Russian . . . is hard.

In my spare time while I've waiting to go into the MTC (only 8 days now! Eep!), I've been trying to learn some Russian.

I can now successfully say "My name is Megan," as well as count to twenty and say a handful of I'm-sure-these-will-be-helpful-somehow-words, including "cat," "blue," "apple," "horse," and "sandwich."

But something I'm still trying to get is the alphabet. Because I hear that will be the most helpful thing to know as I enter the MTC.

Can I just tell you that the Russian alphabet is HARD? It's that Cyrillic script. It messes me up. It makes everything look like it's in some funky alien language.

Take, for example, this word:

газета 


It looks like it should be "raseta" or something like that. But it's pronounced "gazeerta." Like gazette. It's the Russian word for newspaper. But it doesn't look like newspaper. It doesn't even look very much like gazette. But it is a cognate. 


And this is my name in Russian: 


Меган


It looks like it should be "Merah." But it's not. It's Megan, I promise. 


Anyway. Russian is going to be hard. It's going to kind of be like learning to read all over again. So good thing I have my Russian Sesame Street to help me learn my alphabet: 




Best part of this video? The girl in overalls who forgets her alphabet when they sing it the second time. Watch her. It is hilarious.

And yes, their Z is at the beginning of their alphabet while their F is toward the end.

And you see these two little marks?

Ъ 


Ь


They look small and innocent, don't they? 


LIES. 


They are ridiculously hard to pronounce and their names are much too long for the 1/16-inch of space they take up. 


The first one is pronounced "tvYOrdi znak" and the second one is pronounced "mYAkee znak." 


Whelp.  


Russian's going to be so fun. 


But really. Where else can you get a language where "I love you" and "I kill you" sound basically the same? (Type it into Google Translate. Do it now.)


From Russia With Love makes so much more sense to me now.