Earlier this week, I finally finished my Russian paper. I was pretty proud of the fact hat I managed to get 5 pages of coherent Russian written, considering I've only been studying it for three years. Despite that sense of accomplishment, though, I knew that I should probably have a native speaker (or at least someone with more experience in the language) take a look at it before I turned it in. It's possible to make stupid mistakes in English when writing that much, and Word doesn't really have a good spellcheck for Russian, and zero grammar check.
Feeling somewhat confident, I printed my paper out and took it in to dance class for Rita to look over. After class, she took out her glasses, sat down, and immediately said, "Hmmm, this first sentence isn't really how a Russian speaker would say it." Wow, ouch. Can't even get a first sentence right, and it didn't get any better after that. Over the course of the next hour and a half, during which we got thrown out so the teacher could shut the studio down, she proceeded to rip my poor little paper to shreds, most based on "that's not how a Russian speaker would say it."
Now, let me tell you, I absolutely did not mind this. For one, I had no way of knowing most of what she corrected. We have not done extensive reading of modern texts, so a lot of what I wanted to say was stuff I'd never seen a Russian talk or write about. What's more is that now I know. She was nice enough to not only correct me, but explain why it would be said a certain way, so I learned a lot. Sure, it was humbling to see my paper torn apart, but it was built back up much stronger, and I feel better for taking that time to learn how things should be.
Moral of the story: holding on to ego is a great way to insulate yourself from learning. I'm not the best at it, but I'm trying, and I'm incredibly grateful that there are people willing to take the time to teach me the things you can't learn in school.
Feeling somewhat confident, I printed my paper out and took it in to dance class for Rita to look over. After class, she took out her glasses, sat down, and immediately said, "Hmmm, this first sentence isn't really how a Russian speaker would say it." Wow, ouch. Can't even get a first sentence right, and it didn't get any better after that. Over the course of the next hour and a half, during which we got thrown out so the teacher could shut the studio down, she proceeded to rip my poor little paper to shreds, most based on "that's not how a Russian speaker would say it."
Now, let me tell you, I absolutely did not mind this. For one, I had no way of knowing most of what she corrected. We have not done extensive reading of modern texts, so a lot of what I wanted to say was stuff I'd never seen a Russian talk or write about. What's more is that now I know. She was nice enough to not only correct me, but explain why it would be said a certain way, so I learned a lot. Sure, it was humbling to see my paper torn apart, but it was built back up much stronger, and I feel better for taking that time to learn how things should be.
Moral of the story: holding on to ego is a great way to insulate yourself from learning. I'm not the best at it, but I'm trying, and I'm incredibly grateful that there are people willing to take the time to teach me the things you can't learn in school.
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