Today I could stay and relax at home for the first time in this week and woke up early, to listen to the 20-minute NHK radio language programs for intermediate-advanced learners, staying tuned for hours.
I was happy to be able to listen to that of Russian which I could not afford to even recording, during the same time slot yesterday, being frustratingly hectic just before going out. I enjoyed the program again as I recorded it on a tape.
(3)最近仕事でロシア語の必要を感じて、ラジオも真剣にきいています。
Recently I realize the necessity of acquiring working level command of Russian, that makes me concentrate on the radio program.
(4)しかし、3年くらい前までは仕事でロシア語が使えるなどとは想像が つきませんでした。
But I had never imagined that I could use the language of our northern neighbor at work, until as late as about three years ago.
I got interested in Russian for the first time in the summer of 1998, when I bought a compiled CD of my favorite music genre and coincidentally heard a song of Origa, a female Russian singer.
I was fascinated by its melody, accompnied with the singer's crystalline voice in exotic Russian.
Back then the "русский язык" was merely a block of sound, withoug any meaning, and the words of the song I saw in the disc jacket looked like extraordinary patterns.
I got more acquainted with about her profile, as "born in 1970, same as I" or "stayed several months in Sapporo for a homestay in 1991, which was really a turning point for her to make a professional singer debut".
I managed to master the letters, but I gradually lost enthusiasm for the language and gave up studying it, partly because the grammer was too complicated for me in those days, and mainly because I did not have particular need to use it.
While I once gave up learning Russian, still Origa's songs were my favorite. I tried to memorize some of them, listening to them repeatedly, picking up letters that correspond to the rhyme, until I became able to sing the whole part of the songs.
I felt something Eurasian or Far-east touch and mood in her songs, rather than such that reminds listeners of Moscow or St.Petersburg; I suppose this is because of her personal background, as born and grown up in Новосибирск (Novo-sibirsk) in Siberia or made her debut as a singer in Sapporo.
Her CD albums have long been kept in my handbag; I used to embrace her world, sometimes of her own "genuine romance", which might be described as "musing over the past memories with her ex-lover under the opaque, ice-veiled sun", or sometimes of arranged Russian folk songs, in which she worships nature of her native country to her content.
(12)しかし、司法試験受験生だった私には、ロシア語は趣味としてしか 考えられませんでした。
Meanwhile, for me at that time, the Russian language was nothing more than a pastime. I could not afford much time for it, as I was a Bar Exam candidate, being preoccupied with preparing for the examination.
Then, after twists and turns (laugh), I determined to become an Administrative Attorney and in August 2001, a couple of months before the license examination, I happedned to turn on the NHK radio, and was surprised to hear one of my beloved singer's song.
As I learned that I can use Russian at work as an Administrative Attorney, especially when dealing with immigration issues, the language became much more familiar to me. Even though the grammar was still demanding, it was not a thing that is beyond my comprehension.
Now, I hear and understand Origa's rhymes as "a language that has meanings" that makes me delighted so much, recalling what it used to be with the songs.
These days I sometimes talk to myself, amusedly, that "Now I can either appreciate the rhyme of her songs that declare love, or give word-by-word grammatical analysis on them."