After another round with the Rosetta Stone, in which each and every one of my virtual Russian teachers is inexplicably traveling to or coming from or living in Paris, I figure I need to work out the answer to the question “Why *not* French, after all?”
(And by the way, *ROSETTA* – what the heck?? Presumably one who is seeking to learn Russian is going to have some dealings with the country, and would need to learn to decline the feminine noun “Moskva” rather than masculine “Parizh.” Or are you saying that as soon as the aforementioned one sets foot in Moskva she will need to know how to say “Please, get me to Parizh as quickly as possible. Thank you.” – ?)
So far all I have come up with is this:
- French people intimidate me. Case in point:
Here I am getting an autograph from Laurent Brancowitz of Phoenix at ACL Fest 2009. I have absolutely nothing to say to him, but the inside of my head sounds something like this: “I love his shirt! Why am I dressed like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory? Why? If we get a gust of wind up in here I will look EXACTLY like a blueberry. And why does my hair look like I had a wicked Jheri curl that decided to crawl away and die a slow death? Wow. Laurent has the slimmest hips I’ve ever seen on a human. God really didn’t craft men for child-bearing, did He? Oh crap, of everything I’ve been thinking, I said that last thing out loud, didn’t I? How do you say ‘Excuse me, I have Tourette’s’ in French?”
- Non-French people who fancy themselves French-speakers annoy me. You know who you people are.
- I will never be in the first category and I don’t want to end up in the second, so Moskva it is…
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Are you using Rosetta Stone as you learn Russian? What do you think of the program? (Cole and I have been talking about learning Spanish…)
Comment by Summer Huggins 03/06/2010 @ 19:51I am using the Rosetta Stone. I think the program is great for learning the basics of speaking a language if you aren’t too concerned about grammar, and if you don’t have any specific topics you will need to discuss. (ie – If it is just for general conversation or travel, it works well.) I took 3.5 years of Russian in college years ago, so I already know the alphabet and at one point knew a lot about grammar, both of which help a great deal. I definitely would not recommend Rosetta for languages that utilize a different alphabet, but for Spanish, I think it would be a good investment. If you’d ever like to look at the specific topics that are covered over the full 3 courses of a Rosetta Stone program, I’d be happy to send them to you!
Comment by mcermel 04/06/2010 @ 08:33