Cases, Cultures, and Coffee
Walking through the doors of the School of Foreign Languages (SOFL) at HSE Moscow, I did not realize I was signing up for a total brain rewiring. I came here for a Master’s in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication, specializing in Intercultural Communication. I thought I was just going to learn how to talk to people; instead, I learned that I have been seeing the world in low-resolution this whole time.
The Culture Shock You Did not See Coming
The “Intercultural” part of my degree has been a massive eye-opener. At HSE, we do not just talk about surface-level stuff like food or holidays. We dig into the “invisible” side of humanity, the way different people perceive time, respect, and even personal space.
It is like being handed a pair of glasses that lets you see the hidden “source code” of human behaviour. I have realized that what I used to think was “common sense” is actually just my own cultural bias. Whether we are debating in a seminar room on campus or grabbing a coffee between classes, I am constantly rethinking how I connect with the world. My horizon has not just broadened; it has been completely redefined and rebuilt.
The German “Boss Fight”
Then, there is the second language requirement for my course; the language options are Spanish, Chinese, Italian, French and German. I chose German.
Let’s be honest: if English is a chill conversation with a friend, German is a high-stakes game of Tetris. It is incredibly logical, yet terrifyingly complex. Just when you think you have mastered a sentence, you realize the verb has moved to the very end of the paragraph, and there are the four cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive which feel like four different ways the language is trying to test your spirit, and you have forgotten which of the four cases to use. Coming from an English-speaking background, I expected some linguistic “cousin” energy. Instead, I found a majestic, highly disciplined architect that demands absolute perfection.
But the struggle is real, and the “linguistic interference” is even realer. My poor German lecturer has had to become the most patient human being in Moscow. We will be deep in a grammar exercise, as we I to remember if a “table” is masculine or feminine, and my brain will just short-circuit. Instead of a crisp, confident German “Ja,” I will blurt out a loud, instinctive Russian “д”, then when I need to say “no” instead of the German “Nein”, out comes a sharp, definitive “нет.” It is as if my brain has decided that all foreign languages live in the exact same messy drawer in my head, and when I am under pressure, it just grabs whichever word is on top. The look of confused pity on my teacher’s face is a core part of our weekly academic experience and almost all of the foreign students in my German class make the same mistake.
The Great Bus Blunder: A Pakistani-Spanish-Russian Remix
Apparently, I am not alone in this language drama. One of my colleagues, a brilliant girl from Pakistan, is navigating her own linguistic labyrinth. Her second foreign language is Spanish, while she is also trying to survive daily life in Moscow with Russian.
She told me a hilarious story about an encounter on a Moscow bus. An elderly lady did something kind for her, and she wanted to say a simple “thank you” but her brain went into a complete panic mode. First, she looked the lady in the eye and blurted out a Spanish “Gracias.” Realizing her mistake, she tried to fix it but her brain jumped to her native tongue, and out came “Shukriya” in Urdu. Panicking even more, she defaulted to English with a “Thank you”, before finally, after what felt like an eternity remembering the Russian “спасибо”. By that time, the poor lady probably thought she was witnessing a one-woman UN summit.
The “Rus-Ger-Lish” Brain Scramble
Living and studying at HSE means your mind is a constant construction site. It is messy, it is exhausting, and it is occasionally embarrassing when you forget your native tongue for a second. My internal monologue has become a chaotic “Rus-Ger-Lish” hybrid.
I will find myself saying “Ich bin müde" (I am tired) to a Russian friend or saying “Ich heiße” (My name is). I have even started thinking in “Denglish” (Deutsch-English). It is a sign of what linguists call “code-switching,” or what we recently learnt in our Translinguistics course as “trans-languaging” but in my head, it feels more like a blender that someone forgot to put the lid on.
But there is a strange beauty in this scramble. It means we are adapting. It means our world is getting bigger than the languages we were born with. At HSE, we are not just learning to translate words; we are learning to translate realities.
Why Staraya Basmannaya is my Second Home
Being here in person, navigating the hallways of SOFL, hearing the mix of French, Chinese, German, and Spanish and experiencing the academic intensity of Moscow, is what makes this journey real. You cannot learn the “vibe” of intercultural communication from a Zoom screen. You have to live it. You have to feel the frustration of a missed case ending and the triumph of a perfectly understood joke in a third language.
HSE is not just a university; it is a pressure cooker for global citizens. We are being forged in the “heat” of Moscow winters and complex grammar rules. Choosing this Master's was easily the best “identity crisis” I have ever had. We are learning that while grammar might be hard and languages might get mixed up, the effort to understand each other, to bridge that gap between “me’ and “you’, is the most important skill we will ever possess.
So, if you see me on campus looking slightly dazed, just know I am probably trying to figure out if I should greet you with “Hello”, “Guten Tag”, or “привет.” Just give me a second my brain is still loading.
Shared by
Lois Ojile
