A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir by Lev Golinkin

Author:Lev Golinkin [Golinkin, Lev]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385537780
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Now, at Binder’s, I was forced to concede that those lessons may have been useful after all. Over and over, I muttered the alphabet, chewing on the acrid feeling of being wrong. But after a little effort, the ABCs came easily, and I was just starting to think that maybe English and I had gotten off to a bad start when I ran into my nemesis. Th is the most frustrating sound in the world for a Russian. We can’t pronounce it. Most of us accept our fate (“it’s tree o’clock”), but even if we contrive to say th, it still feels unnatural. Now, I will acknowledge that I, as a native Russian speaker, should keep my mouth shut when it comes to judging other tongues. I understand that at some juncture in the development of my language my ancestors decided to save a little money and not buy any vowels. People attempting to learn Russian have compared the experience to trekking through a barren wasteland of consonants without the respite of any vowel in between.*2 Maybe the inability to say th is just well-earned payback, but an appreciation of karma doesn’t make pronouncing the awful sound any easier.

I overheard the adults discuss that a good way to learn th was by practicing “one, two, three.” I dedicated a good week to that, playing with my red wax commandos while diligently reciting my threes:

“One, two, tree,

one, two, tree, one, two, shtree, one, two, thtree,

one, two, tree,

tree, three, thshtree, one, two, tree.”

“Are you going insane?” My head jerked up and I saw Lina leaning on the doorframe. “I didn’t think it’d happen so soon … bravo!” she smirked.

“I’m not going insane, stupid. I’m learning English. I’m practicing the th thingy.”

Lina perched on the corner of the bed, the laughter beginning to squeak out of her. “Learning English, huh? Practicing the th thingy? [Of course, Tamara Alexandrovna’s pet said it perfectly.] How’s that working out for you?”

“Not good. It sounds like I have a lisp. I’ve been working on it for a week, and I still can’t move my tongue right.”

“A week?” asked Lina. “One, two, three—that’s what you’ve been doing for a week?! At that rate … You know what?” She grabbed a napkin. “I’m going to teach you two sentences right now.”

Ai do-unt un-der-stand. Pleez speek slou-er, she scribbled phonetically.

“Get good at saying them: you’ll be using them a lot.”

“Wait, so if someone says something to me, then I should say ‘I don’t understand,’ right?”

“Correct. Then you wait for their response, and then you say, ‘Please speak slower.’ ”

“But what if I still don’t understand them?”

Lina shrugged. “Just go back to the first sentence. Keep alternating. Eventually you’ll get somewhere.”

She ducked out of the room, giggling, and I returned to my troops. “Ai do-unt un-der-stand. Pleez speek slou-er. Ai do-unt un-der-stand. Pleez speek slou-er” softly echoed around the room.

* * *

February 7 finally gave us something to look forward to. It was Gera Zhislin’s birthday, and our two families had a little celebration.

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