Здравствуйте! Hello! In Russian

Learning the Russian language is a little challenging, but from what I have heard from other adoptive parents, it is really helpful- especially when you go to court to finalize the adoption and speak in front of the judge. That's nothing compared to how comforting it can be for our new baby when we travel back to the USA where everything is unfamiliar and sounds strange. I don't have any grandiose plans to learn everything about the Russian language, but I think its worthwhile to give it a try and see how far I can get.

As you can see from the letters below- Russia has an entirely different alphabet than ours. It is known as the Cyrillic alphabet.

а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

Interestingly, with my background in having learned a tiny bit of Greek and Hebrew in seminary, I have found a couple letters that are at least a little familiar in appearance or sound. However, this doesn't really make it any easier to learn. It is fascinating though- and fun!

My latest favorite website is called MANGO- its a free language learning website. So if you've ever wanted to learn to speak Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, or Greek, you can try it for free at trymango.com. All you have to do is register your email account and your all set. You will hear the language spoken and see it written. You will also see a pronunciation key, and be able to click on any word to hear it over and over as many times as you need to.

So far I have mastered the first lesson and part of the second. I know how to say "Hello. How are you? I am fine, thanks. And you? Fine. My name is Vladimir. And what is your name? My name is Natasha. It is nice to meet you. Likewise. Goodbye."

The hard part is listening for the subtle nuances of sounds. Russians speak very fast and the words seem to run into each other without much space in between. For now I guess I'll just have to pretend that I am back in Minnesota where its too cold outside to talk slow!