Life Lesson: Talk as much as possible during your OPI.

This morning I had my oral proficiency interview (OPI) for my Russian class.  At the end of the interview, I was informed that my level was at least Intermediate High, and possibly even at Advanced Low (which indicates a student’s ability to speak easily using paragraphs rather than disjointed sentences).  Last semester, my evaluation was Intermediate Mid.  Naturally, I have learned quite a bit of Russian this semester, but I think that what really made the difference was how I acted during the interview itself.

The basic format of the interview was as follows:
1)  Say your name.
2)  Speak about yourself (this is a very open question)
3)  Answer a few questions pertaining to what you were talking about.
4)  Describe what to do in a given scenario.
5)  If there is time left afterward, more questions.

The format of the interview didn’t really change between semesters.  However, in the interview this semester I made it a point to keep talking until the interviewer told me to stop.  My professor gave the class this advice - it looks better to be talkative in Russian, even if you make mistakes, than to say very little, even if it is nearly perfect Russian.  So when it came to the second task, speaking about myself, I just kept talking.  The discussion went all over the place, and I can’t recall the transitions very well.  I started out talking about my major and my linguistic interests - a very common topic.  The discussion then moved to my summer trip to Kazakhstan, Putin’s economic policy, my plans for the future after graduation, what region of the world I will focus on, etc.

The scenario was that I was driving a friend’s car and I got into an accident.  I said that the car crashed into a truck, and the truck driver was drunk and he drove away (though I called the police and they know who the driver is).  Fortunately everyone was ok, and I said that I would pay for the damage to the car.  When it was expressed that the car was such a nice car that the friend had for 3 years, I said that bad things happen - it’s reality.  I’d like to know how to say “shit happens” in Russian.

After the scenario we talked a little bit more about my plans in Kazakhstan.  At this point it seemed less like an actual OPI interview and more like a casual conversation with the teacher.  That made me feel more at ease, since I was quite nervous at the beginning.

The strange thing is that when I talk for a long time in any foreign language, my mouth feels drier than usual.  This particularly happens during interviews or when I have to give speeches or presentations in front of the class.  Perhaps in the future I should have a water bottle with me when I speak.

Life Lesson: Make sure your language is correct when you enter your password.

So earlier this afternoon I decided that I was going to log on AIM. I open the client, enter my information, and what happens? “Snovymgodom disabled. Incorrect password.” Ok, I probably typed it wrong. I was tired. So I try again, and no luck. At this point I was quite sure that I had somehow gotten hacked. Surprising, since I only started using this operating system recently and I hadn’t been on any particularly “dodgy” sites…

So I proceed to the AIM site and I manage to reset my password for snovymgodom. I had to provide my e-mail address at the time of registration (which was an account on mail.ru that I hardly ever check now), and an answer to a recovery question. But anyway, I got to reset the password.

So I open up AIM, try to log on, and still nothing happens. What? How does my password not work? I just reset it! There must be something wrong with my AIM client.

So I took a breath, and looked around. And then I realized. At the top of the screen it didn’t say USA. It said “Rus”. Yeah, all that time I had been trying to enter my password, I had been entering my password in Russian characters without realizing it.

So my life lesson for today - if you have been trying to enter your password and you think you’ve been hacked, first make sure you’re entering everything in the right language. Or just give yourself a Russian password if you know that you’ll be typing more in Russian than in English.

Analysis of Kazakh Vowels

Like many Turkic languages, the Kazakh phonology is characterized by a system of vowel harmony.  Vowels are classified by two characteristics  - first, whether it is a front or back vowel, and second, whether it is a rounded or unrounded vowel.  So here I will summarize the vowels by creating four categories.

Front unrounded vowels:  ә е і
Front rounded vowels: ө ү
Back unrounded vowels: а ы
Back rounded vowels: о ұ

There are also two vowels, и and у, which are pronounced differently depending on if the word consists of front or back vowels.  И is how the combinations ій and ый are written, which should be pronounced [Ij] and [Mj].  To me, they both sound like [i].  У is similar - the pronunciations are [uw] and [Yw].

I ordinarily feel comfortable with the idea of vowel harmony.  However, the nature of the Kazakh vowels themselves are not clear to me.  I consulted the page on vowels on the Tilashar site, which has audio files.

After listening to the sound samples and asking others who were skilled in phonetics about what they heard, I came to several conclusions.  First, the vowel when said in isolation sounds different than when the vowel is part of a word.

Before hearing and analyzing the sound files, I would have predicted the Kazakh vowels to be more like this.  After all, this is what was written on Kazakh’s Omniglot page.  Let’s call this Phonology A.

/A { E I o u M 2 i y/
<а ә э\е і о ұ ы ө и ү>

But after some discussion, we found that this analysis was closer to how Kazakhs actually speak.  Let’s call this Phonology B.
/A { E I* o o* M 3\* i Y /
<а ә э\е і о ұ ы ө и ү>

First let’s look at the sounds with asterisks.
- і:  This letter was pronounced as [E] in isolation, and [I] everywhere else.
- ұ:  This letter sometimes sounds like [o], sometimes like [u].
- о,ө:  When these letters are at the beginning of a word, a [w] sound precedes the vowel.  Also, ө may also be realized as [}].

