Fabrício Carraro: Learning Russian in Brazil!
Kris Broholm and guest Fabrício Carraro discuss the unique experience of learning Russian in Brazil. They explore Fabrício's journey into foreign cultures, his personal story of meeting his Russian wife, and the intersection of language learning, cultural immersion, and love.
May 22, 2015 · 48 min
EP 60: Fabrício Carraro: Learning Russian in Brazil!
0:00 / 47:32
Guest
Fabrício Carraro
What You'll Hear
- 1 Discover New "Learner Profiles" Concept
- 2 June Challenges & Polyglot Meetup Announcements
- 3 Meet Fabrício: Engineer, Polyglot, Living in Italy
- 4 Reflections on the Berlin Polyglot Gathering
- 5 Guest's Favorite Language Learning Methods & Tools
- 6 How Learning Russian Led to Love
- 7 Mastering Russian: Cases, Tutors, and Media
- 8 Final Thoughts and Podcast Wrap-up
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
What are 'learner profiles' on the Actual Fluency podcast?- 2m
What are Fabricio Carraro's preferred methods and resources for learning a new language?- 20m
How did Fabricio Carraro begin learning Russian and ultimately meet his wife?- 29m
What challenges did Fabricio Carraro face when learning Russian?- 38m
What is Fabricio Carraro's current Russian fluency level, and how does he maintain it without his wife's help?- 40m
Related Episodes
See all →
Season 2, episode 10, Fabricio Carraro, learner profiles one. This is the actual fluency podcast helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Chris Broholm.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Actual Fluency podcast. To all old listeners, welcome back. It's good to have you back here listening to another episode, and to all new listeners, welcome to the podcast. This is a motivational and inspirational weekly language learning podcast designed to give you that little extra kick when you're trying to learn a language. And I'll feature interviews with prolific language learners, theoretical language learners, um, course makers, book writers, video makers, you know, other podcasters, bloggers, and everything. And it's designed to sort of give you an input from every angle of language learning.
So, today, I'm super excited about introducing a new concept to the podcast. This is called learner profiles. And basically what it is is, during the last 50 or 60 episodes, I've always wanted to talk to people about their language learning methods, habits, tools, techniques, software, you know, any kind of tricks and tips about learning languages and how did they get into it in the first place? And how did you get to 12, 20, 30 languages? And I I have done that on a lot of episodes and I've tried to squeeze it in.
But what I always found was that, let's say I had um, let's say I had Benny Lewis on, and I was talking about his book. Of course, his book does talk about language learning and it does have some parts of his story in it. But the thing is if the episode was called, you know, fluency in three months the book, I couldn't really uh, talk about general language learning his story. Uh, but the idea was that if I had a separate episode, I could have like learner profile Benny Lewis, and then go into depth of just how he did it, how he used to learn and how he learns today.
And in that in that way, I avoid having these like three-hour episodes. And I'm sure some people would enjoy it, but for me, it's all about concentration, and I think ideally, you know, 45 minutes is already pressing most people's concentrations, you know, I want episodes that can give you a quick sort of motivational boost, and I don't want them to be like three-hour rants. And I know like, as I said, some people enjoy that, but anyway, So, this is the first installment, and this is my friend Fabricio from Brazil, and he has a hilarious story in this episode about how he got into first of all learning Russian in Brazil, which is a little bit unusual.
And then how he found his wife, who is from Russia, and a lot of funny stories with uh with uh you can imagine where some of the angles that's gonna be head there. But we talk about learning Russian, we talk about foreign cultures, and of course, we talk about love, you know, what can happen if you're learning a language, learning about a new culture, and you sort of embrace it. So, it's a great episode and I really love it. So, I hope you'll love it too.
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, be sure to send it to me Chris@actualfluency.com. I'd love to read all your emails. I'm really sorry if I sometimes don't get back to you, uh, right away. I, um, do get a few emails and it's not an excuse, but sometimes, you know, things just fly by me. So, if you don't get a response within a week or so, don't, uh, be afraid to send me another email. Thank you.
And, um, just quickly before I open up the, uh, premiere episode of the learner profiles, just wanted to give a few quick announcements, admin stuff. And the first announcement announcement is that June is challenge month. Uh, January this year was also challenge month, but June for me is a huge challenge month. I'll be doing add one challenge, uh, and I'll be doing the iTalkie June challenge. Uh, you can join me in those challenges if you want. I'm learning French. And if you are joining me, be sure to leave a comment in the show notes for this episode. And, uh, yeah, let me know.
