Friday, 7 January 2011
Chronicles of Not Completely Wasted Time
I spent quite a long time in the dim dark past learning Russian. It wasn't a complete waste of time - I met my husband in Moscow airport, which was a pretty good outcome - but I can't say I draw upon my hard earned - and mostly long ago leaked away - knowledge on a daily basis. Which is why I am going to seize the opportunity of Orthodox Christmas to say С Рождеством Христовым. Желаю всем добра, cчастья и любви (I bet I've got some part of that wrong.)
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My sister learned French at school and Uni and ended up marrying a frenchman. I reckon if someone could send me a karaoke dvd with Francoise Hardy singing her songs and have the words written in French but with English sub-titles I could learn a lot more French. I remember when I studied philosophy at Uni there were only 13 other students in the year. What were all the rest of the students at the ANU doing I wondered? Later I studied Aboriginal studies with about 23 other students. ( I might tell you that bastard MacKnight failed my scholarship in this discipline. I am without conceit.) Charlie Perkins once came to give us a talk at the Ab studies Unit. Charlie asked if any of the students in the class had touched an aboriginal person and I was the only person in class who raised their hand. My wife learned Russian in Viet Nam, her mother was a lecturer in Russian. Her grandfather translated french novels into Vietnamese, Now when I tell her there is a Russian greeting on hand she is too busy with the baby to have a look. After about 13 years of trying to say hello to people in Vietnamese and rarely being understood I'm thinking I might need to see a Vietnamese speech therapist rather than a vietnamese linguist when in VN in under three weeks time. But Z I have my project to document my doghouse museum over there; all those tattered old Russian text books you would love it you Z, you could be my research assistant and I could pay you in shrapnel and autographs.
ReplyDeleteI speak a very small amount of Vietnamese. The tones are so hard to get right. I once thought I was asking someone their name and they thought I was announcing I was a grandmother.
ReplyDeletePS: can we read more about you meeting your husband in Moscow airport?
ReplyDeleteHey Geoff, I've been worrying about you and the floods. I think even when your baby is 25 years old, your wife will not want to waste time looking at a Russian greeting - most of those I've met who were forced to learn the language in Commie countries now run screaming at the first mention of the lingo. I wonder if the others in your class were not holy innocents, as you were, but, rather, feared, if they admitted touching an Aboriginal, that they'd be banged up immediately on some kind of abuse charge. Failure at ANU was usually deserved, in my experience (although I am sure you were a special case) - my only notch on that particular scoreboard came after a fevered run from Lennox House where I had been disturbed, while sharing a handrolled cigarette that contained things not produced by Mr P Morris, by a 'friend' who brought me the surprising news that the Russian exam was in fact in half an hour rather than exactly a week ahead plus half an hour. Needless to say, as the cigarette in question was not the first we had shared and was also well on its way to being finished, whatever I wrote at the end of the fevered run did not entirely match the usual rules of Russian grammar.
ReplyDeleteNurse - a coup de foudre is all you need to know at this stage. Perhaps one day I will be scraping the very bottom of the barrel and will be forced to divulge the really pretty unexciting details of my private life as blog posts, but for the moment that will do. (And, as I have made pretty clear to my daughters, I will be extremely happy to announce I am a grandmother, in any language that comes to hand, but so far nothing doing. Sigh.)
Ooo, that is bold of you. I was not allowed to mention that concept to my daughter, hence it was sprung upon me. But announce it, I do. To everyone, even if they are not listening.
ReplyDeleteI find the concept of love at first sight most perplexing.
I just burble on, but they aren't listening. It's just the white noise they've grown up with. Have you read Helen Garner on grandmotherhood?
ReplyDelete