I’ll admit that my knowledge of Turkic languages, and Turkic phonology is limited.  However, I can’t help but wonder if the Kazakh phonology is deviant from most Turkic languages in the territories of the former Soviet Union, or if this is the norm?  The Wikipedia article on Kyrgyz gives a phonology much like Phonology A.  I haven’t talked to any native Kyrgyz speakers to confirm or refute this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are deviations in the Kyrgyz vowel system from the “pure” Phonology A.

Another observation that I want to make is that although rounding harmony is supposed to be prevalent in Kazakh, it appears weak when  I listen to certain words.

If you listen to the audio file for the word түйе, “camel”, this definitely sounds like an unrounded [tY"jE], not [tY"j}].  However, according to rounding harmony, it should be pronounced as if it were түйө, since ү is rounded.

However, on the Tilashar audio page, the i in мүмкін sounds like it’s being pronounced as мүмкүн.

What I’ve come to realize is that I probably will not gain a comprehensive understanding of the vowel system until I have spent quite some time in Kazakhstan, hearing native speakers pronouncing the vowels and the words containing them.

Lesson at Embassy of Kazakhstan, Washington DC

On Sunday I attended a small group Kazakh lesson at the Embassy of Kazakhstan.  There were four of us in total - the instructor, me, and a couple (the husband was an American learning Kazakh, and the wife was Kazakh herself).  Apparently very few people had been coming to the past lessons.  The other American was at a disadvantage since he didn’t know Russian, and therefore had to learn the Cyrillic alphabet gradually as we went along (this was his first time at the lessons as well).  There were a few cases where he was mixing up the things he learned in Russian with Kazakh, most notably the Kazakh word for lesson (сабақ) and the Russian word for dog (собака).

We first quickly went through the Kazakh alphabet, with which I was already familiar with for the most part.  There were a few interesting things that I picked up that I hadn’t noticed before, though.  One was the pronunciation of ж, which differs from its Russian equivalent.  That is, in Kazakh, it is pronounced [dZ] initially, such as in the word жігіт, while in other positions, such as in the word қамажай, it is pronounced simply as [Z].  The instructor also noticed that the exact pronunciation of a few letters differs depending on whether it is followed by front or back vowels.  I was aware of this, as in the cases of қа/кә and ға/гә, but there were two other cases that I didn’t know about.  First, the letter д is pronounced as [d] when followed by front vowels, but when followed by back vowels it is similar to the Arabic daad (ض), a pharyngealized [d_?\].  In addition, ш followed by front vowels becomes what sounds to me like an alveolo-palatal fricative (I believe), which is similar to the Russian щ.

When I say Kazakh phrases to others, the overall impression is that my Kazakh accent is pretty good.  I’d say that having a good foundation with Arabic pronunciation definitely helps, since many of the sounds are shared.  I’d say that what I’m having the most trouble with is hearing the difference between a few of the vowels, namely the difference between ө and ү, neither of which have equivalents in English.  I originally thought that they would be pronounced as /2/ and /y/, that is, the equivalents of German ö and ü respectively.  But upon hearing Kazakh words with these letters, it is not the case.

After covering the sounds, the instructor had us write a few sample words on the board to make sure that we have everything down pat.  After that we went over some basic greetings and introductions.

The general Kazakh greeting is сәлеметсізбе, or сәлем for short.

When you introduce yourself, you can say менің атым (and then your name), or you can say мен (your name, plus the 1st person singular suffix мын/мін/бын/бін/пын/пін).  The former translates as “my name is X”, and the latter simply is “I am X”.

So in response to the question сіздің атың кім (what is your name), I can either respond with менің атым Марк or мен Маркпын.  Why am I adding пын here at the end?  There are a set of rules that govern this.  First, my name uses back vowels, so I want мын, бын, or пын.  Then, because my name ends in a voiceless consonant, I know that I will be using пын.  These rules are complicated at first, but eventually they become more natural when your ear is accustomed to the Kazakh language, it seems.  I should also note that the pronoun кім actually means “who” rather than “what”, so сіздің атың кім roughly translates as “Your name is who?”.  I should also add that the word ат, which means “name”, also means “horse”, an important part of Kazakh culture.  In Kazakh there also exists the word есім which means “name”.  This word originally derives from the Arabic word ism, (إسم).

Finally, when you want to say “nice to meet you”, you say танысқаныма қуаныштымын.  Танысу is a Kazakh verb which means “to meet”, and қуаныш means something like “happiness”.  The stress in this phrase is as such:  танысқAныма қуAныштымын.  The vowel ы in these words is barely audible, as in most Kazakh words.  So it really sounds more like “tanskhanma kuanshtmn”.

Since Kazakh has two distinct vowels, а and ә, both of which are usually represented in English with the letter “a”, we went through a brief exercise to distinguish Kazakh words that have the sound.  That is, there are quite a few minimal pairs.  There is the word нан, bread - the same word you use when you go to Indian restaurants.  There also is the word нән, which can mean “big” - though this is used mainly in Western Kazakhstan.  Some other examples:

* ал - take! vs. әл - power
* ар - chest vs. әр - every (compare Turkish her)
* сат - sell! vs. сәт - moment
* сан - number, thigh vs. сән - fashion
* дау - argument vs. дәу - big (used in most of Kazakhstan excluding the West)
* алды - took (past tense) vs. әлді - he is powerful (from әл)

We then proceeded to cover the rather elaborate system of kinship terms used in Kazakhstan.  It is important for us as foreigners to be able to memorize these in order to address people in Kazakhstan.  Addressing people using only their given first name is considered rude.