So, you can join the add one challenge on actualfluency.com/add1c. Uh, just ADD1C. Or you can join the iTalkie June challenge by going to actualfluency.com/JuneChallenge. The last, uh, second last announcement is that I'll be in Budapest in just about a week from when this episode originally aired. So that's in the end of May. And I'll be going to the Polyglot workshop, so if you're going, be sure to say hi to me and say, hey, Chris, I know you from the podcast, and, uh, you know, so we can get to know each other.
And of course, I'm doing a little actual fluency meetup. So, if you go to Facebook, the Facebook page for actual fluency, just search for that, you can see events, and there's a little event group. So, click going, if you're in Budapest on the Friday before the workshop, that's the day before. We'll just go out for a nice casual drink and talk about languages or practice languages or do anything people really feel like doing. And, um, all the information will be in that sort of event page. So, if you're, if you click this going, you'll get all the updates. I don't know where it'll be yet, but I'll I'll find out soon enough.
And the last thing is I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Duolingo. They just released Norwegian and Ukrainian courses into beta. And, uh, normally I wouldn't do this, but, uh, a good friend of mine, Luke, has been a pivotal force on the Norwegian course. So, I figured I owed him, uh, that as a big fan of of the show to, uh, give him a little shout-out for his hard work is finally paying off and, uh, it's been released. So, go and check out the Norwegian course if you want to learn Norwegian. Of course, as a Dane, I would always suggest you go learn Danish, but on the on the other hand, you know, Norwegian is slightly easier for, uh, non-Scandinavian people to learn. So, maybe that's a good starting point anyway.
And Ukrainian is Ukrainian, of course, just coincidentally also released at the same time, but it's also a very interesting language. And, uh, as a Russian speaker, quote unquote, um, it's also interesting for me to see the the similarities and differences in Ukrainian and Ukrainian and Russian. It's almost like Norwegian and Danish, but perhaps a little bit more extreme, but anyway. So, enough of me ranting and, uh, here's the, uh, first episode, I would call it. It's not the first episode of the podcast, but it's the first episode of the learner profiles. And the my idea was that every other week would be a learner profile episode, and then the other weeks in between would be a theme episode. So something like, uh, how to learn Chinese or Russian or whatever. And, um, I hope you enjoy it and, and as I said, if you have any feedback about the format or anything, Chris@actualfluency.com and I read all my emails. So, thank you so much and, uh, enjoy the learner profiles one with Fabricio Carraro.
All right, Fabricio, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
I'm doing very fine. It's like a very, very sunny afternoon here in Italy. And the weather is great. I'm happy.
Fantastic. The, sounds like the perfect life.
Yeah, it is.
But of course, um, a lot of people might not know who you are. So, could you just give, uh, the people, you know, a short, uh, introduction to how did you end up in Italy in, uh, in May 2015?
Okay, sure. I guess most people don't know who I am, but I'm just a normal guy from Brazil. Uh, I'm actually a computer engineer, working as a programmer. I'm 26 years old, married to a Russian girl, and I love languages.
Right now, I'm in Italy just because my family's Italian, and, uh, I want to get like Italian citizenship and Italian passport to be able to come to Europe maybe in the future with her. And, I don't know, I think it's much easier here in Europe if you want to travel, if you like traveling and learning languages as I do, because in Brazil, Brazil is like a continent itself. And if you're there, it's very expensive and very hard to get other people to talk to, if you're if you're not online, I mean, like in person. And here you can just travel like anywhere here in Europe, so it's much easier and it's it's an idea I have for my future.
Ah, fantastic. And of course, that idea about Europe is something, I mean, I'm I'm European, and I know that a lot of Europeans don't really consider this when they go about their daily business, but the fact that the whole European Union is is open for European citizens, and you don't have to worry about visas or any kind of bureaucratic nonsense, you can just travel around is really huge. And if you are sitting out there listening and and are European, then be, you know, thankful for that because people from, you know, like Brazil and or the United States as well have a lot more hoops to jump through to, uh, to learn languages. So, but that's really cool.
And, uh, one one story I definitely want to talk to you about is, uh, is your wife. But, uh, before we get before we get into that, I just wanted to, uh, get your opinion on, we were just at the polyglot gathering in Berlin recently.
Yes.
And I just wanted to get your opinion. What did you think about the event and did you see any cool talks?
