After a few weeks of studying Russian I re-watched a Russian movie that I watched with English subtitles at the beginning of this endeavour. Back then I only understood a few words, but by now I understand much more! Even though some of the phrases are still completely beyond me, I even understood whole sentences at times! The more I learn about the language, the more I realise that it’s substantially more complex than any other language I have learned so far. My Russian textbook covers 4 of the 6 cases in the first 3 chapters and it’s making my head spin ever so slightly!
I kind of feel reminded of an experience I had in my bachelor degree: I had applied to do an exam on a specific text of a rather hard to understand French philosopher without reading the text first. It was a rather cocky move (stupid, to be honest) and when I opened the book in the library I’m sure everyone in that section of the library heard me swearing! The first sentence was two pages long and it could as well have been written in Chinese! It took me several weeks to get through this beast of a text, and I was very unhappy with myself for getting myself into this mess, but after a lot of swearing (and maybe a few tears here or there) I actually did very well in that exam.
At times I’m similarly stunned by the grammar of Russian now and with every chapter I think “Ah, it should be getting easier now”. However, with every new chapter I realise that it’s just getting harder and harder. Seriously, what a language! I won’t let myself be defeated though! And since I haven’t considered giving up yet, it probably means that this isn’t quite as crazy as my French philosophy experience yet. Maybe I’ll change my mind a few chapters down the line, but so far I suspect that the level of crazy found in French philosophy would be better compared to learning something as mad as Basque or Hungarian!
All pictures taken with: Leica M6, Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
dm Paradies 400 developed in Fuji Hunt C41 Kit, Jobo CPE-2.
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
I love the colours in this one.
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
Taken from the bus.
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
I must have been bored.
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
And I couldn’t resist this one!
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
Yep, that’s spider man with a balloon!
© Lilly Schwartz 2015
We thought that this was the funny bird that insults everyone, but it wasn’t. Although I don’t know what kind of bird this is, I like how this picture turned out.