My Critical Language Enhancement Award Experience in Russiaby Anna C. Graber, 2008-2009, Russia
When I arrived in St. Petersburg at the end of
August, it had been almost two years since I began
learning Russian. Though I had studied
intensively as an undergraduate and had spent
Summer 2007 studying at a language institute in
St. Petersburg, I needed further language
instruction in order to make the most of my
Fulbright year in Russia. Happily, I
received a Critical Language Enhancement Award
with my Fulbright grant, and was able to arrange
private language tutoring at my host university,
the European University at St. Petersburg.
 | | | Anna
C. Graber, 2008-2009, Russia (right), with her
Russian teacher Marina Nikolaevna
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I have a
fantastic language tutor, Marina Nikolaevna.
For the first two months of my stay in St.
Petersburg, we have met ten hours a week; in
November, we started meeting for five hours a
week, and will continue doing so over a four month
period. Since Marina Nikolaevna and I are
working one-on-one, my language program is
tailored to fit my needs. Every week, we do
some grammar review and work on expanding my
vocabulary. Since I am taking a couple
history courses at my host university, we spent
the first month reading a history book.
Working with Marina Nikolaevna gave me the
opportunity to figure out the vocabulary and style
of modern academic Russian at my own pace.
As was expected, my first couple of weeks were
frustrating. Given all the words I had to
look up in the dictionary, it took me five or ten
minutes just to read a page. But improvement
has been swift thus far, and I’m now very
comfortable doing my course readings. Marina
Nikolaevna was also a valuable resource as I
prepared to present an article in my seminar on
borders of the Russian Empire. I came to her
with all of my questions about proper phrasing,
and we had a couple casual conversations on the
article to help me speak fluently about the
topic.Marina Nikolaevna has been invaluable
to me in preparing for my Fulbright
research. I am interested in the 18th
century expeditions to Siberia made by members of
the Imperial Academy of Sciences. To do my
research, I will need to be able to read materials
published in the mid-18th century and know
specialized vocabulary on ethnography, trade,
settlement, and natural history. And so for
the past month, we have been reading a facsimile
of Stepan Krasheninnikov’s 1755 Description
of the Land of Kamchatka. Marina Nikolaevna
has been especially helpful in explaining
stylistic differences between modern and 18th
century Russian, and in helping me to make sense
of the often convoluted sentence structure.
It is a pleasure to work
with Marina Nikolaevna. She has a gift for
explanation: all of our conversations are in
Russian, but she can explain almost any word, even
an archaic one, so clearly and precisely that it
would not be necessary for her to speak English to
me even if she could. Furthermore, she is a
friend. She brings me fresh apples from her
dacha, and helps me prepare for anything I
encounter while living in Russia: from words
associated with renting a cello, to how to cook
borscht. I am grateful to be learning from
such a brilliant teacher, and I am equally
grateful to the U.S. State Department for funding
my language study. I encourage Fulbright
applicants going to critical language-speaking
countries, especially those who have relatively
little experience in the language of the host
country, to apply for the Critical
Language Enhancement Award. Even after
just a month and a half of language study, my ease
in speaking, reading and writing in Russian is
enabling me to have a fantastically rich
experience.
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