Yes, I think it was the most fantastic experience, like, in language learning since I became began with it because I already knew many of those people online through YouTube or Facebook or, I don't know, Skype. But it was the first time to meet them in real life, like, in person. And you you just see them, you know, like, they're made of meat and bones, you know? Uh, it's so strange, and at the same time, most people there, like, maybe 99.9% of the people, they're so nice, so open-minded, and they're like they're very like-minded, like, you know, these people that they like the same thing as you do, like, languages, and maybe other stuff, but mostly languages for the polyglot gathering.
And for me, it was it was amazing, like, some uh I went to maybe, I don't know, ten talks or 15 talks, something like that. I really like Richard Simcott's talk, uh, Irina Pravets' talk, Olly Richards' talk, but I cannot mention all of those because like for me, the most important thing was just getting together with them and with all those people, getting to know them, getting to talk to them over a beer or just over some freezing water that wasn't that sparkling anymore, you know?
Yeah, it's just the social aspect and.
Yeah, yeah, that was like the greatest thing for me. And also the concert, the Yomu's concert.
Mhm.
It was like one of the most fun nights of my entire life. I'm not that geeky if you if you that sounded so, but it was like, you're there with that many, many nice people that you just met for, I don't know, three days. And it feels like a lifetime, you know, because they like the same things as as you, they dance, they like to drink and it was very, very fun for me.
Yeah, and also because you hang out for something like 16, 18 hours a day, so,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You definitely feel like when the gathering is over, you feel like you spend a lot of time getting to know people and it's definitely fascinating. And I don't know if you felt the same way, but when I got home, I was like, super excited, I was very motivated. And then a few days after, I had like the post-gathering blues.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know where I was like, oh my God, I'm I'm so lonely, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where is everyone? Why can't I go to the bar or the the lobby or something and find polyglots to talk to. And, uh, it really makes you appreciate it. But I'm really happy you had, uh, the same experience as I did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and for me, it was even worse because instead of going home to my parents and my wife, I just came to another country, to Italy, to be alone for two months. So, it was even harder.
Right, I can see. And, and what sort of languages have you been working on in in in the last few years?
Ah,
Too many to count, right? Yeah.
No, like, my last languages for I guess for the past year were German and Japanese, and, uh, a little work on my French and Russian because last December, I went on a 30, 30-day trip with my wife, it was like vacation, but we went to Russia to visit her parents. Then we went to Holland for a week, then she went home and I spent another week in Belgium and one more week in France. So, I had to work a little bit on my Russian to go to Russia, my French to go to Belgium and France, and my Dutch to go to to Holland.
Wow, that's a crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, I was studying Japanese also for like four months, only the language. Then I I quitted it for just because I wanted to study the the characters, you know, the kanji. And, uh, I studied kanji for five months or so. So, now I know like 600 kanji, which is not even half of them.
No, but still a quite good job. I mean, uh,
Yeah, yeah, I'm still working on it.
So, it sounds a little bit like you're, um, are you a dabbler, you know, uh, do you do you get into a lot of languages or do you find that you you pick one and then you really isolate yourself?
Yeah, I'm actually not, that's the thing, you know, because like from the beginning, my my first, like, if you don't count English, that you learn in school and like language schools. My first actual language was Italian, maybe in 2007, I guess. I went to a course, like, an intensive course for a month, and then I had the I was studying computer engineering by then at university, and we have like this language institute, and you could just go there and have lessons. So, I went for maybe, yeah, I have one year and a almost one year and a half of Italian there.
And it was great, like, I really, really improved my Italian by then, and also continued by learning, like, watching movies, uh, talking to people online, Skype, everything. And, but it was only Italian. And then I started learning Russian, and it was only Russian. And then, uh, it was Dutch, I think, and only Dutch.
Oh, okay.
So, I usually just speak one language and go for it for maybe six months or one year, one year and a half. It depends on the language. But since, I don't know, since French, I guess, I'm starting to pick more languages at one time because like I cannot not pick them from the beginning, but like I'm learning Japanese and I'm gonna continue learning, improving my French, you know? Not not just leave it.
Yeah, you don't start completely new ones at the same time, but languages that you have some experience in, you you can do more at the same time.
Yes, yes, exactly.
