Aidonian's blog

Why Russian you ask? Well, four years ago, a Russian art student in Ghent asked for people to join her group where she can learn Russian to people of all ages and levels. I was a complete beginner. It was free, so what did I had to lose, right? 

Well, I didn’t lose anything. I fell in love with the language. After 4 years, I can speak a bit Russian. Last year i have been to Saint-Petersburg. If not for covid19 pandemic, I would have returned this year. Hopefully next year? 

There I spoke a bit Russian, but could read it well. Mind you, I did not learn Russian to pick up Russian women or anything like that. Believe it or not, its a difficult language to learn, but a beautiful one at that. Its a rich language.

I don’t regret trying to learn Russian at all. I’m making slowly progress. You see, the thing that most Russian teachers will say that learning Russian is bit like running a marathon. You have to prepare yourself, train, train, train to get there. The same goes for learning Russian. 

Its a difficult culture, a different way of speaking altogether. Their 6 grammactical cases are a true mindfuck. Some things you have to learn to pick up, others you have to memorize. 

What did frustrate me, is that learning Russian in school is not easy. Before covid19, I trained krav maga two times in a week, so I was searching for a way to not be on a tuesday or a thursday. That was near impossible. First year was either wednesday or monday, which was fine, but second year was a tuesday. I could go to third year, but that was even harder, because that was on a thursday or a saturday morning, which would have conflicted with work. I work every two weekends. 

After much internal debate, and talking with some people, I went for it and did my second year on a tuesday. Now, with covid19 pandemic raging on, schools are closed, especially night schools. 

Its a great group, and a good teacher. 

I feel that i’m a a crossroads. I want to continue learning Russian and be fluent in it. At the same time, if things do go a bit normal until a vaccin or medication is found, i want to continue training two times krav maga in a week. I need it to release tension and stress. At the moment, I’m taking july off from learning Russian. I do have Russian friends, with whom I try to speak Russian with them and learn from them. But the reason I’m on a break, because learning Russian should be fun and I need some time to come back with a fresh perspective.

Fun fact though: those who do study Russian for their partner, are the ones, accoding to the teacher- the first to drop out. The reason is that their progress in this language is most of the time slower than the progress of their partner in their native tongue. i say this, because the first night in the first year, out of 20 students, more than 10 were there because they had a Russian partner and/or children. 

In conclusion, i will not quit learning Russian. When I start something, I don’t like to quit. I’m making slow progress, which is normal after 4 years of studying. I rarely use duolingo for it. I either use my books from school, or youtube videos from Russian with nastya or Befluent, which are excellent channels for learning Russian.