Because it was about Easter when I accepted my invitation
from Peace Corps to serve in Ukraine and my assignment didn’t start until
September, I had plenty of time to do research, to try to field questions from
well-meaning people who could hardly fathom what I was doing, and to prepare.
Although few of the answers I was looking for were included
(Will I have my own apartment? Am I buying the right boots?), the Peace Corps
sent me a variety of materials to help with this preparation. Among these were
a set of files to jump-start the language learning process. I downloaded the
mp3’s, printed out the pages, and engaged. “Make it so,” I commanded, popping in
the burned CD as I drove around and around in my Barcelona Red Yaris. Somehow
the idea that I could use the script of Star
Trek to propel myself into instant fluency seemed like a good one. Still,
nothing happened. Maybe the mistake was using a line from The Next Generation. Did Kirk win more often than Picard? Hard to
say.
What I can say was that I listened, repeated, and
entertained other motorists. The list of the alphabet was particularly lame.
There were maybe twenty different tracks, though, and the rest of them all had
a more engaging theme—greetings, foods, safety phrases. I became most confident about the
idea of going to the post office—poshta,
if you’d like to know. Some of the lines, though, I felt a little uncertain
about. Yes, I did repeat and practice the sentence “Oo mene ye simya,” although the idea of working it into a
conversation seemed questionable. What would someone say to you that would
cause you to blurt out: “I have a family”?
1 comment:
I believe "I have a family" was one of the safety phrases, useful in situations where, say, a mugger is holding you at knife point and you want him to feel some sort of humanity for you. I learned this phrase directly after "Here is my money", and the two phrases have a nice ring when they're uttered together. Vitaliy thinks the safety phrases are just about the funniest thing I've ever said (which tells you a lot about me and humor). One time I happened to say the Ukrainian for "I don't drink", and then the Ukrainian for "Help me". This idea--I'm an American, I don't drink, help me!--has given him endless amounts of joyful laughter at my expense.
P.S. Kirk is the way to go...
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