From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWater, and you know, this is my last Lexicon Valley episode for slate before we move to

Booksmart. And for this last slate show, I want to indulge myself a bit while hopefully

diverting you. It won't surprise a lot of you who've been with me for a while. I want to finally

just do a Valentine to my favorite language on earth, and that is not English. It is Russian.

What gets me so much about this one language that of course I did not grow up with? I have had no

cultural experience with it in terms of living there or something like that. What is it about Russian?

And you know what the real reason is, I could say something about wanting to get to know

the souls of people in Moscow, etc. I could say that it was because I wanted access to the literature,

which is partly true. But you know, the truth is that languages for me to an extent are my sports.

And one of the things I like so much about Russian is that it's like Mount Everest. It's just so

damn hard. And I want to get across to you a little bit of why it is and why that hard would be

something that somebody would enjoy, like you know, messing with a tooth that's about to come out and

enjoying the pain or, you know, like frankly, have you ever tasted your own blood? I think most of us

have. I've ventured that with earwax here and been told that most people haven't. I've tried mine.

But blood, you know, how it tastes? Well, you know, Russian is really hard in a way that gives pleasure.

And it's true that I first became interested in Russian way back in 1988 when I first read

Anna Karenina, because I was curious about what this book Anna Karenina was that people seemed to

be talking about all the time. And I read it in English, but I really enjoyed it. Wasn't any

pivirin volikonsky? It was the Constance Garnet. And I'm sitting there reading it. And these people

became so real to me that I remember I was sitting on a bench in Washington Square. This is spring of

1988. And the person next to me saw that I was reading that book. And she just said to me, oh,

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