Grace... understanding words

it's so interesting to be a long time language learner. We're always learning new words here... and yeah, I'm an linguistic language nerd. The other day we were talking about the Russian word for Grace. You know, when we hear the word grace in English we have a general feeling and knowledge and understanding of the word.

For Christians, we understand the word grace as a free gift that God has given to us that we could never earn. We have been given His grace, His gift that we will be with Him forever in eternity.

What makes Russian so rockin' awesome for me (in addition to many many other things) is that it informs my life and faith in unexpected ways. The Russian word for grace is благодать. It has two roots: the first is GOOD, the second is GIVE.

Grace = good gift.

How awesome is that?

International women's day

The 8 of march is a very big day in Russia. It's valentine's day and mother's day and sweetest day all wrapped into one day. It's called international women's day.

I woke Amy with breakfast in bed (pancakes) and then we headed off to a cafe that just opened near our apartment. It's interesting that I still don't know very much about tea. I just drink the same teas that I know and like. Today I decided to branch out. It's a nice reminder why I usually drink the same teas.

This tea is called Pu Er. It's Chinese. I think the irony of the pronunciation describes the flavor pretty well... Poo air. It doesn't taste very good at all honestly. But tea is really just a conduit for sugar anyway, so i'll get over the taste of fish in my tea and enjoy this time with Amy.

a study day... verbs of motion

Sometimes, you have to have an intense day of study to really, really get something into your head. I've been struggling with verbs of motion in Russian for 5 years (verbs like: go, fly, walk, carry (by hand or by vehicle), drive, roll, pull, etc).

This may be linguistically challenging, because all verbs in Russian come in pairs (an imperfective (temporary) and perfective (completed). But verbs of motion don't fall into these categories (at least not unless they're prefixed). The instead fall into two different categories (definite (a specific destination, one time) or (indefinite (there and back again or often).

UGH! Did the last paragraph confuse you? Did you stop reading? I couldn't blame you. The very common verbs I use correctly most of the time, because they sound right. But I learned the pairs all backwards and now when they are prefixed I'm a wreck.

God is sovereign and He can make my mind work right. I imagine it's a motion type of dyslexia for poor foreigners.