A lot of mystery surrounds the TRKI 4th Certificate, the top exam for Russian as a foreign language within the framework guidelines established by the Russian Ministry of Education (тест по русскому языку как иностранному Четвертый сертификационный уровень (ТРКИ-4)). It's "the ultimate" Russian exam, the equivalent of the C2 level ("Mastery or proficiency") on the scale of … [Read more...]
Intensive study of a language from scratch (“ab initio”) at university. What’s it like?
Are you thinking of going to university or college to study an undergraduate course in a new language from scratch ("ab initio")? Are you soon to start such a course as a freshman and wondering what to expect? I've had a revealing conversation on just this with undergraduate student Harry Ness and the video is at the bottom of this post. Harry started Russian when he arrived … [Read more...]
My Russian TRKI 3rd certificate results: insights for your advanced language exam preparations
And then a great darkness fell across the land. And mighty earthquakes did shake the World. And pestilence and a plague of locusts descended. And there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Or, in other words, despite no small amount of sweat and toil, I've failed my Russian exam. But don't worry, this post isn't all about me wailing and wallowing. It's intended to … [Read more...]
Project Advanced Russian or steppe-ing up for the TRKI 3rd Certificate
What we should be doing when trying to "level up" our foreign language abilities effectively at the advanced level? This is topical again for me after I took an advanced German exam a few months ago, because I'm a month into a three-month project: to improve my Russian and take an advanced Russian exam. If you're interested in levelling up your language … [Read more...]
Why learn Russian? 10 reasons
Why learn Russian? When I started learning Russian as a young graduate student of history, achieving fluency seemed an unattainable dream. Now I've been functionally fluent for years but I'm working hard to try to up my game at the advanced level. My flawed, stumbling efforts leave me ever more humbled before this immense language. Challenging though the process often is, … [Read more...]