4 weeks in Russia: всё хорошо! (All Good)

(This is a follow up from yesterday’s blog: I fainted into the pelmeni)

Today was probably one of the best days in the last two weeks simply because I got off the laptop, closed the Russian textbooks and went outside. I had a good walk around Victory Park (парк Победы) with ITMO English teacher John Kuti, followed by a lovely digestible and relaxed vegan lunch, followed by another walk along Leninski Prospect to the metro station where I hopped on to go and meet my son and head off for the cardiologist’s appointment his Russian girlfriend had organised. A cardiologist appointment on a Sunday afternoon? This is private medicine – maybe you get that in the UK if you pay, but I wouldn’t know.

It was at a private clinic called Scandinavia Clinic (a chain, one of which happened fortuitously to be literally next door to the English school just off Prospekt Veteranov) I had to sign  a package of forms – in Russian and in English though I basically just signed on the dotted lines – and then after a couple of minutes wait we  were invited into a large airy room by a friendly, grandmotherly looking cardiologist with a white coat and a smile. Yes -a smile! So my son was there to give the background and translate anything I didn’t understand, while the girlfriend was there to translate anything my son didn’t understand. The system worked well apart from having to ask Google what the English for щитовидная железа (thyroid gland was) It cost 2,5000 roubles, just under £30 if you are interested.

She took a look at my cardiogram (which I have now kept as my “souvenir of St Petersburg”) and pronounced it fine. She asked a lot of questions, about the event, prodded me in various places, took my blood pressure (120/70!), listened to various parts of my chest and pronounced me fine once more, всё хорошо! One of those things, probably caused by stress of two weeks relentless work and study combined with anxiety of a  big meal with unknown (but very, very kind) people. She wrote out a  prescription for some Vitamin B6  (which I will probably take) and some kind of relaxant which I shall probably not take- although Google says it is popular and fine; I am not sure I want to go into my Russian exam in a state of artificial bliss.

So all’s well that ends well. And I have another authentic Russian experience to add to my list. On a side note, now we can laugh about it, my son recounted how, the moment I collapsed, the landlord, wife and daughter were shocked and jumped to action – the mum to help, the dad to call the ambulance… but the two babushka grandmothers, both in their 80s just sat nonchalantly at the table, continued eating, obviously with the attitude “I’ve been through a lot worse than this” In fact one of them told my son, while I was lying weakly on the bed “I’ve collapsed loads of times and I’ve always been perfectly all right”

And so, indeed, was I..

4 weeks in Russia: So I fainted into the pelmeni..

Well not quite. I think it was after the raspberry cream cake…

These last two weeks have been manic, trying to keep my head above water in a class a level above my own. My exam is B1 and I am in the B2 class, conscientiously spending hours doing the homework while at the same time continuing my work for Moodle. Study work eat sleep. Study work eat sleep.

So for a pleasant interlude my son’s landlord invited us to his home in the area of Peterhof. First he, his wife and daughter treated us to a guided tour of the palace – I was impressed with myself with how much of the commentary I could understand. And then we went back to their (very impressive) home – for another short tour which included a basement den where they have a sauna and cold bath)

