Достопримечательности Москвы
This is the longest word I know in Russian- and it is actually a useful term! One of the girls in our class brought it up when our professor asked us what words are most difficult to say in Russian- it was incorporated into our class and now I think we are all able to say this extremely long word (but maybe it is considered short for native speakers). “Достопримечательности” means “landmarks“- so the title of this post is just Moscow Landmarks. This past week, I have been sightseeing a lot, and visiting many достопримечательности! On Sunday, I visited Царицыно with my language exchange partner. It is free for students! It was very interesting to walk around, despite that I couldn’t understand most of the captions and museum information. It was Catherine the Great’s Palace (Catherine II), although she supposedly she never lived there. The architects were freemasons, and she fell in love with another palace in Saint Petersburg.
Here are some more photos, thanks to my language partner Надежда:
Not sure who these people were, but I think they were (Russian) tourists.. haha
Парк искусств Музеон
This week I felt so busy & occupied my time doing some interesting and productive things around Moscow! I was tutoring in English for some extra cash (not much)… and on Friday one of my friends invited me to go to Pushkin’s Fine Art Museum. It was so windy and I didn’t get any pictures because I thought we weren’t allowed to bring in cameras (but little did I know- people in Russia don’t care about rules, and people take pictures all the time). It was sort of interesting, but the current exhibition mostly featured 18th – 20th century European Art, which perhaps you can see in places like LA’s Getty Museum (which is also a pretty interesting experience). Anyways for students I believe it costs around 250 rubles.
The next day, a friend and I went to Park Kultury area. It was extremely windy (as you can tell- I can barely open my eyes from the wind), but it was a sunny day and the sky blue! This cathedral is one of the major tourist attractions in Moscow. The line to enter was very long, and we didn’t go inside. We simply walked around the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour after we had visited a nearby park, and snapped some photos:
The park that my friend and I decided to visit was the Fallen Monument Park or (Парк искусств Музеон). I have always seen pictures of this place online and I’m glad I finally made it out there to take a visit. There were lots of interesting sculptures, and a little outdoor market with handmade arts and crafts.
“СССР оплот мира” – (USSR- bulwark of peace)
It’s not so much a museum (the outside at least), but rather a park with tons of sculptures. Here is a picture of a vandalized Stalin sculpture.
A bust- or possibly a former statue of Lenin? As you can see, it is spring in Moscow, and the snow is melting, but it is still cold and windy.
Here’s an interesting looking sculpture. The style seems a bit more modern compared to the more traditional ones seen above.
The park didn’t just have old Soviet sculptures, but also contemporary art from 1990’s and even 2000’s. Thought this big cage of heads was pretty interesting too:
My friend and I thought these sculptures looked like a cemetery. They were all modern and had similar themes like “Girl with a ball”, etc.
Hand in the sky.
Москва, я люблю тебя
I wanted to share this video I saw in class today. <<Москва, я люблю тебя>> is a collection of short films. We only saw 5 of them in my class. This was one of my favorites. The metro is actually very close to where I live too. There is no speaking in this one, but there is a lot said without words:
Блог о моих старых путешествиях (По-Русски)
В Исаакиевского Cобора.
Я был в Голландии, Чехии, Венгрии и России в Декабре 2012. Голландия- это маленькая, дорогая, современная страна. Я был в Амстердаме и я видел Дом Анны Франк и я ходил на плавучии рынок с тюльпанами.
После Амстердама, я приехал в Прагу. По-моему, Прага- это самый красивый город, где я был. Я думаю, что в Праге красивая, старая архитектура. Я уехал из Праги и приехал на вентерский вокзал. В общежитии я встретил человека из Тайваня и мы пошли на рождественский рынок. Будапешт- это большой, интересный, но бедный город. Я узнал об истории Венгрии и было при нацистах и советах.
Когда я был в Санкт-Петербурге, я встретил сумашедших русских в общежитии. Они любят пить водку. В Санкт-Петербурге было очень холодно, но очень красивый город. Я ехал в поезде в Москву. Я встретил хороших друзей и я был гостем в их доме на новый год. Мне понравилось видеть русскую архитектуру и рисовать в моем этюднике. Я думаю что Россия- ето таинственная страна с хорошими людьми.
If you notice any mistakes or suggestions, feel free to comment !!
Update: 2 Months in Russia
It has been exactly 2 months since I have been in Russia. I arrived on January 18th and today is March 18. I haven’t been updating this blog, but I will make more effort to do so. I will post more so I can track my progress, maybe do some dorm review/information post, class/textbook reviews, more photos of Moscow, etc.
