The Kazakh language...spoken by the majority of the citizens of Olgii. A large portion of the population speaks Mongolian, many speak Russian, some speak Turkish, and a surprising number of fluent or close to fluent English speakers. The majority of the English speakers are either English teachers, summer tour guides, or both. I have done a pretty good job of locating and befriending a number of Kazakhs who speak English which is good and bad. It's great because I am able to make friends, make some connections, and it's my best bet when trying to get projects started. It's bad because it never really gives me an opportunity to practice my language skills. When I am teaching, I mostly teach English so I only use basic Kazakh phrases if I need to explain certain things and I will occasionally refer to my dictionary which only has a few hundred words and sometimes doesn't have the correct word. I have a tutor who I used to meet with two days a week, she's the second tutor I've had since I arrived in Olgii. Now she has a busier schedule so I'm only going once a week. I learn a lot of vocabulary and basic, simple phrases and I'm attempting to learn the grammar..which maybe the most difficult thing I've ever tried to understand.
My Kazakh tutor, who speaks fluent English (her 4th language after Kazakh, Mongolian, and Russian) has even said that Kazakh grammar is more difficult than English grammar. I have always heard about how English is a rough language for some people to learn because there are so many things that don't make sense and so many words that mean many different things. This is definitely the case with Kazakh. Every time I think I have a grammar concept down, I will put together a sentence only to be told by my tutor that I had a word ending incorrect, haha. It's pretty frustrating and sometimes I just wonder if I'm one of those people who can't learn languages. That being said I am not giving up just yet. :)
I understand Kazakh much better than I do Mongolian and I have a good grasp on basic everyday phrases and words but outside of that, my language is pretty limited. I know how to bargain at the market, I have no problems buying things and I get around pretty easily for the most part. I'm sticking with the tutoring and trying to study more often because I know that a better grasp on the language will make the second year of my time here much easier. One thing that is a little discouraging, and I'm sure some volunteers in the rest of Mongolia can understand this, is that Kazakh (or Mongolian) isn't a language that is really spoken outside of this area. Sure Kazakh is spoken in western Mongolia, Kazakhstan, small parts of Russia and China, but it's definitely not an international or 'in demand' language like Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Mandarin, or English(luckily I've got decent grasp on this one). Because of this I've considered sticking with Kazakh for the rest of this year and then possibly getting a Russian tutor and starting to learn Russian my second year. I know there are a couple other volunteers that chose to get tutoring in Russian instead of Mongolian. The languages are similar and I already understand the cyrillic alphabet. I don't know for sure that I will do this but it's an option I'm thinking about.
Anyways, I got done with my Kazakh lesson a couple hours ago and just thought I'd make a blog post about it.
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