There are a few words in Russian that have special memories that go with them. I can think of three right off the top of my head right now. As I was reading Marley and Me last night in bed, I came across one of these words {in English}: unfettered.
I'll be honest. Up until a month ago, I didn't even know what this word meant in English. BUT, at Russian language camp (you can refresh your memory here), I learned this word...both in English and Russian. You see, when we arrived at Russian language camp, we were broken up into groups of 4-5 people. Our group was assigned a Ukrainian teacher and we were then given our group name. Our group name was "Вольны как ветер" (volʹny kak veter), which translated to "unfettered like the wind." There were a total of 12 groups at Russian language camp, each with a different group name we were supposed to learn. The next meeting, we had to present a small skit to help everyone remember our group name.
What did our group come up with? Here was our skit:
person 1: "Что это?"--Shto eta?--What's that?
person 2: "Ето птица!"--Eta pa-tit-sa!--It's a bird!
person 3: "Ето самолет!"--Eta sam-mo-lay-ot!--It's a plane!
person 4: "Нет! Ето SUPERMAN!"--Nee-et! Eta SUPERMAN!--No! It's SUPERMAN!
all persons: "Он вольны как ветер!"--Ohn vol-nee kak vay-ter!--He's unfettered like the wind!
It was cheesy, but it worked. And I will never forget what unfettered means :)
The other two words that I will forever relate to memories in Ukraine come with more of a story. One of our first weeks of pre-service training (the first three months I was in Ukraine), our Russian teacher Zhenya showed us a popular Russian cartoon: Masha and the bear (Маша и медведь--Masha ee mee-yed-ved). This was probably the second week of class when we barely knew how to say hello and goodbye in Russian. The cartoon doesn't use too many words though, and she told us to listen for one word as we watched the first episode: ещё (pron: yay-show). If you want to watch the video, it's below (hint: you can skip to 4 minutes and still figure out what the word means!)
ещё--more!
It's a cute video. And that word forever stuck with me...and is used quite often in my every day life.
The other word that strikes up a funny memory in Ukraine? The word for rain--ДОЖДЬ--dohsh-d. This funny story also happened during training, probably around the middle of our time spent in Oster. One of my clustermates, Jamie, and myself were wandering downtown in Oster. At the central park, we happened to run into a family we knew in the community. As we stood there smiling and pretending like we understood everything the family was rambling away at us (when we honestly had no clue what they were saying), it started to rain. We had just learned some of the weather vocabulary and were excited to put it to use. The family had a little boy with them and as we stood there awkwardly not understanding a word the parents were saying, the small boy (2 or 3 years old) said, "Дождь!" in the most perfectly clear and articulated manner. I think that was the only thing Jamie and I understood in the 5 minutes we stood there "talking" with the family.
Sometimes, you just have to smile and nod.
1 comment:
Living a language is definitely a memory aid for vocabulary building. And I think that expression could also be translated as "free as a breeze." Love, Pops
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