Speaking Russian in Portland

Russian food store in SE Portland

The other day I got a letter from the doctor's office with a multi-language insert. These are the languages that were included on the insert.

English. Spanish. Mandarin. Cantonese. Tagalog. French. Vietnamese. German. Korean. Russian. Arabic. Hindi. Italian. Portuguese. French Creole. Polish. Japanese.

Can you guess which are the most common languages in Oregon?

Russian by the Numbers: 2014 Goals

Holiday wishes from the Ukrainian pop star Verka Serduchka

Happy 2014!! : ) Meanwhile, the holidays go on in Ukraine. I asked D this morning if it was time to take all the decorations down. "No way!" he said, "Tomorrow is Christmas!" Tomorrow is indeed Orthodox Christmas (Jan 7th)- he's actually got the day off work. Then there's Orthodox New Year (Jan 14th), so the decorations will have to stay for a little bit longer, I suppose.

In the meantime, the beginning of January means goal-setting time. Some people aren't into this much, but it's one of my favorite times of the year- a new start, a new planner, a reset button on bad habits. I already picked out a brand new planner (2 to be honest, couldn't choose!) and have been mulling over some things. Are you the New-Year's-resolution-setting type? What are your dreams for this new year?

Ukrainian

The Ukrainian release is titled Star Trek: Retribution

We saw the new Star Trek film this weekend. Almost all incoming foreign films are dubbed into Ukrainian, not Russian, which means I usually spend 2 hours floundering along, trying to catch the odd word. This time, though, maybe because of our recent trip to Ukrainian-speaking Poltava?, it was comfortable to listen along. In fact, it felt pretty awesome... until the movie ended and my friends started talking about all these sub-plots I never caught :p At least I figured out who the bad guy was!

Every now and then I start feeling bad for not knowing much Ukrainian. Never mind the fact that any leftover non-teaching/non-blogging time is spent studying Russian or that most of my friends never use Ukrainian, there's something guilt-inducing about not learning a country's language. Locally the case could be made that Russian is just as much an "official" language as Ukrainian, but Russian is still seen as the-language-of-the-invaders in much of the country. And honestly, it's just awkward to be out of the loop when it comes to Ukrainian. The language on the street may be Russian around here, but the metro and street signs, movies, TV, advertising, and official documents are all in Ukrainian.

To those who scratch their heads and say- isn't it pretty much the same language??- you're kind of right.

And wrong.

Immersion

It's an easy mistake to make, assuming that moving abroad means you'll quickly and painlessly become fluent in the local language. "The immersion method," they say, "it totally works." We all hear stories of people who were able to converse in Spanish like a pro after only a summer in Argentina. We all know someone who could speak impressive Norwegian after a semester studying abroad. And of course there's pop culture polyglottery and language hackers like Benny the Irish Polyglot, the man who claims that 3 months is enough to get conversational in languages like Mandarin.

I love Benny- he's an absolute inspiration in a world full of naysayers- but is it true? I doubt immersion is the absolute answer. If it were, there would be no Chinatowns. If it were, surely all expat wives would be fluent, as they are usually the ones dealing with shopping, education, doctors, and domestic engineering non-stop in the new language. Even 2 years of living with the locals as a Peace Corps Volunteer isn't always enough to get you there.

12 Words You Should Learn Before Coming To Ukraine

Yep, this one's important- the restroom!

Most of us do it- buy textbooks, enroll in classes, drop big bucks on the latest version of Rosetta Stone, all in hopes of learning a smattering of the local language before we arrive. Any one of those resources can teach you "Where's the bank?" or "Nice to meet you", but here are 12* useful Russian words that you probably won't learn from your class, book, or computer program.

 *erm, make that 12-ish words

Reality TV, русский style!

I've been trying to brush up on my Russian this week (after a summer of studying, um, Spanish and Latin) and came across this-

 hat's right, ХОЛОСТЯК!
Aka, 'The Bachelor' Ukrainian-style. (Which, honestly, is so far pretty much the same as American-style. Girls, drama, and a simple man who is just looking for love in the all in wrong places.)
click here for first episode on YouTube