July 17, Russian 101

Between the Lines updates (international writing program)

I guess I have to explain what 101 means. In American universities classes are graded according their difficulty level. 100s are the easiest, then 200s, then 300s, and 400s (usually that’s it for bachelor’s which takes 4 years to complete).

Today in the evening Russian students had to teach Americans some Russian. That was the most motivated language class I’ve ever had. We developed a plan covering seasons, basic phrases (greetings, thank-yous and farewells), animals, alphabet. Some Americans have already taken Russian classes and could actually understand some Russian pretty well to the point to coin a phrase “Ya malo dumayu letom” (I think little in summer).  The tiny girl from our group stood in front of the fly-chart saying in soft but demanding tone “Repeat after me, all together”. After they learned ‘spasibo’ and ‘privet’ we made them find paired phrases. The animals part was so fun. Russians imitated sounds and Americans blurted out ‘sobaka’ (dog), ‘zmeya’ (snake), ‘swinya’ (swine), ‘petukh’ (rooster), sometimes messing up swine and snake or cow and sheep. The seasons part was intellectual with Chaikovsky on the background and finally everybody got to write their name in Russian using transliteration. The Kalinka (old folk song) made a lively chorus in combination with rucheek game when pairs run under the raised arms. The excitement sprang into the night with everybody-get-your-nails-painted American party.