That's pretty cool. And what sort of methods do you use if you're sitting at home? What what would be your Or actually, let me ask you this way, because I I sometimes do this on the podcast. I ask people, if they have to start a new language tomorrow, let's say Icelandic or something, um, what what would be your sort of ideal resources that you would look for and how much would you study or sort of what what how would your plan look if you want to learn Icelandic?
Wow, okay, so, Icelandic. Usually what I do right now after maybe 10 languages that I've like tried to not that I speak them fluently, but like I dabble on them, you know? I started learning them and learned them for at least six months, I think. Uh, the first thing I try to do is checking if the language has, uh, an audio course like Michel Thomas on it. Because, like, we were just talking, I hate Pimsleur because it's very, very slow for me, but I really, really like Michel Thomas because he has like a a nice pace, nice rhythm, and, uh, the the sentences are usually useful, and the the best thing about it, I think it's just it gives you, uh, an insight of the grammar of the languages of the language without actually teaching teaching you the grammar.
You know, after I tried it for Japanese, I tried it for Dutch. And after like 20 hours of, uh, audio course, after Michel Thomas, I could already see like clearly see in my mind my mind the grammar of Japanese. Not for very complex sentences, of course, but for the basics and at least maybe A1, A2 level, you know? And, uh, that's my first step. I just check if the language has a Michel Thomas course or something similar that's Paul Noble, they have it as well.
Then I try to look for, um, either Assimil because I really like Assimil, or a grammar book. For example, for Russian, from the beginning, I just had a a book called, uh, The New Penguin Russian Course that I absolutely love. It's it's a lot of grammar. Like, for those of you that don't like grammar too much, it's a lot of grammar. But I'm quite fond of it, so for me, it was okay. And I liked the rhythm of it as well. Like, the lessons are structured, it was they were very, very well structured. So, on lesson one, you study, I don't know, greetings. Lesson two, you go like very, very, not very fast, but not very slowly as well, you know?
Perfect.
Yeah, but the downside is that they don't have any audio. So, that's why I try to balance it with Assimil or something like more, uh, focused on dialogues, you know? On the on the on the useful stuff. And then the grammar comes to to get you like a bigger view of the language. But that's usually my first steps. First Michel Thomas, then, uh, Assimil plus grammar book.
Cool. That's a, that's a top tip for, uh, getting into a language then. I guess if you study those three, two or three resources very deliberately, then you could actually end up with quite a decent level in the language, depending on how close it is to your already known languages.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree completely. Like, for example, for French, I didn't do any Michel Thomas because I didn't know it by then, but I did the the almost the whole Assimil course, and after maybe six months, it was like 100 lessons, I guess. I could already have it I could already have like actual conversations only in French. You know, like, I didn't know any every word, but, uh, if I didn't know a word, I just go, uh, how do you say that in French, but for the I could actually have conversations for like 30 minutes, one hour, and that was amazing for me because, oh, wow, after just doing this book, just Assimil.
Just one book, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, but that that was French, like, it's very close to my own language, Portuguese.
Okay, and of course it's very close to English as well, which you also know, so.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, French is a good language, and of course, the advantage of learning French is that you have access to the entire Assimil library because they start in French. They it's a French company, and all their publications start out as French books, and are then translated into, uh, I believe English, and I have a German one here called, uh, Französisch ohne Mühe. So, uh, that's a cool thing, you know, I don't speak French, uh, obviously, I'm learning French, but, uh, you know, if I did speak French, I could order, you know, uh, Portuguese Portuguese without pain or whatever, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that that was my main reason to to learn French actually.
Really?
Yeah.
That's a true polyglot there, you know, you say, you know, can learn, uh, learn all the other languages by just learning this one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's not it's a nice language anyway, and spoken quite a lot.
No, I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really wanted to learn French, like, in general, as a language, but I really wanted to learn other languages as well. And I knew that Assimil had like a huge huge amount of books in French, so I said, wow, now that's focus on French because it's gonna give me like access to many, many others.
Exactly, yeah. You you can then you can use your French and also strengthen your French, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
You know. It's not just learning language X. It's also strengthening what you already know from French.
Yeah, and relating that to the to the conference, we had one night, it was like the book fair. And I actually bought one book that was based on in French for Indonesian.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, I'm not gonna start with it right now, but in the future, I really like like I told you, I really like Assimil. And, uh, yeah, I think I can use that for for learning Indonesian.
Yeah, I picked up the Russian Assimil, the thick book with I guess it's about 100 lessons. And I picked up the French book as well, but, um, for the Russian one, and for me it is just, um, filling out the blanks kind of thing.
