Language in life

As I walked into the subway this afternoon I heard a very little boy asking his mom “Из или в?,” which might be translated “From or in?” My first thought was that he was trying to learn Russian grammar just as I was.

Hold that thought. I need to digress. That Russian letter that looks like a Latin B is actually a V. It’s a one-letter word, and it’s not a vowel. This concept is a real stretch for most of us who grew up speaking English. What? “V” is a word? My classmates have a devil of a time pronouncing it. They want to say “vee.” It’s not “vee. “ It’s “v.” Just put your lower lip against your upper teeth and make a little sound. Don’t move anything while you are making that little sound. Good. That’s one way to pronounce it. Depending on context it may sound more like “f” but in neither case is there any need to add an “ee,” however short, at the end of this word.

That’s the most common of the one-consonant words in the Russian language, but there are more. I know of k and s. Perhaps that completes the list, or perhaps I will get another surprise later. I think the language often avoids stringing three consonants together without a vowel, but pretty much any two consonants are compatible together. It's a heck of a task just learning to say hello. “Zdravstvuite. “ Try it. Don’t forget to roll the r. You can drop the v if you like. Isn’t that nice?

OK, back to my little boy and his mom. If my first impression was right, it’s heart warming to know that a little boy who can walk to the subway under his own power is still struggling to know which of several little prepositions to use when you’re trying to identify where something is, where it came from or where it’s going. Subtle changes in the way you construct a sentence may change the necessary preposition. If he’s been speaking Russian all his life and hasn’t mastered it then I’m doing OK. I’m afraid, however, he was just clarifying a point in conversation.