UCLA Russian Flagship Program

#BusinessMonday: Learning a new language is an important part of any young person’s education. And, whether starting in kindergarten or 12th grade, every student needs an abundance of practice in all aspects of language learningfrom vocabulary and grammar to listening and speaking. With audio, video, and gamified lessons, the online environment can be an ideal place to learn and practice a second or third language. The following free sites and apps offer a wide variety of language learning resources for students of all ages.

#BusinessMonday: "While I strongly believe that there is no one-size-fits-all, formulaic approach to succeeding at both work and grad school, I’d like to share eight strategies -- which I’ve discovered by trial and error, picked up from other students, or read about in op-ed pieces like this -- that have made my balancing act a bit steadier."

#NewWordWednesday: Сидеть сложа руки This phrase means to sit idly by, with nothing to do. Ex: Однако мы не можем сидеть сложа руки и ждать, пока наши идеи не станут реальностью. = However, we cannot just sit back and wait for our ideas to become reality.

#NewWordWednesday: Дождь льт как из ведра This phrase literally means it’s raining from a bucket. It is similar to the English phrase it’s raining cats and dogs, and it expresses that there is heavy downpour.

#BusinessMonday: Demand is growing for multilingual work talent. Organizations are increasingly seeking employees who can speak more than one language, according to a 2017 report from New American Economy. This is particularly true for companies and industries that provide services requiring high levels of human interaction, such as finance and health care. And yet, foreign-language instruction does not appear to be a top priority in K-12 schools in America. A Pew Research report shows that 91% of students in European schools are learning English, while just 14% of US students are learning Spanish, 2% are learning French and 1% is learning German. What’s the reason for this variance?

#NewWordWednesday: Куй железо, пока горячо This phrase literally means strike the iron while it’s hot. It is similar to the English phrase make hay while the sun shines, and it emphasizes that everything must be done on time. If you don’t take advantage of an opportunity to do something, then it may not be possible to do it later.

#NewWordWednesday: Дружба дружбой, а табачок врозь. Friendship is friendship, but let’s keep our tobacco apart.Understandably, there are some things, like money or tobacco, that you shouldn't get involved in with friends.

#BusinessMonday: Over four centuries, nine out of 10 Native Americans perished from war or disease. Now our people are dying from Covid-19 at extraordinarily high rates across the country. North and South Dakota, home to the Lakota reservations, lead the United States for coronavirus rates per capita. We are losing more than friends and family members; we are losing the language spoken by our elders, the lifeblood of our people and the very essence of who we are.

#NewWordWednesday: Вот где собака зарыта [Vot gdye sobaka zarita] A rather morbid way of saying that you’ve discovered to the root of the problem. For example: А как? Вот где собака зарыта, вот где главный вопрос! = And how? That’s what it’s all about, that’s the important question!

#BusinessMonday: Analysis by Japan's Fugaku supercomputer shows that singing does spew about three times as many potentially coronavirus-laden particles into the air as talking, but Japanese researchers wanted more detail: Does singing in different languages create more potentially infectious droplets and aerosols? The answer, simply, is yes. At least three separate studies here have shown that when it comes to emitting droplets and aerosols, not all languages are equal.

#NewWordWednesday: В шоколаде [v shekalade] This phrase is usually used in the context ‘everything is in chocolate’ or ‘everything will be in chocolate’. As you might have guessed, this means to have a comfortable life without any hardships. For example: У меня вс в шоколаде = Everything is going great.

#BusinessMonday: The chaos of last spring’s mass closures and remote learning experiment left many educators wondering what learning and instruction would look like when the new school year began. Initially, we shared the same worries as our teacher peers. What would be the safest learning platform? Would we be able to shift our in-person instructional practices to an online format? And, if yes, would students even show up? Would students learn? Then the school year got underway and within just a few short weeks in the virtual classroom, we educators were seeing positive outcomes from our new models of teaching. We are now halfway through the year and the excellent results continue.

#NewWordWednesday: Исподволь и ольху согншь You can bend an alder-tree if you do it slowly. An alder tree is a tree which belongs to the birch family. Russians love birch trees, and an alder tree one is a particularly big one. The idea of this is that you can do anything if you have enough time. Even bend a giant tree.

#BusinessMonday: In dire times, it’s natural to question the meaningfulness of your work. When your world is shaken by a massive disruption, your job may seem insignificant and even pointless. On the other hand, crises can also heighten feelings of purpose and connection something we saw in studying the response to 9/11 in New York and to the 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto. As one ICU director who lived through that outbreak told us, I felt something important could happen ...at any minute and that I had to be at work. An ICU nurse recalled: There was a sense that if we don’t lock this down, nobody will. We were the few. A lot of people bonded in unusual ways. Crises lead many people to find deep value in their jobs, develop professionally, and grow personally. Today most of us don’t have frontline roles in the fight against coronavirus, of course. But we all can still discover ways to contribute through our everyday work, by taking these three steps:

