One of the things which can feel quite daunting about traveling is the language barrier. When I (Jenny) and Kristina (a very good friend of mine) went cycling across the Czech Republic, it was actually quite hard to communicate besides saying “Ahoy!” to passing cyclists (yes, that really is the greeting!). This got a little difficult when it came to booking campsites. At one point, I just had to walk around a pub looking for a likely someone who could speak enough English for me to ask them to call up the campsite and book a space for us. It worked, but it’s not exactly a fool-proof method. I’d definitely like a bit more Russian on the tip of my tongue for this trip.
But how best to learn? Up with Japanese, and click-talk, I’d heard that Russian was pretty hard. Well, I started with what most people do in 2016; I downloaded an app. I started with the “Learn Russian. Speak Russian” app from Android last summer, which was actually really good for learning the basics of Cyrillic, and was a great distraction from a medical rotation I wasn’t particularly enjoying.
The full app costs about £14 for a year and it got a lot of use, but after a while I plateaued on the games and 6th year started and work got harder and….You can see where this is going, I had to stop for a few months whist the academic interviews, the situational judgement test, and final medical exams took over my life. Luckily, it was not all in vain! When I opened the “Colloquial Russian: A course for complete beginners” book to unit one yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that after twenty minutes I was back to reading Cyrillic properly again – hurrah! Now, I can say extremely useful things like:
- “I am not a businessman”
- “Nice to meet you!”
- “My mother is English”
And other such gems.
Nevertheless, even with the best book in the world (and an attached CD for listening exercises!), nothing beats one-on-one conversation practice. For that, I am very lucky to have met and successfully convinced Svetlana to be my supervisor. Over the next few weeks she is going to watch me struggle and (hopefully) conquer beginner’s Russian, helping me to activate some dusty areas of my brain which haven’t seen the light of linguistic day for six years. Look at just how much of my cortex is going to light up!
There will be more of my Russian exploits over the following weeks, with recordings and examples of my (questionably formed) Cyrillic characters. The aim, overall, is to be able to read Russian road signs as we drive along the Trans-Siberian highway, because it is all in Cyrillic, and to make booking hostels and hotels en route a bit less formidable. Let’s see how it goes!
As always, if you have any advice on how to learn Russian, or in regards to any aspect of our trip then please do get in touch!
The Mongolia Ambulance Project 