We then met the two grandmothers who also live with them and I had plenty of opportunity to practise speaking Russian. Champagne to celebrate the event, along with the seven year anniversary of my son having his first Russian lesson in London. All the food was homemade – from the borscht to the salad olivier to the blini to the gathered mushrooms preserved picked and tomatoes, pelmeni, fruit compote and finally a beautiful cream cake made by Lisa the fifteen year old daughter. And yes, I tried everything offered to me. Strangely, just after the cake and as I was drinking the green tea I suddenly became very hot – not just for a few seconds but for what seemed a longer time – and then the room seemed to go round and round and I suddenly realised I was going to faint. I had enough awareness to shout “I’m going to faint! Somebody help me” In English because I couldn’t remember the Russian  -and my son was sitting next to me. The next thing I knew I was being tapped on the face by my son saying “Mum – are you going to come back to us?” And I felt a kind of regret because actually for the very few seconds I was actually ‘out’ I had felt a lovely calm, relaxing sleep… Then of course major panic ensued with the landlort, Sergei calling the paramedics and the mum taking my blood pressure…After feeling very hot and then cold and sick I was actually mostly ok by the time the paramedics came. That was an experience. I have never been visited upon my paramedics in England let alone Russia! There was a guy and a woman and they had a enormous bag of – well, what looked like lots of different phials of potions to me! They did my blood pressure (ok ) a fingerprick bloodtest (presumably ok because nobody said otherwise) and a cardiogram which was most interesting since I have never had one. I had to strip off, lie on the bed and have some monitors stuck to my chest and like a clip on each arm. Then some paper came out of a machine to the side of the bed. They both looked at it carefully and when I asked what it meant they didn’t say anything – which was a bit disturbing… They did talk when my son and the mum Olga came back in though. It was fine except for a “minor weakness” (we didn’t really understand what that meant) which might be nothing – I might have had it all my life without knowing – but which they recommended getting checked out by a cardiologist. They also recommended going to be checked out at hospital, but they weren’t too concerned when we turned that invitation down. Their general conclusion was that it was a ‘one off’ – maybe some food that disagreed, maybe over exertion – but they did advise going to a cardiologist. When they heard I would get it checked out in two weeks back in England they thought that was too long, so now, here I am, Saturday night, back in my own flat courtesy of Sergei, expecting a call from my son in the morning regarding a cardiologist appointment tomorrow evening (private, paying) He is working tomorrow until four and I have a nice invitation to lunch and a walk in the park, neither of which we feel the need to cancel, so it will have to be around sixish if available.

How odd.I am not the fainting kind. I really am not. In months to come I will look upon this as one of the pivotal moments in my journey towards mastering the Russian language. Today however, I would just rather  put it behind me. It has somewhat reminded me of my advancing age and my mortality….

4 weeks in Russia: Too much, too soon!

One day in and my brain is full… I wonder what the Russian for “I’ve bitten off more than I can chew” is?

Having worked extra for Moodle on Sunday in order to take some time out registering at the school and doing the placement test on Monday,  I duly turned up at 8.45, did the test and a small oral exam and was placed in a group with two Germans, a Korean, a Swiss, an American and an Italian. One of the things I’ve loved about the language school is the diversity of the cultures. The first session revised time prepositions and the second was conversational vocab related to nutrition and food preparation – making me acutely aware of how many verbs and kitchen words I have simply never learned. Too many, in fact to actively memorise – I mean – how often am I going to need снять пену с бульона ?

BBC webpage
You can’t hide from the internet

At two pm I went with my son or – as the Russians delightfully say “We with my son went” to the university to sign up for the exams. This is where it all went wrong. Fine for my son who is going to do the 3rd certificate (C1 level) in May but my carefully constructed plan of studying for three weeks and then in the final week of March taking the exam was abruptly  destroyed when they said the room was full with a group of Chinese students and there was no availability. Could I do the week earlier -that is, 20th and 21st March? Well I could – I can – I don’t want to – but it was either that or not do the exam at all during this lengthy stay. So I booked it. Arrghhh.

However, psychologically I then figured that if I don’t pass all the elements I can simply say both to myself and others “Well – I didn’t have enough time – I was’t ready”… and I can rebook for May, when my son does his. And it will also mean that the fourth week I am here, I can continue the Russian classes but just for the pleasure of learning, not with a significant goal in mind.

Then at five pm I had my private lesson with the lovely Lilya and by 7.30 pm I was utterly shattered, so the homework for today has hastily been done this morning  just like my students who used to rush it at the last minute. Moodle has had some of me since 6 am and the rest of me from 2pm – roll on next week when I have booked some leave…

4 weeks in Russia: Turning off the heat and deciphering the butter

I’m in St Petersburg for just over four weeks to see my son, work as normal for Moodle and study Russian with the possible aim of taking another exam.  I’ll be blogging occasionally with my cultural experiences and observations, starting with Day 1

I arrived without any hitches yesterday afternoon, Ist March. I am staying in a (now very ) familiar apartment on Nevsky Prospekt, almost palatial, and extremely convenient. The building is one of the very old ones with no lift but fortunately a young workman decided to show off his strength by carrying my 27kg suitcase up the four floors – who was I to protest?

