It is almost midnight here, but I’ve planned this post to be written for so a long time that finally I decided to do so.
It’s been months since I’ve written anything textual in this blog. I still remember, the very first time I wrote about being unstable, about having an absolutely horrible time of my life, the last exam time it was in fact.
Since then, not many things have changed, but something did for sure, otherwise why would I waste my time to write this post, and also your precious time to read this long rambling of mine?
At first, I would like to say sorry for my horrible english. I haven’t used it for two entire weeks now, and now I feel like I don’t know anything. That isn’t exactly true though, I’m just not sure about myself.
So let the story begin.
Most of my followers probably know that this is my third year at university. I’ve just started working on my bacchelor’s thesis, which has to be done until the 3rd of April, and to be honest, I’m pretty much afraid. The whole thesis I must write in russian, and even the topic isn’t that interesting, to be honest. But I didn’t want to talk about what I am afraid of, but a very nice experience which I’ve had recently, in connecction with russian.
When it comes to speaking in russian, I’m always afraid of my mistakes, I’m afraid of people, who might laugh at me for possible mistakes. Because yes, there are a lot of possible ways to speak incorrectly in russian.
Yet in december, 2022, I joined to a telegram group called Tiflogames. At that time, I didn’t really talk to people there, only greeted them and sometimes asked some questions, but I was afraid of the fact that I’m not russian, and what would they say if they recognised that? So I thought it would be the most efficient and the easiest if I straight up told them hey, I’m from Hungary and I’m sorry for any mistakes I’m going to do while we chat with each other. They all understood and told that it’s so interesting that other people learn russian and besides that I write very well, so nothing to worry about. I wasn’t that sure but yeah, I believed them.
After a while, they wanted me to send some voice messages, so they could listen to my accent. If you ask me, I’d say I have a strong hungarian accent, well, they didn’t say so and I was very glad about that. After a while I simply didn’t write anything in there, I didn’t chat with them because to be honest, it was exam time and I didn’t want even to chat in russian because it would have reminded me of the exam time and I didn’t want that for sure. I didn’t have anything against russian as a language, but I was really angry at a lot of things so that was the reason I didn’t write a word in there. After the exam time was over, I opened Unigram again and saw that I had a lot of unread messages from them. I didn’t read all of them, but asked something, which I already don’t remember. Then one of the members asked me where I was these last few weeks, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. Then I didn’t want to tell everything but finally I did. I wanted them to understand my situation, but on the other hand, I didn’t want them to laugh at me, it’s enough that teachers and groupmates do so. I told them my story with university, I told them everything I could.
After a few minutes, maybe half an hour, I got a message from a fellow member. He asked me how much russian is important for me, because if it’s really that important, he can help me. I said of course it’s important because I love the language and I study it at university, but then we left that topic and started to simply chat and talk. After some time, I recognised my russian has become better, much better than it was a week ago. We kept chatting for even more time, and then he invited me even to discord, where I met more people from Russia.
The best situation I’ve ever been inconnection with russian, happened today in the morning. I was happily sleeping, when I heard my phone was ringing and voiceover told the name of the caller. I looked for my phone and thought, oh my god I’m tired like hell, and I should answer this call and speak in russian! I did it. I wasn’t even thinking about what I said, I answered the call and, well, started to talk. From that moment I believe I know at least something. Maybe it’s not enough yet, and I have a lot of mistakes, but I can speak without even thinking, half asleep.
This particular person isn’t here on Elten, but I’d like to say I’m absolutely thankful to him for what he has kept saying the past week, that he kept motivating me, and all in all, he’s a very good friend of mine.
Question: why isn’t it possible to learn languages here this way? Why don’t teachers motivate people, why don’t they let children speak, why don’t they let students in fact, to use the language they are learning? Why can’t it work this way? On a lesson you learn, on the other you use your already learned skills, vocabulary and all the other things language learning offers.
The past week I went to university, smiling, and it was much, much easier to communicate with teachers than before. And I can’t tell why, because I don’t know either. On tuesday they asked what happened with me so I speak better and faster. I said I’m practising. And at the same time, I’m talking to a great friend. They were surprised and didn’t say a word.
Why didn’t I start earlier? Why wasn’t I brave enough to join maybe an year ago? Of course, my russian was way worse back then, but still.
All in all, now everything is going very well with russian. Finally I love what I study, once again. Thanks to a russian fellow, who wrote me out of the blue, because just why not. And now we are already good friends. 🙂