It was the the the English-based one or?
Uh, yes, yes, it was.
Okay.
Um, and it's interesting because obviously, you'd normally start with Assimil and then move into the advanced one at some point. But I've just done a year of Russian and into this sort of, I don't know, maybe low B1 on a good day. Very low B1, tiny B1. So, people are like, why do you buy the Russian Assimil, but I think the the way the sentences are structured in Assimil is a really good way to get, like you say, some kind of spoken level. But also, if you've been studying on your own, it's very easy to miss very elementary things. Like, for instance, I I haven't quite maybe if you put a gun to my head, I could say them, but I haven't quite learned the months and the the days of the week yet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just because I haven't really had a use for it, but I'm sure that a book like Assimil would have it in in the first 50 pages or something, and they would use it quite regularly because it's important information, right?
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Before we move on with your story, I just wanted to take a quick moment to hear from our sponsor, Melo Method. Melo Method is the learning revolution since 1995. Now you can make your dream of living your passion for languages real. Do you want a method that really teaches you a language? What if you could have your own school and get success teaching your students perfect lessons, 100% focused on conversation? Even if you have no experience, Melo Method will work where other methods can't. With Melo Method, you will overcome the speaking barrier from lesson one. Jimmy Melo, the Brazilian polyglot, has created the best method to teach any foreign language. It's now available in 11 languages, from English to Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, including Mandarin and Polish. Be a polyglot with Melo Method. Access right now, www.melomethod.com and reach your goals with Melo Method, the best method ever created to teach and learn any language.
So, great. And, um, another topic I really want to talk to you about is, of course, your wife. You know, because, um, when you we were sitting at the dinner table at the Italian restaurant and you told me, or maybe I saw it on your name card or something, so you spoke Russian quite well, actually as well. And, um, you know, people from Brazil don't generally learn Russian, maybe?
Oh.
At least that was my, uh, idea before going. Uh, but, yeah, so you told me the story and I just like to talk about it because I think it's a lot of people out there might be in a similar situation. So, can you tell us, uh, tell me, retell the story for the people, um, how did you get into Russian?
Okay, so, like, the first thing was I was in university, like I told you, and I was learning Italian, but, uh, I was almost done with it, like, I think the course was over, I guess. And I lived in a shared home with five other guys. And one of them liked languages as well. So, he said, he came with me to me with a book, like, a Russian book. He said, hey, man, I know that you like languages as well, so do you wanna do you wanna learn with me? So, it's gonna We can just maybe like, study one hour a day or something, I don't know, but it's gonna be more fun if you do it together. I said, yeah, why not?
So, he gave me the book and I started learning the all the Cyrillic and like, some basic sentences, basic words. But after after some time, I created like a VKontakte account, for those who don't know, it's like a Russian Facebook. And it's exactly like Facebook, but with more illegal stuff on it. So, I just created an account there and joined some some groups, some communities for like, Brazilians learning learning Russians, things like that. But I wasn't really focused focusing on it, but I was learning some things.
And after, I don't know, some months, I was there, uh, I got a message like a random day, I got a message from a girl, Russian girl. He said, hey, uh, I saw that you're learning Russian, and I'm Russian, I'm learning Portuguese here in Russia, in Moscow. And do you wanna practice because I'm going to Brazil in maybe five months. I already have a ticket, but my my Brazilian Portuguese is not very good, so if you wanna practice, we can do like a tandem or something. I said, yeah, why not, like, I'm not very focused focusing on Russian right now because I don't have anyone to talk to, you know?
So, I just started talking to her and after five months, she came to Brazil. We it was amazing, like, we spent a very, very nice time together. And when she went back to Russia, I didn't want her to go back to Russia, she didn't want to go back, but she had to. So, we had like a an online we stayed together, this time in Brazil, we're kind of a couple already. And after she went back to Russia, we were like just talking every day, maybe 10 hours a day or yeah, yeah, yeah. Somedays it was actually 10 hours a day. Maybe in the weekends. And, uh, we're really, really in love.