One thing I have noticed previously about Russia is that, when it is unbearably cold outside, they seem (to me) to make it unbearably warm inside! And not for the first time did I struggle last night trying to find the heating controls so  I didn’t spend all night perspiring in bed. I usually end up opening a window, which then brings in very chilly air and is most environmentally unfriendly.

Additionally, this morning I decided to figure out the oven. I can’t spend four weeks living off microwave or one ring hob meals; I want to stew, roast, bake. While the apartment itself is decorated in a beautiful 19th century style, the kitchen and bathroom are hi-tech, which meant the electric oven had an array of settings and a manual in Russian, Turkish, Polish and Slovenian… I never read manuals anyway, so by trial and error I managed to turn it on and set the correct temperature. Great. But then once I had decided my experiment was a success, it seemed impossible to turn it off. I turned the dials back to zero – waited for the fan to turn off and the oven to cool down – no chance. In despair I turned to the manual, deciphered the Russian, tried the suggested settings – still nothing doing. I had a very hot oven in a very hot apartment! After about an hour and a half, I gave up and went to the shops, resigned to contacting my host, Olga, for enlightenment. Lo and behold when I returned, the oven had finally switched itself off. While that does mean I won’t have to swelter any more, it also means I have no idea which of my attempts actually worked, so that when I do use the oven for real (“in anger” as Moodle developers say) I won’t be any the wiser how to turn it off!!

My trip to the local supermarket, перекрёсток  reminded me of the confusion I feel when trying to buy simple products in Russia such  as milk or butter. I just wanted something to spread on my bread – but which butter should I get? Is there no olive spread, which is what I buy  at home? I spend ages looking and ultimately buy based on price, telling myself I am not fussy anyway fortunately. I have bought something spreadable in a tub, though what it consists of I have no real idea. Milk is the same but I am not over concerned as long as it has a picture of a cow on it. The one I chose called itself правильное молоко, which I interpreted as “correct milk” – so that must be the one!!!

 

 

 

New year, new exam..

2019 already!  As I said, I did not end this blog, just took some time out continuing my studies. In fact I went back to St Petersburg and to Liden-Denz school for three weeks in September, followed by a visit to Moscow for an online learning conference

I have been continuing my weekly Skype lessons with the wonderful Lilya, but sadly there was no Advanced evening class at UCLAN this year, so all my UK learning has been online. And now it is time: new year – new exam!

cat with Russian materials
Priorities?

My unofficial New Year’s resolution is to take (and pass) the TORFL/TRKI at First Certificate (B1) level by the end of March., 11 months after I took the A2 exam. This is approximately equivalent to the UK ‘A’ level – which I would be interested in taking, but struggle to find a nearby school that offers it. During my three weeks at Liden-Denz in September, I studied alongside a young woman and man who’d both done A level German in UK high schools. I was astonished – until I learned that they had both gone to fee-paying schools 🙂

I plan to spend March in St Petersburg, studying and working for Moodle HQ before and after my class hours. And yes, I am very nervous!

I have been doing sample papers – including A level papers. In terms of the TORFL/TRKI, I am confident in the grammar paper and think I will be OK with the reading paper too.

Writing will be a challenge, particularly as I still haven’t mastered cursive and deeply resent having mastered one alphabet only to have to re-learn it all over again! (like t becomes m and d becomes g… hmmmm)

Speaking I will falter with – I am fine memorising a ten minute speech in Russian – but improvising on unplanned questions is another issue, and I imagine myself biting my nails on that one. (On the other hand, the examiner for the A2 oral exam completely disregarded the script, so maybe I will strike lucky with the B1 oral too)

The listening paper is interesting. For the  B1 TORFL/TRKI, you can only listen to the passages ONCE! (When I did A level French and German years ago, we were played a tape twice. Now for the UK ‘A’ level it appears you are in control of your own tape and can play it as often as you like – within the exam time frame) However, the Russian and UK versions seem to balance out, because although you can only hear the Russian B1 exam passages once, the questions are (to my mind) fairly straightforward. I did the sample paper quite confidently. And while you can listen to the UK ‘A’ level passages as often as you wish, the questions are (in my view) very hard!

