Say what?

This week marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life. After a day of testing yesterday, today was my first official day of Russian training. My brain feels full tonight, but please don’t ask me to say anything.

As you may know, Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet. That means I have to train myself to associate specific sounds with characters that look like, among other things, a backwards, upside-down ‘h’ and a spider. Okay, the spider only has six legs, but seriously, take a look.

The Russian language department is really well-organized, so our 30 weeks of training are broken down into 4 phases. The first one, which actually only lasts for the next 8 weekdays, is the basis for everything to come. So by September 18th I should know the alphabet, be able to read Russian, carry on a basic conversation, and have a basic understanding of grammar concepts. My initial reaction when my instructor told me this today was “right…” But in five hours we covered an insane amount of material. I’m not yet sure how much of it will still be in my brain tomorrow, but I’m hoping for the best.