Language woes

November 13th, 2007

If there is one thing I have learned from living and working in a foreign country is that learning a foreign language is HARD. I think fondly back to the days where I blissfully sat in high school French with my very patient and very friendly French teacher who would only smile fondly at me when I messed of my verb conjugations for the 537th time. She would always say, “good try Shannon but remember one form is singular and the other is plural”. Now, if I conjugate my verb incorrectly I usually receive exasperated looks, a mumbled insult in Russian or a pat on the head as if to say, “aren’t you the cute little amerikanka trying to learn Ukrainian, how adorable!”. The worst is when a well meaning Ukrainian who knows English will politely say, “just speak English, it will be easier”. That is usually about the point where I either want to club them over the head with my language manuals and scream, “I have to live here jackass let me practice!” or the alternate, curl up with my English DVD’s in my little apartment and gorge on yummy Ukrainian chocolate. That still counts as a cross cultural experience right? I mean, the chocolate is Ukrainian after all. I know they are trying to help but I would rather struggle through a question in Ukrainian with someone who knows English, then as a last ditch effort I can ask in English. But there will always come a time when the person I am talking to does not know English. That happens a lot here, it being, you know, Ukraine and all. So the more I can practice with a safety net the better. I don’t need to work on my English, I already know that language. Although my English teacher friends are horrified that I don’t know the difference between past perfect and past indefinite. We maybe covered that is eighth grade English but that was long before I wanted to travel the world and learn other languages so I just figured, “I already speak this language what do I need to know this for?” and I didn’t pay much attention. Looking back, I was a pretty stupid eighth grader.
I wouldn’t say I am language phobic; in fact the opposite is true. I love Ukrainian. It is one of the most beautiful languages with words like Листопад (list-o-pad) which literally means “leaves falling” and is the Ukrainian word for November. I mean, how cool is that? The other months are just as good, like April, Квітен (kaviten) which means flowers and February, Лютий (Luetie), meaning angry (as in wind). Americans would never say, “I love the month of leaves falling, everything is so colorful!” Heck no, we would say something along the lines of, “November sucks! Its freezing but there isn’t enough snow to go skiing yet.” Of course now that I am living through my first November in Ukraine and it has showed solid for the past three days I would be more inclined to say, “снігопад” (snee-o-pad) meaning snowfall rather then leaves falling is more appropriate. But that is neither here nor there.
The only part about Ukrainian I just don’t get, I mean besides the fact that I don’t really know the language yet, is the difference between the two H sounds. One sound is written as, “г” and is said like the H in how or happy, the other looks like “x” and is said like the more guttural sounding H in loch. Think that German sounding guttural hocking a loogie sound and that will be about right. Apparently, I am incapable of creating the latter of these two H sounds. This have been the source for much amusement for my Ukrainian collogues and creates somewhat of a little problem for me since that particular letter happens to be in a lot of Ukrainian words. The worst is when the difference between the two H’s entirely changes the meaning of the word. For example, to say “I am hungry” you say, “Я голодна”. On the other hand, the word for “cold” is “холодна”. I finally figured out the connection between these two words when my Ukrainian Babycia kept handing me sweaters in mid-July when I thought I was saying I was hungry. Those were what I like to call “cultural moments”. And now I just say, “Їсти” which means “eat?”. It is not as suave, but there is less confusion and no more sweaters in July.