Pronouciation of "Zdravstvyuitye"

[MOLLY V. PEENEY]

"Zdravstvujte!" is a formal Russian greeting.  "Does your ass fit yer?" not only fails to approximate the formal Russian greeting in terms of correct pronunciation and intonation (imperative vs. interrogative), it also introduces an element of ribaldry, to use your term, into, again, a -formal- greeting that I expect my students to use with me in class every day.  I can easily list a number of students in my past who would have unceremoniously cried out "Does your ass fit yer?!" in very plain English, without the least concern for pronouncing the greeting correctly, to me and others, and those students would essentially have been given license to do so if they learned this phrase in the textbook.  I find this rude.

It's unprofessional because I have not spent a good portion of my life learning this language and how to teach it in order to reduce my ability to teach students how to properly pronounce "zdravstvujte," or any for word for that matter, by teaching them a phrase that does not really come close to the correct pronunciation at all.  I use backward building and lots of repetition to teach the pronunciation of "zdravstvujte," and I find it works beautifully.  This is not to say I have anything against mnemonic devices in general, but this one, in my opinion, does not fit our (cl)ass of pedagogy.

Sincerely, Molly Peeney

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