So, then after after almost a year, I went to Russia. And spend some time there as well, like, met her family, her friends. And after sometimes we decided to get married. And, uh, it was actually very lucky because she was looking for a way to come to Brazil like legally, to be able to live here with me, like either studying or working, didn't matter. So, uh, we went to VKontakte, there was like this also the same Brazilian page that she found me. There was like a job announcement there.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, like, oh, we need some people someone to work in Sao Paulo, uh, that speaks Russian but also speaks Portuguese. And, uh, yeah, yeah, it was for a Russian company. They had like a they had headquarters was in Moscow, but they have like, uh, a small small office in Sao Paulo as well. So, she applied and she got hired, and it was perfect.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah, so, we got married in Moscow. And moved to Brazil and we've been living there for five years, or almost five years, yeah.
Fantastic. It's a wonderful story. It's almost, it's a little bit like a movie, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and, um, and it's I think it's a great story because it really shows what happens when you decide to look beyond your own culture or your own language, your own your own, uh, borders of your country. You know, something really fantastic can come out of it. And it might might not be, uh, you know, a life partner, but it could also just be a great friendship.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Or, uh, you know, any kind of friendship really. But, um, the thing is if you don't expose yourself to that kind of culture, if you don't even want to get out of your own country or even listen about your own out of your own country, it's hard to get to those wonderful, uh, situations.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. If you travel a lot, or if you even if you don't travel, but you want to travel or you just want to meet nice nice people, learning a language opens like so many doors. You can just talk to them in their own languages, or even in English, like, if you don't if your English is your is the first foreign language that you're actually learning, even in English you can talk to people overseas, you know? Just make friends. But it's all for me, it's always better if to talk to them in their languages.
Yeah, I think so too. There's the, uh, Nelson Mandela quote that gets thrown out a lot these days, but, you know, if you speak to a man in the language he understands, it goes to his head, but if it's a language he, if it's his own language, it goes to his heart. So,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's so it's so true and particularly for, you know, I'm from Denmark and everyone speaks English, but there's such a big difference if you speak Danish or English, like, you're just going to socialize way better, people are gonna accept you much easier into their own lives. And, uh, there's just no discussion.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And in Denmark, that's that's possible, like, to just live there without speaking Danish. But in Brazil, you wouldn't.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah. No, you can live there, but, uh, it would be very, very hard, like, to to have Brazilian friends that actually speak like good Portuguese because it's it's maybe the same thing as some European countries like Spain or Italy, you know, that most people, most young people or old, especially old people don't speak any English. And the the young people, they speak some English, but some speak like very, very good English, but some don't speak it at all.
That's very interesting. Yeah, it's And I know that the English learning industry in Brazil is absolutely exploding with people dying to want to to learn it. And I know it's the same for other countries, like in Russia, I also know that English learning is absolutely, you know, it's a huge industry and I I'm sure it's largely untapped to this point. But, uh, it's a definitely a interesting. About Russian.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay. How how did you find, uh, learning Russian?
Wow, for me, like, it was my fourth language, maybe maybe fifth if you count Spanish, but, uh, I only studied Spanish in school, so it doesn't really count. So, like, it was like Portuguese, Spanish. They were like the same language. Then English and Italian, and then it was already Russian. So, it was like my first language with cases, my first language, my first like, if you don't count English, my first like non-Latin language. So, it was very, very crazy at first.
Right. So, how did you overcome those difficulties? Did you was it because of your friend that you had that kind of mutual support or did you not really do much with it until you you met your future wife?
No, no, no, he gave up after, I don't know, two months.
Oh, okay, so, he was not, uh, not persistent.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Russian can do that to you though. I I I sympathize with them, you know?
Yeah, it can, it can. And I would do I think I would do the same if I hadn't met her, you know, but, uh, for me, at the beginning, it was just like I was telling you, like, I had this book and I was just starting learning it with this book. And trying to get some words here and there, some sentences. And after I met her, like, she was like a a big motivation for me at first because I had someone to to to ask questions, you know, and to talk to even.
But we were mostly speaking in Portuguese from the beginning because she was the one coming to Brazil. I didn't have any plans to go to Russia in the near future in the near future. So, it made more sense, you know, and her Portuguese was already at a maybe A2 level. So, and my Russian was like A0, I don't know. It didn't make any sense for me to have a conversation in Russian, an actual conversation.
Right.
But after this, I started having lessons, like, having Russian lessons in the same institute at my university that the one that I had Italian. I went there for Russian lessons as well. And I I took maybe three semesters there and it was amazing because the teacher was very nice. But it was like this is was in between my marriage. So, my first step was just going through this book and with my wife for maybe when I knew I was going to Russia, it was maybe, I don't know, six months of intensive learning, you know, maybe every single day, I just did something.
