. This should be part of any expat’s daily routine living here. This habit is going to have a direct and positive effect on your writing skills.

Speaking: Many expats are really skilled in suppressing word endings in order to avoid a decision about the correct case to be applied. Sounds familiar? Well, my teacher is forcing me to speak up, she takes notes while listening and then reviews the weak points with me.

I decided for two weekly morning sessions, each lasting 1h 40 min. Apart from the fact that the lessons are a welcoming break from the daily routine, it motivates me immensely to achieve the level I actually should have, given the amount of years I already live in Russia.

Updates to follow.

Walter Denz