Project Prochnost: Week 11

When I used to think of Russia earlier, I used to think of cold weather, beautiful architecture and great writers. Today, I think of it in much more vivid terms. Orenburg shawls. Imperial porcelain. Valenki and samovars. Podstakanniks. Ah! The list is too long.

I was facing a roadblock in studying my grammar textbook. The first (and really long!) chapter was all about pronunciation and I was spending mindless hours poring over details I don’t even remember. It was hard. I get that I should know what palatalisation is before beginning with Russian grammar but guess what, I don’t.

Therefore, I went ahead and began with the next chapter it offered. The humble ‘Noun’ that wasn’t quite hospitable but we plan to mend things up next week. For explaining every little rule, there are like fifteen new words and my mind fights a battle with itself whether I should prioritise learning the word or the rule first. I know the right answer but the heart wants what the heart wants or in this case, the head. I mean, here’s an example:

As of now, I am learning how to use prefixes and suffixes to modify nouns and/or create new words. My speed of reading Russian script is pretty slow, as I look at words and slowly pronounce them, syllable by syllable. Yet again, ‘Culture Shock! Russia’ came to my rescue in my moments of despair with this amazing quote by Ivan Turgenev:

“In these days of doubt, in these days of painful brooding over the fate of my country, thou alone art my rod and my staff, O great, mighty, true and free Russian language! If it were not for thee, how could one keep from despairing at the sight of what is going on at home? But it is inconceivable that such a language should not belong to a great people.”

Hope I can ever move from loving this quote to actually relating to it soon enough. Till then, saying ‘Bye bye’ to you all in Russian should suffice. пока пока!

Week 9-10 Update
Why am I learning Russian?