Unflatteringly, the covid-19 pandemic turned us all into some sort of offenders under house arrest – even though we didn’t break any law. Such being the case, we might find it convenient to look at what famous offenders confined at home have to tell us - forced confinement tips and tricks, as it were...
For example, director Kirill Semyonovich Serebrennikov (Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic, October 2019): “a key figure in Russian culture” [1], the theatre and film director publicly opposed the annexation of Crimea by Russia and was repeatedly critical of the country’s President; hence an embezzlement trial was cleverly staged for him and he was placed under house arrest for two years.
That kind of experience, the Putin regime dissident maintains, has to be faced with serenity, resilience and… a sense of purpose! He recommends setting a long-term goal, choosing a corresponding project, sticking to it and seeing it through to completion. Such as? Reading voluminous books (by Dante, Boccaccio, Cervantes, Tolstoy, etc.), keeping a detailed journal or learning how to play a musical instrument. [2]
One of those top recommendations, made by Serebrennikov but also backed up by Romanian psychology Professor Mircea Miclea, is to learn a foreign language. Besides preventing Alzheimer’s disease, language learning during forced confinement keeps you focused and engaged, fuels your perseverance and self-discipline [3], and, as progress is made, gives you a sense of constant achievement.
So we, at StudyRomanian, would like to assist you in choosing language-learning activities that you can carry out using some of our resources, so that your home isolation time passes agreeably and beneficially. Here are our top 4 suggestions:
1) Do an online course with one of our internationally qualified teachers (or continue online the face-to-face course you were doing). We use a platform which allows for a high degree of lively interaction, and our teachers are as warm and supportive, friendly and helpful, motivating and dedicated as always. Enrollment: romanian@ih.ro.
2) Practice Romanian following the “language pills” we post weekly on our Facebook page. Scroll down, find the little exercises of both vocabulary/everyday phrases and grammar, post your answer in a comment, and you will get the due praise (or correction) in a short while, from one of our teachers.
3) Access useful sets of words/phrases grouped by area (e.g. vegetables, numbers, colours, furniture, polite phrases, household objects, etc.), which especially visual learners can pick up in 10 minutes or so. We post them weekly now on our Facebook page, but you can also find older ones posted monthly or biweekly.
4) Browse the articles posted in the language category on this blog: they provide a substantial collection of useful everyday phrases in Romanian, formulas to make wishes on special occasions (birthdays, Christmas, etc.), funny verbal mannerisms, culturally intriguing idioms and proverbs – all, engaging 3-/4-minute readings.
That being said and shared, may your home isolation be linguistically rewarding, pleasant and productive!
International House Bucharest, through its Romanian Language Department, runs online Romanian courses and cultural integration workshops for foreigners living in Romania or interested in the country’s culture, language or history. For more information, click here. To enrol, contact romanian@ih.ro. And to follow our video series “Your Romanian Class”, subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Notes & sources
[1] <www.rferl.org/a/russian-director-serebrennikov-awarded-france-s-highest-order-of-merit/30217413.html>
Picture credit
© International House Romanian teaching team
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