This is long.
Almost finished the 90 day challenge, I just got back from from Russia, I spent a week in St Petersburg and a week in Moscow. I pretty much put Lingq on hold while I was over there, I thought being in the country and being surrounded by the language would be sufficient.
Journey got off to a bad start, lets just say a journey across London, took me hours more than I thought it would, I missed my first flight to St Petersburg, but managed to get a cheap flight to Moscow, then planned to fly up to Peters from there. When I got to Moscow, I was in for a bit of a culture shock, everyone looked different, dressed different, and not one of the ticket sales people for airline S7 which flew to Peters spoke English. I had to use my quite limited Russian to buy the correct plane ticket and then listen to where I had to go for check in etc. This was quite character building ha.
Eventually I managed to get to Peters LED airport, had to find a minibus that went from the airport to the city centre, at this point I people started asking me to repeat what I had asked a lot, I realised I really should of done more speaking before I came over. I noticed one or two words in a sentence would throw me off very easily. Got the centre of the city, had to use the metro, got a few metro coins and off I went to find my hotel. Metro systems in Russia are amazing btw. When I arrived at the hostel I was staying at, I had to speak to the lady at reception, and pay etc. All of this was done in Russian, Ill admit I only understood about 40% of what she was saying, but I seemed to get the main overall concept.
Sometimes I would understand the first simple sentence that was said in a conversation, only then to be confused by the following small talk. This was to be a common theme in almost every conversation I had with people throughout my trip, being able to understand some sentences with outlined a subject, only to be thrown off by details being said. I tried to speak to as many people as I could where I stayed, I met people from Siberia, the Urals, and some from areas that I cant remember. In these conversations, I managed to express myself enough that people could make out what I was talking about, the wrong tenses, genders, didnt seem to matter much, it was clearly a struggle for these people too but the main thing is, we could understand each other to some degree.
I went out with someone for a drink, and I managed to have a conversation for about an hour with my very broken Russian. I spoke to my girlfriend the next night in Russian, she was quite surprised at how the speed of my speech had improved almost over the last few days. Eating out was a nightmare, I was exhausted on my arrival the first night, I just wanted to eat anything, so I went to Subway. Managed to get the right type of sub, but then realised I didnt know any of the words for the salad dressings ie olives, green peppers and the various sauces, they also asked me other questions and I had no idea what they were asking, it was awkward!
Flew to Moscow, got an express train to the city centre, got to the hostel reception and paid for room etc all in Russian, however I found it much harder to understand people in Moscow, and they also had a harder time understanding me. I had to ask for directions at points, and I really had to concentrate to comprehend what was being said. Seems to be a hanging on the sound “ah” in central Russia. When you visit another country, I don’t think you pick up anything new, unless you need to learn it, but your ability to use what you already have improves massively, you get used to having the same conversations and get good at their various routes. Met a soldier who was on holiday at Red square, we spoke for about 45 minutes and I tried to express myself the best I can, again he was quite able to understand what I was saying, even though I used the wrong tenses, genders, and what not.
I think my big mistake before going to Russia, was not to speak enough, I have quite a few holes in my vocabulary that are not complicated, but could of been dealt with before I went. I pretty much had too much work and not enough time at all to do any speaking. I feel like my Russian is at that stage where I’m almost at intermediate level, but not quite. I think once I’m at a stage were I can comfortably understand TV and radio, I’ll be quite happy. Seems so far away sometimes though. I’m gonna have a go at importing radio podcasts from Echo Moscow and try to get some real material down. I really struggled to understand people in Russia, and I think it is because I have kept at beginner and none real life conversational stuff for almost 3 years. Gonna have a go at what Steve from Lingq did, and see how that goes.
Russia was an amazing trip btw, my only disappointment was that it didn’t snow, in Moscow it was -5c, and no snow!