So this blog will be updated on a fairly regular basis until I have done the B1 exam. And then I should stop! I really should! I’ll maintain my level of Russian but there is no real reason for me to go on and do higher and higher levels… and besides, with Moodle HQ having a new Northern hemisphere office in Barcelona, I want to raise my level of Spanish above A1. But that is a whole new story….

 

 

Mission accomplished – базовый уровень – been there, got the T-shirt!

Ok – I didn’t get a T-shirt but I got a certificate:

And today I fly back to the UK after three weeks of fulfilling my mission of immersing myself in the Russian language and culture. It’s been great – from the first tentative steps in a supermarket trying to understand the cashier’s questions to my final night independently navigating my way to the fourteenth floor of a concrete block to have a very Russian dinner with an ITMO teacher and his Russian wife.

The original aim of this blog was to record my journey learning Russian.  I didn’t imagine at the start that I would actually take an exam and get an “official piece of paper” and now that I have, I realise it’s not enough and I need more.

This is not the end of the blog, rather the end of the first chapter. However, I won’t be blogging weekly or regularly now as I’d like to take my time building up to the B1 level – First certificate. But I’ll be back.. in this blog and in Russia…

TORFL/ ТРКИ Russian exam – I passed!

Yesterday, Friday, I had my final group lesson with the lovely multinational group I have been studying with for the last two weeks. It has been a real pleasure learning with such diverse, motivated people, from the American Dean and German  Theodor, both even older than myself, to the younger and beautiful Italians, Laura, Anna, to the French Philippe, the American with intriguing name Matvei,the young Brits Natasha and Jack, to the polyglot Swiss Darko and more… Happy memories.

The culmination of many months of wondering why on earth I had decided to do this… yesterday (Friday) I went with my son (or if you prefer the Russian way, ‘We with my son went..’) to the university to get our results. Delight! We both passed – he passed his B2 exam with an average of 84% (with 96% percent on speaking – brilliant!) and I passed with an average of 90%. The actual results are here:

  • Writing – 85%
  • Speaking – 84%
  • Grammar/Vocabulary – 93%
  • Reading – 93%
  • Listening -96%

I was quite pleased and surprised by the Listening results but slightly irritated by the Writing and Speaking results. It’s the first time I’ve ever got below 90% on any language exam which gives percentages as grades 🙁  I wonder if I might have done better if I hadn’t finished the writing after twenty minutes ? I wonder if I might have done better if the examiner had followed the script of the speaking test to the letter instead of having a natural conversation with me?

Maybe not. Whatever. I should be pleased and I am certainly encouraged to continue to B1 level, as my son is encouraged to continue to C1.

We get the certificates on Monday – watch out for the selfie! And then it’s Onwards and Upwards. (Oh no, not Motion verbs again!!)

 

TORFL/ ТРКИ- Russian exam Day 2

All done! Oddly, despite having done three exams yesterday I was more nervous today for the two remaining. The listening was done first, in the booths via the computer with headphones. It wasn’t actually too difficult but I found it hard to concentrate. The test lasted half an hour. For my Basic A2 Level the passages were played twice but for the B1 level of the Chinese students (now our new friends!) and the B2 level of my son, they were only played once. Of course no dictionaries, although our Chinese friends had to be reminded to put them away.

For the speaking test, I sat with a lovely silver-haired gentleman who actually smiled! He asked me my first question – how long had I been learning Russian and why did I start – and – well – cue me indulging my passion for languages, son’s move to St Petersburg, fascination with motion verbs,  comparison with German and French… and I was away! I realised we were actually having a conversation rather than an exam,and I wondered when the exam would begin. Was this the warm up? He asked me why I wasn’t doing the B1 level exam (First certificate) instead, so I felt quite encouraged.He then asked me about where I lived and when he informed me he hadn’t visited Preston, I followed my advice of years to students – ask the examiner a question! I asked him where he had visited – Birmingham – which happened to be near my own place of birth. City of the strange accent, I said. A few minutes later, just as I was getting into it, he put his marksheet away, told me that was Basic level done, and said to come back tomorrow for the results!

