111 bi-weekly 3

[Taylor Johnson]

Over these two weeks, my language partner and I began trying branch out from cartoons and simple TV shows to watching the news. While it is definitely more difficult for me to understand what the news anchors talk about (they talk very quickly), I have found it interesting to watch Ukrainian news. I have a google alert set up so that I get updates on Ukraine (in English) on my email every morning, so that is actually very helpful for me when watching Ukrainian news. I think that having the background knowledge about things that are going on in English helps me put the pieces together better when I watch in Ukrainian. Usually, we watch a few segments and then we talk about it to make sure I understood what was going on. I often have questions, though, because there have been times when the speaker slides between Russian and Ukrainian, and I go from not understanding much to understanding everything. I know that this is something I will have to get used to (as many Ukrainians do speak with a mix of Russian and Ukrainian), but it still throws me off at this point.  I still have to work hard to keep the two languages separate in my mind, so when people mix them together purposefully, it really confuses me.