Travel diaries from Ukraine - #012 A day at university / a country of polyglots
Ever felt lost in translation? Picture by @theodora.austria
The Austrian who attended a German course
Dear fellow Steemians, since some of you have shown interest in my connection to Ukraine and in the country itself, I decided to take you all on a journey through time and Europe and publish bits and pieces of the travel diary I kept on my very first journey to L'viv in 2007. I hope you enjoy reading this series as much as I enjoyed spending my first month in L'viv.
Lost in Translation?
After I'd had my final Ukrainian lesson - it's amazing how time flies, isn't it? - I am invited to go to university to attend a German course. The first thing I notice when I enter the institute is that it could do with a bit of renovation and maybe a bit more heating.
The Ukrainian German teacher speaks German fairly well and knows a lot about the differences between Austrian German and German German (something you'll read about more soon in my other series Travelling Around Austria with a Local). However, one thing surprises me: The students seem to translate a lot more than they speak.
To my surprise, I'm not integrated into the lessons as someone to practise speaking with but rather asked to read sentences about the European Union so that - you wouldn't guess - the students can translate them.
So what I'm used to from school, is to talk all the time and actually use the language particularly if you get the chance to talk to a native speaker of that language - which, I think, makes sense. given that most of the time, most of us actually use foreign languages talking to other people...
Different approaches to teaching methods
Just a couple of years later, I participated in German lessons in a Ukrainian primary school (yes, some children in Ukraine learn German as their first foreign language at school starting at the age of six or seven) and the process was similar. I guess teaching methods in Ukraine were just different at that time.
I'm not sure what it's like these days as I haven't been to a Ukrainian school or university for ages. And I'm not a teacher so I won't argue whether the method is good or bad. As a tutor, I do things more interactively - but that's just a different approach.
A country of polyglots
What I do see is that many young Ukrainians have a profound knowledge of German, which is impressive as German is an extremely difficult language, in my humble opinion. What is even more interesting is that most Ukrainians I know are more or less fluent in at four to six languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Polish are the most common languages, which are very often learned through media reception; English is now a compulsory subject - and German, Spanish, and French are also widely taught.
Before anyone asks...
Yes, Ukrainian and Russian are two different languages. They have a few things in common and knowing one makes it easier for you to learn the other. Even their alphabets differ a little bit from each other - although both are cyrillic. Interestingly, Ukrainians use (knowingly or not) a lot of German words, which I presume stem from the time when Galicia (the region around L'viv) used to belong to the Austrian-Hungarian empire. An episode on Ukrainian words I founds quite funny is already planned - so stay tuned!
:) just to remind you that Ukrainian language belongs as English to Germanic group with even more deep routes to Indo-European pralanguage. so no wonder there are a ot of the same roots of the worlds. plus probably you are right the times under Austro-Hungarian Empire couldn't go without consequences. I notice the language of central and west Ukraine is quite different because of all the influence of Polish, Austro-Hungarian rules. Interesting how language is also incryption of history in a way) as for teaching methods of foreign languages there are too far not enough practice as you noticed. most of the people in the end are much better in writing but when it comes to listening comprehensive and talking itself it is a big challenge for many. this is why talking is important indeed!)
Actually, it belongs to the Indo-European languages and within this group to the (Balto-)Slavic languages, which are quite different from Germanic languages (such as Yiddish, the Alemannic languages, German, Luxembourgish, etc.).
Indo-European languages include Urdu, Hindi, Ukrainian, German, English, Irish, Manx Gaelic, the Romance languages, Norwegian, Icelandic, Greek or Nepali. I think we can agree that those languages don't have a lot in common for a layperson who only learns them.
On Wikipedia, there's a quite nicely made overview of all Indo-European languages, if you'd like to delve further into the subject.
What I'm pretty sure about (though I'm not a trained linguist) is that words like кайзервальд or буттерброд, but also a lot of L'viv's dialect words (колежанка, for example) stem from the influence of German-speakers and, therefore, most likely from the times when Galicia was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are probably also a lot of Polish words I'm less aware of because my Polish is unfortunately still awful.
And yes, I absolutely agree that a lot of practice is required to learn a language. Without practice, it's hard to follow conversations - particularly in languages which have a lot of regional varieties such as German. In my opinion, talking (to native speakers) should be made compulsory to ensure students really have a profound knowledge of the language they are (allegedly) studying. Having said that, I think Ukrainians' levels of German is quite high, though I found that very often they will use a lot of fancy words and are less confident when it comes to colloquial German. But I suppose once you speak German at such a high level, picking up the colloquial language should be easy enough :-)
yes that reminds that they said at Uni, because of common origin Indo-European many words have the same rootes like stream, street in English ant striy in Ukrainian they have common sanscrit root stra- as their connection would be found in deep history. This always that I found interesting that language encrypts the history of nations and their movements as definitely any influence reflects in language. Even people's worldview reflects in it by the availiable words. as Mongols legendary did't have word go back - only go forward -ura- and if they needed to go back thaey would just turn around and - ura! :)
I think that's brilliant. Never go back, always look forward - and then: уррраааааа!
"Bitte übersetzen Sie" Reminds me my school days, German lessons - pretty much the same approach, translating articles from die Rote Fahne. No wonder I havent learnt any German : )
Well, at least that's one phrase you remember! :D