Which indeed we shall.  Watch this space….

TORFL/ ТРКИ- Russian exam Day 1

Yes – Day 1 is over! That’s the Grammar, Reading and Writing.

I was at the languages institute at St Petersburg university before 9.30 for a 10 am start, along with my son who is doing the Second Certificate, B2 level (I am doing the Basic, A2 level) There were two Chinese boys and three Chinese girls anxiously waiting as well – all doing the First Certificate, B1 level, apparently the most popular one. We all waited outside Room 208…

The exam door was closed until 5 to ten when the supervisor came out and checked our papers and took away our mobile phones. She was actually quite human- I had been expecting a really strict, mean-looking invigilator, but she was almost pleasant. (Should I say surprisingly?)

The room was actually a room of computer booths, rather than rows of front-facing desks. I quite liked this. We will only use the computers tomorrow, for the listening test; today’s exams were on paper. I sat in a booth next to my son – it was quite nice actually, even though we couldn’t communicate and were doing separate exams anyway.

Unexpectedly, the first exam was the Writing 🙁 I had hoped for the Grammar first, to ease me in, as I find that the least difficult, but, whatever. My two questions were fairly straightforward, the first, a letter to a new penfriend introducing yourself and asking questions about him/her. (How many times have I trained GCSE students in similar letters?!) The second question was writing an apology for not being able to attend a party and suggesting a meet up at a later date. I actually finished the two questions in twenty minutes and then spent the rest of the time (up to 50 minutes) double checking word in the dictionary. So much did I feel back in my student days, 40 years ago, that I actually wrote my maiden name on the exam paper and it wasn’t until the last five minutes of the exam that I actually realised, scribbled it out and wrote my current name!!

The following exam was the Grammar. Bits of this were quite straightforward and I only had to guess a few of them. Thankfully there was a whole passage using motion verbs so my relentless lessons of the last couple of weeks, plus the video course from Dr Curtis Ford on tips4russian haven’t gone to waste 🙂 HOWEVER.. the layout of the multiple choice answer options was very confusing, going across the page 31,32 and then down to 39 and then across to 37…?  Questions 33 and 34 appeared on the next  page, as if the copying had been done in a strange way. I’m confident I got most of these right and I will be asking for a remark if I get a low grade because I want to make sure the person marking them was aware of the odd location of the answers too 🙂

The reading took me 45 minutes out of the 50, again some challenging texts. I kept forgetting that I was allowed to use a dictionary – it just wasn’t in my psyche, never having been allowed to for my own school and university exams (apart from  a post graduate translation diploma, but that was slightly different)

I realise now I was doing an exam that was at the appropriate level for me. All exams I did at school were way below the level I had already achieved and so always seemed easy. It was interesting to do an exam where I had to really focus, where I sometimes didn’t know words or had to guess.

My  three exams took me from 10 am until 12.30 and I did feel tired afterwards. In fact, we both came back to my apartment and went to sleep for a couple of hours!

Tomorrow – listening and speaking. Speaking is the one I am most concerned about but hey – it’s only a language exam…

Group learning – onwards/upwards (again!)

What a lovely week learning in a multinational, multi-age, motivated class! I wish I were doing the course full time instead of only arriving at lunchtime -but needs must – I have to work in the morning to pay for the classes in the afternoon.

This week the focus has been  on motion verbs – oh my goodness – I wish they would go away. Or outside. Or down. Or up. Or past. Or round! Anyway but stay here 🙂

The drilling is very useful though, and I love the friendliness of the students and teacher. I have to say that the intensity of this learning is getting to me – group class and then private lessons, not to mention my own personal studying – along with the obligatory deciphering of food at the supermarket.

The exam is on Wednesday and Thursday. My son kindly gave me his cold so I went into a chemist’s to buy something for a sore throat – mistakenly asking for something for a sore head instead.. sigh… Never mind. I realised, and then remembered a specific brand in the end…

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