Здравствуйте. меня вобут кэндис. я студентка ия американка.

Hello. My name is Candice. I am a student and I am American.

Yes, that was very short; however, I am still in awe that I am learning a little bit of Russian day after day in college. Last year, I had no idea that I was going to see myself in a tiny classroom of twenty students, learning several aspects of the Russian language and culture from the alphabet, to the numbers, to simple greetings...all in less than three weeks!

Now I am not going to lie: Before my first day, I learned that the Russian language was one of the hardest languages to learn, especially if it is the first time being exposed to a Slavic language. Previously in middle school and high school, I started off with Spanish, a dialect that was similar to English and relatively easy to learn because of the Latin background. This time, I decided to go all out in a completely new background from the other side of the world and from the other side of all I previously learned.

So some of you may be thinking: Why Russian? Why not Chinese, or German, or French, or even sign language? Why not more Spanish?

Well, I have an answer to that, two actually:

1) Over a year ago, I was on YouTube, searching for whispering videos to help me relax. During that process, I learned about ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos, clips that feature whispering, tapping, and other triggers that can cause the head to tingle ("braingasm") and cause yourself to even fall asleep. They sure came in handy, especially during stressful finals weeks!

Anyway, one channel I couldn't get enough of was called GentleWhispering. The woman behind the videos is a charming Russian woman named Maria, and she does her videos in English and Russian. Every time I listened to her Russian videos, I fell in love with the language more and more. The sounds produced especially intrigued me, and I didn't even know what the heck she was saying!

2) The second reason why I wanted to study Russian comes from a personal level. Back when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to meet all kinds of students from countries abroad including Germany, Spain, Russia, etc. Many of them are near and dear to me, but one truly inspired me to learn more about the Russian language and culture: Tasia

She and I had a ball during senior year, getting involved in chorus, acting in theater, and hanging out with friends; nevertheless, I was very intrigued whenever she and I had conversations about the U.S. and Russia in comparison. They brought me new ideas and keys to understanding the world we all live in and to appreciating all that we have.

Before I bring this to a close, I wanted to share with you a few interesting things I learned about the Russian language (in case you were curious *wink).

First, there are several letters of the alphabet that are similar, but some of them are pronounced differently. For example, Russian and English contain the letter "e;" however, instead of pronouncing it as "ee," it is pronounced as "yea." Another example can be the letter "c." Instead of pronouncing it as "see," it is phonetically spoken as "es" like the letter "s."

Second, there are many letters that I never even heard of before. One letter I really like is "ж," pronounced "zhe." Another that interests me is the letter ё, pronounced like the letter "o."

Third, there are some familiar letters that sound nothing like the pronunciation in the English language. For instance, there is "н," but it is spoken as "en." Another letter that was boggling for me was "в." Although it looks like the letter "B," the phonetic sound is "vuh," like in the letter "v."

This is all just the tip of the iceberg, but I love facing new challenges, and I am very pround of all I have accomplished in this class so far. It is by no doubt the hardest class I have, but it is nevertheless extremely exciting! My goal with these classes is to someday visit Russia, expand my cultural awareness, speak the language with other Russians or Russian learners, and maybe even catch up with my friend, Tasia!

Why not?