#InfoFriday: Gergeti Trinity Church Georgia LOOMING LARGE AMONG GEORGIA’S FOLK culture is Mount Kazbek, one of the highest peaks in the Caucuses, thanks to its intertwining threat to human life with the anguish inflicted on a belovedalbeit capriciousversion of Prometheus. ... According to Georgian folklore, a hero by the name of Amirani stole fire from the hands of the gods as a gift to his fellow mortals. In punishment, the Prometheus-esque figure was chained high atop Mount Kazbek’s perilous slopes. Scholars estimate the nearest spot to his imprisonment is likely that of the current Orthodox hermitage, located inside the Bethlehem (locally: Betlemi) Cave at more than 13,000 feet up the mountain. Despite a titanic mythos, Kazbek’s draw remains more tantalizing to mountaineers than literary and history buffs. The dormant stratovolcano is a mountaineer’s delight with a prominence of 7,720 feet that is relatively easy to access, making Georgia’s third-highest mountain the perfect pairing of accessible and challenging among the legendarily rugged Caucasus range. Along the way, many trekkers are given respite within the walls of a 14th-century Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic church. Located a less-than-two-hour hike straight up the mountainside from the nearest town, the holy refuge known as Gergeti Trinity consists of little more than a cross-cupola church and a separate bell tower. Though briefly abandoned during the Soviet years, the enclave seems frozen in time. In the face of such astounding beauty, Gergeti Trinity’s modest exterior suddenly becomes all the more breathtaking for its simplicity, made all the more so for the benevolence of its residents taking in those sometimes strident folk who seem hellbent on following in the footsteps of castigated heroes they’ve long since cast aside.

#NewWordWednesday: Говорят, что кур доят They say they milk chickens. Don’t believe everything you hear. However, starting a rumour that someone milks chickens would make for some interesting gossip.

#BusinessMonday: Like much of life, daydreams are all in the timing. Often arising at inconvenient moments, they’re seen as spam sent to our brain, clogging it up with unwanted, spare thoughts. Even the word daydream is highly charged, commonly used in a reprimand hurled by an irritated teacher or an impatient spouse. But that perception of frivolity and uselessness is fundamentally misguided, says Dr. Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. If you can choose to daydream, and fully be present with it, it can be wonderful, creative, and active, he says. Now more than ever, of course, we have both timeand the needto daydream. In uncertain conditions such as these, we can benefit immensely from blocking out unwanted or undesirable thoughts with creative riffing.

#InfoFriday: Brest Hero Fortress Memorial Complex, Belarus A memorial complex erected in the city of Brest that stands on the site of the original fortress, Brest Fortress is dedicated to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. The site features conserved parts of the original ruins of the fortress as well as ramparts, and there are also modern art installations including memorial structures that stand on site. The fortress is built in the shape of a star, and there is a central island in the centre on which the main citadel of the fortress sits, that has been naturally carved out by the surrounding Bug River.

#NewWordWednesday: Дураков не сеют, не жнут, сами родятся Fools are not sown nor reaped, they appear by themselves. Possibly my favourite saying, and so cutting. No one makes fools, but they’re everywhere. Imagine how you could insert this into a conversation?

#BusinessMonday: For more than two months, much of the country has been working from home and attending an endless string of virtual meetings on Zoom, Skype or WebEx. During this time, I’ve been sharing with my coaching clients the importance of nonverbal communication. When participating in any virtual meeting, the way you present is important. While we often think it is what we say that carries the most weight in our meetings, it’s more often what we don’t say. Thinking that the majority of your communication is verbal can cause a severe disconnect with the people who are in your meeting.

#InfoFriday: Izmailovo Kremlin -- Moscow, Russia AS THE SYMBOL OF THE Russian state, the Kremlin in Moscow’s Red Square is famed and celebrated. But there is a second, less known Kremlin in the northeast part of the city. Located near the Serebryano-Vinogradny Pond, the Kremlin in the city’s Izmailovo District is an unexpected, fairytale-like cultural wonderland. Kremlin is the Russian word for citadel or fortress, and they are found in many Russian cities. But the Izmailovo ...Kremlin, a wooden complex completed in 2007, was not built for protection as its name suggests. It was established as a cultural center and marketplace loosely modeled after traditional Russian architecture and fairytale depictions of Old Russia. Wander about and you will spot the Romanov emblem of a crowned griffin decorating everything from buildings to fences, as well as a pink statue of Lenin which has caused some mild outrage. The colorful and bustling complex is home to several single-subject museums. One is dedicated to Russian folk art, another to bread, and yet another to vodka. It includes a wooden replica of the summer palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, where visitors can experience a traditional Russian meal. It is also home to the Church of St. Nicholas, named after the patron saint of crafts and trade, which at 151 feet in height is the tallest wooden church in the country.

#NewWordWednesday: Глаза разбегаются [glaza razbigayutsya] This one means ‘eyes scatter’ and is applied when there is a wide choice , and you don’t know what to lay your eyes on first. Anyone who goes shopping to their favourite shoe store during the sales knows that feeling.

#BusinessMonday: Whether you want to supplement your main income or you’re gearing up to start your own side hustle, looking for ways to make some extra cash is not only smart but also easier than you might think. You don’t always have to start off with a long-term business plan in mind although it’s obviously totally fine if you but there are certain things you need to consider before you launch yourself into the freelance world. Here are seven easy-to-follow steps to help you do just that.

#InfoFriday: Golden Gate of Kyiv -- Kyiv, Ukraine IN 1982, THE UKRAINIAN CAPITAL of Kyiv marked the 1,500-year anniversary of its creation, and as part of the widespread celebrations that took place one of the city’s oldest monuments, the medieval Golden Gate, was restored and rebuilt. This proved a controversial decision as there was no accurate idea of what the original gate looked like, and there were calls to demolish the new structure and display the ruins of the original, which dates all the way back to 1037, during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise.

#NewWordWednesday: Два сапога пара [dva sapaga para] This idiom suggests that two people are very similar in their behaviour or have the same characteristics. The English equivalent is ‘cut from the same cloth’.

#BusinessMonday: Graduating from college in 2020 means entering the job market in a cratered economy. The last time this happened was in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. Here are words of wisdom from the people who graduated during those years.