There are several of
you in Russia who have followed my blog for many years. It amazes me that I am able to write for
people all over the world. When I was a
child it would have been unthinkable. I
am making steady progress with my study of the Russian language. The software I am using is free but very good
although they do ask me quite often if I would like to upgrade and pay for the
privilege! I need to make more progress
before I consider that. The material to
learn is split into small modules. First
you turn cards with a picture and the Russian word which is also spoken and
with the English meaning given. When you
feel you can recognise these you go onto the next step when you see the Russian
word and hear it spoken and you have to say what it means. The card turns and you see if you had the
right answer. If you did you press “yes.”
There is lots of repetition and wrongly answered words are displayed again. The
words you know least appear again and again until you get it right. For me the most difficult step is the next
one where you are given the English word and are asked to write it in Russian;
a keyboard with the Cyrillic letters is supplied. This is very hard at first but amazingly
becomes easier as one progresses. The software is called Byki and I would recommend
it highly. It provides many languages
and I am thinking of brushing up on French, German, Italian, Spanish and
Icelandic all of which I have dabbled in to a larger or smaller extent. I have
a way by which I could write some Russian in my blog in the proper script, but
I’m not yet ready for that.
I have written in previous posts about disasters. In the case of Concorde, decisions by people, plus other factors were directly to blame for the event. In the case of the Penlee disaster it may have been avoided if someone had made a better choice in the time beforehand and as a consequence brave men and the ship's crew and the captain and his family died. 9/11 was certainly the result of wicked men committing a terrorist act, but even in this there was heroism notably by another Cornish man, Rick Rescorla who helped many to safety and left it too late to help himself. In situations like this we see what the human spirit is capable of both good and evil. What of disasters that come on people because of the earth restless movement of tectonic plates. Often people live near volcanoes because the land is rich and fertile and they have the chance of a better life there when the volcano is resting. We cannot blame them for that but sometimes people become complacent...
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