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I am studying for my Russian finals. Yes. Finals. With an “s.” The good people at Bard-Smolny broke Russian as a Second Language into five classes (conversation, phonetics, writing (which is less about writing and more about correctly punctuating academic papers), grammar, and reading. And we have a final in each n’ every one.
Obviously, studying for these finals has led me to a conclusion that has nothing to do with anything that will be on the test. AHEM:
I like studying Russian as a means to an end. Which is to say! I like being able to speak Russian (better than I once did), and read Russian (better than I speak it), and so on and so forth. But actually studying Russian? No. That I do not like.
Some people actually enjoy the process of learning languages. They like putting the different grammatical pieces together to form a linguistic puzzle. They like the semantic nuances. They like learning new words in a different tongue. (Aside: Who decided that “tongue” is an acceptable substitute for “language.” And does, “It’s a foreign tongue!” disgust anyone else? Like, get that foreign tongue out of your mouth, you know? End aside.) And that’s really good for them!
But I am not one of those people.
Now, how to explain this in Russian on my exams…
