In Soviet Russia one would enter a mandatory system of education at the age of seven and spend ten years acquiring knowledge of science, history, and languages. This ten-year period was called middle school or middle education. I had my first lesson of English language when I was in fifth grade. I remember my excitement about learning English. I quickly picked up simple sentences: "My name is Yann," "This is a pencil," "What is it? This is a desk." But soon the lessons turned from exciting to disappointing and boring. We did not read poetry or prose written by English or American writers. Instead, students were taught English by reading poems and texts about Bolshevik "heroes," Soviet communist party congresses, and the "superior" Soviet lifestyle. It was not too difficult to understand that the English program was nothing more than another tool to brainwash young minds. Besides, there was no environment in which one could practice English: there were no Western TV shows or music, no English-speaking persons with whom we could socialize. Although I had access to some American and English literature, why study that foreign language? What were my prospects of ever using it? I lived behind the iron curtain. It was no surprise to me that after completing a six-year middle school English program, I could remember only, "The lesson is over. Stand up."

At 14 or 15, I came across Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye translated to Russian. I loved the novel. I could draw many parallels between Holden Caulfield and myself. Like Holden I was "going through a phase," like Holden I wanted to have a girl, and like Holden I despised the phony society I lived in. Although the novel inspired me to read it in English, my enthusiasm wore out quickly. It would take me more than an hour to read one page if I looked up and wrote down all the words I did not know. After I was done deciphering a page worth of text, I had to read it again to understand what it said. If I did not look up the words, the ones that I knew would not combine into anything that could make sense. I stoically got through a third of the novel and gave up.

The day I arrived in this country I realized that I could not understand a word on radio or TV programs or in a street conversation. I took a class of English grammar designed for immigrants in a college of continuing education in Brookline. The teacher was very good, but the age of students in the class varied greatly. It was difficult for older people to memorize words, rules of grammar, and especially to speak. The pace of learning was too slow. I decided to do all the exercises in a grammar textbook on my own. I memorized words by writing them down on ruled cards and going through the decks of cards (a hundred cards in a deck) every evening. Little by little my vocabulary began to increase. I started to understand some words and even short sentences on TV or radio. I read The Catcher in the Rye. A job in a bakery helped me to remember the names of products: bagels, muffins, and scones. My lips and tongue learned to fold in a way so to make sounds customers could recognize. Customers--some of them I still remember. A fat, angry woman approached the counter: "I'll have a plain bagel with margarine." "Sorry, what is it you want on your bagel, ma'am?" I asked, embarrassed. "Get me somebody who can speak English," she ordered. That moment the word "margarine" was burned into my brain.

My acquisition of English continued after I became a graduate student in a school of computer science. I chose to live in a dormitory to acquire something other than technical vocabulary. As a part of the curriculum for students whose second language was English, I took a class on technical writing. But the class was primitive and did not help me at all. I taped lectures and filled the blanks after classes by listening to a recording. I had to communicate with other students, read textbooks as well as professional journals, and write course papers: English became my primary language. It was often frustrating to realize that it took me much longer than a native speaker to write a course paper, or to have to repeat the same sentence several times until people could understand what I was saying, but my overall progress was tremendous. After a year in school, I stopped translating from Russian: I thought in English. Day after day my American life had helped me to learn English, and that life had made my English much richer. I could understand TV, radio, a movie dialogue, or an accidentally overheard conversation. The wealth of the American culture was now within my reach--it was there for me to understand and participate in.

Ten years ago I would not have believed that I could write this essay. My English is still far from what I would like it to be, so here I am, taking a class on fundamentals of grammar--working on acquiring English.

Copyright © 2000 President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved. Comments. Last modified Fri, Apr 29, 2000.