Class + Life
I have been enjoying my life here. I really like MGU, my professors and my class. It was slow in the beginning, but the difficulty level is picking up now, and it doesn’t feel as relaxed (which I prefer). We had 2 Americans, 2 Japanese, 1 Chinese, 1 Cuban, 1 Korean, 1 Turk, and then me. Just last week, one American student went back and also a Japanese student left too. I thought it was so nice that he left our class with a Japanese pen each, even though we didn’t talk too much. Hiro, was the youngest and seemed the most motivated too. I think he wanted to study in Moscow after he graduated. Greg, who was a year older than me, will go to the army afterwards. I think we have an interesting mix of students.
Language Update
Well, since last week (or maybe the week before), I have learned all 6 cases. Of course I am not perfect at them still, but I have made a lot of progress in 2 months. Before I came back to Moscow, I only knew 2 cases (Nominative & Prepositional). Right now we are learning various verbs of motion, prepositions, and prefixes (по-, у-, при-, об-, под-, в-, вы-, etc etc etc). I think it is a bit challenging for me, but I just need more practice. Especially using them while speaking. I think reading is my strong suit (At least at the moment), while I need more help with listening and speaking. I guess I need to expand my vocabulary perhaps. I still have my same notebook- already on page 164! It’s funny looking back at old mistakes I made.
Russian Culture + Music: Серебро- Не время (2010)
Found this song Не время (No time) randomly and I’ve been listening to it a lot. Seems like this is their only good song though. It is a bit challenging for me to find interesting Russian entertainment- movies, music, etc. If you have any recommendations feel free to share.
Learning New Vocabulary
One thing that I have noticed on various other language blogs, is the discouragement of using flash cards to learn new vocabulary. I have read, “They don’t work”, “I don’t believe in using them”, and that you simply cannot memorize words using this method.
In my opinion, this is somewhat true. Then why do I have a picture of flashcards in this post? Well, the reason is because I believe using flash cards does actually work for me when I am trying to learn new Russian vocabulary, but I don’t rely on solely using flash cards to do so. I always use the new vocabulary by practicing the exercises, or even creating my own exercises by writing out sentences.
Part of the reason I was dreading starting Chapter 5 of тройка is because of the huge amount (to me) of vocabulary in this chapter: 85 words. The previous chapters also had a lot of vocab, but not this much. How will I learn most of the new words? Flashcards and writing exercises. Most of the vocabulary is essential, while others like “subtropical” seem pretty unnecessary for Chapter 5 of a Beginning Russian textbook. This textbook is a bit convoluted, and like I said before, I will do a review on this textbook later. I am going to return it soon since I only rented it, and I will buy the 1996 version which seems to be eventually the same, but we’ll see.
Lomonosov MSU
Well I applied to the Russian Language Program at Lomonosov Moscow State University. If everything goes through then I would be staying there for Spring Semester, which is still a pretty long time (from January-June). I am hoping to hear back from them soon. The program is actually cheap compared to classes at the university in my hometown. Fulltime student tuition at MSU or 30 academic hours (I think this is 15~20 quarter credits) + flight costs is about the same cost as non-matriculated tuition at UW Seattle for 15 credits (=1 year of College Russian). Pretty sad (that education in the US is so expensive). I started my new job, but I am still a little worried about costs to cover 6 months being abroad.
Today I studied a couple hours of Russian. I think I am much more comfortable with Prepositional cases, plurals, etc now. I was working on Chapter 4 workbook exercises but didn’t get to finish. Hoping I can get through the whole thing this weekend, so I can focus on Chapter 5 over the week, which is geography- eh I am not looking forward to it. I was looking ahead and Chapters 5,6, and 7 seem pretty difficult. If I can finish Chapter 6 though, then I have made it through 1 quarter of college Russian, studying out of a class! The more I think about it, finishing the entire book by the end of the year might even be an attainable goal- but very ambitious. Maybe I’m crazy then. This means 3 chapters a month:
September: 6, 7, 8
October: 9, 10, 11
November: 12, 13, 14
December: 15, 16, 17
Добро пожаловать!
This blog is meant to be a record of my Russian Language Learning Journey. I have been studying Russian for about a month or two, and know relatively little grammar and vocabulary. However, I have been using the book Tройка, pictured below, and I am near the end of Chapter 4. This is a beginning Russian college-level textbook and I don’t really recommend using it. I am not too fond of a lot of the exercises, dialogues, explanations, or even the layout of the book. I can go into further detail of this textbook later on in another blog post.
I definitely find writing in Russian to be more challenging than reading and speaking, and I am hoping this blog can help motivate me to write more in Russian. That being said, for my first post, I will simply introduce myself. If there are any more advanced Russian language learners feel free to correct me on my choice of words or grammar
Здравствуйте. Меня зовут Рeoн. Я студент русскоязычный. Я учуся говорить по-русски сам. Я знаю немного слова русский. Я живу в Сиэтлe но я американец н филиппинские. Я люблю русский язык!
Troika: A Communicative Approach to Russian Language, Life, and Culture, 2nd Edition / Edition 2 by Marita Nummikoski
моя pусская тетрадь 