The Troubles of Teaching in Tomsk

Contrary to popular belief, my life in Tomsk is not merely an endless barrel of laughs. I am actually required to do some work. After all, my primary goal for these 6 months is to become as fluent as possible in Russian. The first fortnight was a bit of a shock: limited vocabulary, struggling to string coherent sentences together and a general lack of confidence. However, in the 5 weeks I have spent here thus far, I can feel myself improving. Fluency is a long way off and perhaps an unlikely dream, but I’m ever the optimist, so shall continue to press on.

For those that haven't seen this yet. 

Izzi and I have about 11 hours of classes a week, covering all the normal areas of language learning: reading, writing, listening and speaking. We also study phonetics, or as I prefer to call it “Accent Elimination”. This largely involves the repetition of numerous Russian sounds, being informed that we’re doing it wrong and repeating over and over again. I am delighted to report that we have made significant progress since the first class, but there are still some sounds that I simply cannot say. Sometimes, I genuinely can’t even hear the difference between two sounds. I am determined to perfect it though, both to fool locals into believing I am Russian and to give a faultlessly authentic impression of a Bond villain.

Other aspects of our linguistic development involve watching television shows and films in Russian. I’ve become a fan of Russia’s answer to ‘Scrubs’, an amusing show called ‘Interns’ (Интерны), based upon the same premise, just with more implausible story lines and vodka. I’ve also been reading and watching Harry Potter on the pretext of learning Russian, which is absolutely fabulous. Of course, the lack of the letter ‘H’ in the Russian alphabet means that I’m actually reading about the adventures of Gary Potter and his good friends Ron and Germione. Other cracking Russian translations include Robin Good and Gansel and Gretel.

The river Tom, a few weeks ago...

 The most stressful part of the week has to be teaching English. I have been given a group of elementary level students, with ages ranging from 17-50, and am required to teach them English without any plans or curriculum. The first class was an unqualified disaster. Unqualified because I don’t have the qualifications to teach, despite my students being informed that I already have a degree in teaching… I exhausted all ‘introductory’ phrases about 10 minutes in to the hour and a half long class and the rest is a bit of a blur. I recall writing random vocabulary on the board and a very hairy moment when trying to explain the conditional tense. On a serious note, if anyone has any tips on how to teach the difference between “I was” and “I have been” without wanting to rip their own face off, then please do get in touc The most demoralising part was that six people took it upon themselves to leave during the lesson. At first, they gave excuses, but by the end they scurried away giving no more than a non-committal jerk of the head, as if to say “this really isn’t doing it for me”. I can’t say that I blame them…

This week I have found the time to look into the meaning of my name in Russian, with amusing results. First of all, a marrow is a kabachok (кабачок), which Russians find hilarious. I don’t know if kabachok has a double meaning or not, but either way, it goes down an absolute treat here… But now, let’s move onto some of the nicknames. We already discovered that Masha is a girl’s name, so I can’t really use that one anymore and be taken seriously. Sasha is still going strong, although girls can be called Sasha as well. Nevertheless, I have joined the Russian version of facebook under the guise of Sasha Marrow… However, it is the name ‘Maz’ that has the most amusing translation, and its derivatives provide endless fun:

• Maz (мазь) – ointment or grease.
• Mazat’ (мазать) – to smudge, lubricate or put make-up on. (Don’t want to get those last two confused…)
• Mazat’sya (мазаться) – to soil oneself. 
• Smazka (смазка) – lubricant. 
• Smazchik (смазчик) – oilman. 
• Smazivat’ (смазывать) – to oil. 
• Smazliviy (смазливый) – pretty or cute. (No idea how this one works, but I’ll take it!)

As you can imagine, I have spent a while chuckling to myself. It is reassuring to know that my name is so closely linked to the art of self-defecation. If you’d like to know the literal Russian meaning of your name then contact me directly or pop a comment below.

And finally, for those of you wondering about the weather, it has now started to snow here. It’s not quite settling, but it is threatening. Rather ominously, all the fountains and water features have been switched off, so the authorities must know this is the real thing. What this means is that I’ve had to cave in and start wearing a coat every time I go outside, as opposed to defying the conditions and shivering my way to the shop or university. Perhaps the saddest part is that my 3-week old, fashionable(!) shoes may have to hibernate for the foreseeable future, being replaced with boots. Such is the life of Maz: traveller, fashion guru, ointment…