Dushanbe: Day 2 (the not happy part of the day)

Uzbek placement test!

I failed it. It was awful. They wanted me to translate sentences like: “Please tell Yorik that I intended to call him last night at 7p.m.; unfortunately, I fell ill and could not reach a phone.” After staring at the paper and feeling the tears gather in the back of my throat, I finally handed my test to the teacher. “Ko’p bilmayman,” I said – I don’t know a lot. She nodded, looked at my test and nodded again.

Just this morning I had a glorious conversation with my host-mom about how much work she had to do before she got her very own ‘kelin’ (daughter-in-law) and, also, how to work the bath. She also showed me how to flush the toilet (unnecessary). I was feeling very competent.

These are sentences that I know how to say:

“It’s hot this morning.”
“What time do you usually eat breakfast?”
“I like this movie.”

Anything with a complex sentence structure is out of my reach. In addition, PLEASE do not ask me to read from a text. I might be able to converse (awkwardly) but I have a really hard time reading from a text. I blame this on my Uzbek professor, the notorious Cirtautas, who would pass out articles or stories, ask us to translate them, but then actually read and translate them herself. Not exactly the perfect way to learn a language.

So, I’ll be in the novice class and that’s alright. Maybe I can actually learn how to buy something or even barter. Stupid UW Uzbek class.