Acquiring Russian: August Report + Encountering native Russian speakers in the Baltics
So like last month my total time spent studying was quite low. The pattern seems to be that during the summer I spend less time indoors and hence less time studying. On the plus side I spent two weeks in one of the Baltic countries and had the opportunity to listen to and speak with native Russian speakers.
As soon as I exited the airport I encountered a group of Russian men waiting for a taxi. I wasn't able to understand the exact topics of conversation but it was great to understand snippets of dialogue: "I want... " "He said...".
I had similar experiences in a supermarket with some staff, and in a bar where I overheard a conversation amongst a group of guys at the next table. I had no idea what the context was but they were talking about a particular number and why it was important at one point one of them typed it into his phone to show the others. I was hearing things like: "It's 35." "Believe me. I'll show you".
While I didn't have an in depth understanding of what people were talking about it was great to discover that I could track conversations at their natural speed. By this I mean that I wasn't just hearing a stream of noise, but that I could hear most of the individual words clearly even if I didn't understand their meaning. Sometimes I would hear a sentence in which I would understand all the words but not the overall meaning. Perhaps if I had time to think it would have been possible to get the full meaning.
Even so, I would catch various short phrases and snippets of dialogue. For example on my last day at an airport bar when a family was talking about what to order. I heard things like "What do you want." "I'm not sure" "Let me think about it" "I'll have this one".
And best of all I got the chance to speak to Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Belarusians in Russian. The conversations were very basic; talking a little about myself and why and how I'm learning Russian and explaining that I can understand more than I can speak. We'd usually switch to English after a few sentences but I was often complimented on my pronunciation.
I spoke to a woman from Mariupol in Ukraine who didn't speak any English. The conversation didn't last more than a minute or two but it was great to have even such a basic exchange of information with someone and for her to be able to tell me in a basic form what she had been through.
I was afraid that I would encounter problems with trying to speak Russian with people but luckily that didn't happen. It would be understandable of course, so I still intend to tread carefully. Especially with Ukrainians.
On some days I still feel that the war in Ukraine affects my motivation but the experience when travelling has been a positive one which I'll try to keep in mind when studying.
This month I counted 30 minutes of real conversation for tracking purposes. But that's a pure guess. I'm not sure if I should continue tracking time spent in conversation because it's such a hard thing to. I'll think about it.
August '22 Statistics
July '22 Statistics
June '22 Statistics
May '22 Statistics
April '22 Statistics
March '22 Statistics
February '22 Statistics
January '22 Statistics
Totals Since August 2020 (761 days)
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