It’s amazing how few words I remember of my Pandemic Russian. Nyet, of course, and the words for “excuse me” and “thanks” and “hello”. But the word I remember best is pronounced chelovek (человек), or “person”. I find that when I hear Russian on the television (most recently, Tetris and For All Mankind) I always have one ear cocked for chelovek.
Other than that, I can pick out the polite phrases from context clues (that tone when a conversation winds up is universal), but the rest is just a blur.
It’s a shame that I didn’t stick with it. I could have more of a conversation in my high school Latin than I could in Russian. But, I tell myself, I grew some new neurons I can use as backup if I need them.
3 responses to “Russian 2024”
I have developed some memory, and a much larger forgettory…
KC -nice!
The sad part is that I can’t remember if I picked “forgettory” up somewhere or if I came up with it…
(a quick google suggests I probably didn’t come up with it since it is in lots of places, but it’s also the sort of term that is comparatively easy to generate and has probably been independently invented at least a few times. But probably not by me…)