by Clara Giorgis ’21<\/p>\n
Even in this unusual year, the Russian department has been going strong. As the year wraps up, we asked this year\u2019s first-year group to reflect on their favorite moments from 101 and 102 and offer some advice to future students.<\/p>\n
What was your favorite part of your first year learning Russian?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMy favorite part of my first year learning Russian at Dickinson was meeting other students with similar interests. I had spoken the language with my grandparents for years, but formally studying the language with my peers made the experience more meaningful.\u201d \u2013 Peter Guma<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of learning the Russian language itself, my favorite part was being able to learn and comprehend basic uses of all six cases, as it really gave my memory a workout having to remember so many different endings in order to speak grammatically correct. Socially speaking, all of my classmates have been really nice and fun to work with and I am glad to be on the same journey of learning Russian with them.\u201d \u2013 Andrew Cummings<\/p>\n What was the most challenging part?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe part of learning Russian that has been the most challenging for me so far has been getting used to verbs of motion and their numerous prefixes and knowing when and how to use them correctly. Since English doesn\u2019t incorporate this concept, it\u2019s been a bit difficult for me to distinguish the different contexts in which they should be used.\u201d \u2013 Andrew Cummings<\/p>\n \u201cThe more challenging part of taking Russian was learning new vocabulary and grammar. It was a worthwhile endeavor to incorporate new material into my speech and writing.\u201d \u2013 Peter Guma<\/p>\n What aspect of Russian are you most looking forward to studying?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI am looking forward to being able to simply speak Russian without much hesitation, meaning that I don\u2019t spend a lot time scrambling for words and grammar constructions in my head, but rather it becomes something natural. Additionally, I am looking forward to meeting more native Russian speakers with whom I can practice my language skills and maybe even become friends.\u201d \u2013 Andrew Cummings<\/p>\n \u201cI am most looking forward to studying intonation and phonetics as I continue with Russian.\u201d \u2013 Peter Guma<\/p>\n What advice would you give to future 101 students?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI would reassure future 101 students that making mistakes is completely normal when starting out with a language. The same goes for anyone considering studying Russian: just keep trying, and eventually things will start to make sense. Practice is key to getting comfortable with the material.\u201d \u2013 Peter Guma<\/p>\n \u201cTo future 101 students, I would want to applaud them and wish them luck on their decision on choosing to study Russian. They could have easily chosen a language that is considered easier to learn than Russian, but yet they chose Russian which has a quite different alphabet, grammar system, pronunciation, and vocabulary than that of English. They are definitely in for a challenging, yet rewarding and unique language to carry with them! To anyone considering studying Russian, I would want them to know that it\u2019s never too early or late to start learning, as there are many benefits and opportunities that await them.\u201d \u2013 Andrew Cummings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Clara Giorgis ’21 Even in this unusual year, the Russian department has been going strong. As the year wraps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1846,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","first-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1846"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}