Sometimes it is necessary to stop and wonder, is the challenge and occasional frustration of learning a foreign language worth it? At various points on the program, I have found myself thinking, “That’s the fourth sentence in a row this class that made absolutely no sense. I wonder if it’s still on the same topic?” Or, “Why did this person on the street pick out me as the target of a political campaign I can’t understand?” And occasionally the desperate, “Please repeat that once more, I promise I’ll understand this time.”
We try especially hard to listen in Phonetics!
But occasionally a break-through is found: I had an effective conversation with a stranger. I was eating at the stolovaya late one night when someone asked to sit at the other end of my corner table. I agreed and we both ate in silence until I decided he didn’t quite seem native. “Are you from Russia?” got us started: we have both learned a little Russian in college as a second language. But coming from a rural corner of southern France, he understood less English than Russian. I could understand his French better than his Russian, as we figured out when we both completely failed at asking each other’s names.
Communication, man. It’s confusing no matter what. No, my apologies, this is not the dear nameless Frenchman of whom I write.
But both of us were interested and on equal ground. So we continued talking in Russian: he came here to study mathematics and made fun of me for leaving America, where he dreams to work. I spoke of my interest in linguistics and languages, my high school, and home town. His specialized vocabulary made it clear that he had learned some Russian from his ‘linear algebra’ and ‘abstract number theory’ courses (I think that’s what he said). My back-story got him interested in the English word “Aurora,” though my limited vocabulary made it a Herculean feat to explain the concept.
This conversation left me feeling exhilarated and led to two discoveries:
1. I can communicate with people from random corners of the world (given enough time to work through it)!
2. I am child again, frustrated with understanding concepts to which I cannot give words. It is frustrating. It leaves you feeling inferior and unappreciated. And sometimes I just want to be accepted as a language learner, like those children at the park who have one often-repeated dialogue:
-Vot “Here!”
-Da I chto? Well, what is it?
-Morozhenoe! “Ice cream!”
-My seychas poobedali. We just had lunch.
-A/no hochu! “But I want!”
-Nu ladno. Well, okay.
Popular everywhere.