Maybe I got to the book. If I didn't feel like it, I just watched a movie, listened to some songs, talked to her, asked her questions. I had like a a small notebook that was like, today you're gonna have a lesson about, uh, kitchen. So, what how is refrigerator in Russian.
Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't want to go like just Google this stuff, you know? I I wanted to go to to do something more lively. And with her, it was more fun as well. So, like, today it's about kitchen. How's refrigerator? How's oven? And how is I want to bake a pie. Some like basic sentences related to kitchen, you know? So, that was my beginning, and it was very, very painful, especially because of the cases.
Right.
Yeah, they're
Evil.
Yeah, yeah. At first, I didn't know like what's that what does that even mean, like, why why do I have to learn those cases? And why do they make it so hard, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
It does seem a little extreme at times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, for Russian.
And after six months I'll study by myself. I went to this this institute at my university. And I asked the teacher because, oh, I already know some Russian. So, can I get you like the second, uh, level, like, not the first one because it's gonna be very basic for me. They said, okay, sure, you can come. So, I went straight to the second level, like, the second class kinda. And worked with them for six months, but I noticed that I I already knew more than them as well.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, because like, I was studying a lot in my first six months with my wife. And I they were just like, maybe, it was twice a week, like, two hours twice a week. So, it wasn't a lot.
No.
Yeah. And, uh, and I have a and I had a partner. Most of them didn't have anyone. So, they would just go to the the lesson and just go home and do other things, other other subjects as well, because they were in university after all. And, uh, when I went to Russia, like, my first time, I really, really had to struggle to communicate with her parents because they only spoke Russian.
Right.
Yeah, and it was after maybe one year, that I was really I was really, really learning it. So, it was hard, very hard, but I we could speak, you know? I I spoke very, very basic Russian, I guess. I guess maybe A2 plus, not a not even a B1, I guess. Maybe something more than A2, I guess. But we could have like a nice conversations for more than an hour, you know? Talk about and if I didn't understand something, I had a translator right over there. So, it was fun.
That helps.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess the most fun story was when I was I wanted to propose to my wife, but like we already knew that we were getting married, but her parents already knew it. But I wanted to like make a an official thing, you know, to them, like, I, oh, can I get married to your wife and blah, blah, blah. And, uh, I told I told my wife, oh, okay, I'm gonna speak in Portuguese and you can translate it. She say, no, I'm not gonna propose myself to my parents. So, I had to like propose to her to her parents in Russian. And it went quite well, actually. Like, I didn't have to ask for any any words. You went like very, very slowly and with many mistakes, probably, but, uh, I could get my points.
That's great.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Oh my God, that's hilarious.
Yeah.
I can understand how that would must have been, uh, interesting.
It was but like telling now it's fun, but at the moment it was very, very upsetting.
I can imagine. What have you how have you built it up now? What what level are you at now and what sort of got you there?
I guess I'm a B2, probably. I'm trying to get to C1, but it's hard because I don't know if I told you but my wife doesn't speak to me in Russian at all. She doesn't like to. She she has no patience and, uh, I had an accent and, uh, it's strange to talk to me in Russian because you only speak in Portuguese. We always speak in Portuguese. So, it's not her husband. It's just some random man trying to speak to her in Russian.
I can see. Yeah, you have to get a tutor then, uh,
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what I do. Yeah, yeah.
That's great. That's great.
I try to do like, I actually just had a iTalkie lesson maybe two hours ago in Russian.
Cool. So, what would you say were the defining sort of, what do you know now? I know that, you know, the the levels if you call yourself high A2 before and you're about to B2 now. I know the difference on paper, but what do you what do you feel are the biggest differences from back then to now?
Well, I think I'm right now, I can speak much, much more fluently. Like, I can have a a conversation without many, um, and, um, you know, that's one thing that's very important for the flow of the conversation, either else otherwise, the other person gets bored after maybe 10 minutes or so. Yeah. And, uh, also the cases, now I get them right more often. Maybe not not always, but more often for sure. And the the aspects as well, like, the verb aspects. I know my vocabulary is much, much higher right now, like, much bigger.
And, uh, what I did to what I did to to get to it was a lot of iTalkie lessons, a lot of, uh, Anki decks. I have my own Anki decks, so I try to study it after maybe every day or every other day. And, uh, I don't know, I try to speak to my in-laws, but that's not very often. We talk maybe once a month or so. So, but that's the only I don't get any Russian with my wife. I just get Russian with my in-laws.
Right. Yeah, well, I understand, you know. I can totally understand because at the end of the day, I mean, it's your wife, it's not your language tutor and, yeah, yeah. Of course, you would love a little bit of support once in a while, but, you know.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah, yeah. You definitely understand where she's coming from. And I I always tell people and, uh, they shouldn't assume that anyone is their language teacher, partner or friend or even somebody working in a cafe, you know. You know, if they want to go to straight to business and use a language that's that's fastest and convenient, then, you know, that just respect that. I think is a a good, uh, a good starting point. But, uh, at least you got some motivation out of it because once you do get to C2 or whatever, I guess you'll have no problems.
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah. But I also one thing that I also like is that right now, I can watch like Russian media, like Russian movies or even music, but, uh, mostly movies without worrying too much about the subtitles. Like I I have to use subtitles, otherwise, I won't get everything. But I have almost the same the same thing as I have in maybe English or Italian, that I like I have the subtitles sometimes, but it's I do most of the listening, and I I don't need to really use them. They're just they're they're they're just there, you know?
Backup.
Yeah, yeah, they're backup.
If I need them. Yeah, yeah.
You don't understand. That's that's really cool. And I think that's a good, uh, I mean, that's sort of where I'm aiming for with my Russian because it's a very stress-free level to be at. You can have most conversations and you can put on a movie and understand what's going on. You might not understand every word, but definitely understand what's going on, right? So,
Uh-huh.
But do you use iTalkie as well? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that's basically all I'm doing, uh, every week I have a lesson because I think that first of all, I'm focusing a lot on conversation. So, for that to to practice that, I'd need a conversation. But also because I'm quite lazy, so if I book an hour, I know I'm gonna do it an hour. But, you know, having to do reading or desk time or even vocabulary is quite hard, I find, because I've been, you know, in Memrise, you can like, um, you have to water it for a certain period of time. And I have like 1,500 words or something that I need to review.
Oh.
Yeah, it's really So, I haven't actually done much vocab in the last months or so, but my plan is to once I get a little bit more time, I'm really busy now with moving and everything. But once I get a little bit more time, I'd like to sit down and watch a TV show or a movie or something and just try to transcribe what the people are saying to each other.
Yeah, that's a great thing.
And then if there's a word that I'm missing, try to spell it and then look it at it to an Anki deck or Memrise deck, and just do those words because then I'll be doing words that I definitely didn't know before and I definitely could have used. Whereas, you know, if you do like 10,000 most frequent words, first of all, you might know the first few thousand already, so there's no need to do it in Memrise. Uh-huh. And second of all, who do you need the word for alligator or goldfish? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even just because it's frequent doesn't mean it it relates that much to what you're doing. So, for me, the iTalkie lessons definitely keep things together and get also motivates me because I know that if I'm the same level every week, then the conversations are not gonna develop that much. But if I put in just a little bit of extra work outside the lessons, I can feel it in the next session, definitely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, that's true. And, uh, that's one of the points that I I usually criticize Assimil for. That's they use some very, very useless words. Like, I I was there I was doing actually Assimil Russian just to like try to review some things and, uh, maybe learn some new sentences or some expressions. And they had the word "katafalk" there, which is hearse.
Right. Yeah.
Why would I need that? I don't even know this in Portuguese.
Right, exactly. That's my favorite. When there's a word that you don't even know in your own native language that you're trying to learn. I mean, that's that's the funniest thing ever. But anyway, Fabricio, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, but I can see the time has been flying as per usual when you're having fun. But I want to thank you for coming on and and sharing your story. I I really appreciate it.
Thank you, man. It was very, very nice to talk to you.
Awesome. And I'll see you somewhere in Europe maybe?
Yeah, yeah. I'm in Europe.
Yeah, you're in Europe for the next three months. So, you won't be in Brazil when I'm going there in August then.
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately.
Oh. But you might are you going to New York? Have you decided?
No, probably not because, uh, it's it's very expensive and I I'll be back to Brazil. My wife won't like it.
Right. After Yeah.
After seven months apart, yeah.
Right, yeah. I can understand that. All right, well, I'll hope to see you sometimes in in in Europe. I'll definitely be around. So, so, uh, see you then.
Okay, great, man. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the actual fluency podcast. If you would like to get more out of the podcast, check out the VIP club by going to actualfluency.com/VIP.