Group photo with Marco Ehlert and his guitar: voice animation in Yekaterinburg (Photo: Private)
The most important thing when learning a language is not talent, but motivation. If in doubt, you can do it without talent, but not without motivation. And if you’re lucky, you’ll learn German in Russia with a great motivator like Marco Ehlert, at least for an hour and a half. The German from Potsdam is not a trained educator, but rather a computer scientist, but he does offer “German with fun”. Movement, music and emotions are the basic building blocks. Ehlert can’t do any better for German learners – from second graders to adults – in 90 minutes, but it grabs them, inspires them and infects them with a love of the language.
With Barnaul it went loose
How that came about is a long story. It may have started at school, when Ehlert really liked the Russian lessons that were compulsory in the GDR: “I was the exception.” From then on, his interest in Russia was aroused. And when he later studied economics and soon switched to computer science, he also went to the Russian province of Barnaul in Western Siberia for a year. He didn’t know at the time that he would meet many Russian-Germans there who had been deported from the European to the Asian part of the Soviet Union during Soviet times and it didn’t play a big role at first, but it was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
Ehlert learned Russian, immersed himself in Russian life and immersed himself in Russian literature, from Chekhov to Dostoyevsky. He felt so drawn to the country and its people that many short visits followed the academic year. He actually wanted to learn to play Russian rock at a guitar course in Moscow. But the other participants would much rather hear him speak German. And so he resorted to a trick: he translated Russian songs into German. This laid the foundation for his “Poetry Translation” workshop, with which he continues to tour Russia to this day.
From the village to the big city
Together with the playful teaching of the German language, known in the professional world as language animation, Ehlert has completed 157 performances in Russia over the past ten years, reaching 5,000 participants. This also includes language camps organized by the Russian-German International Association of German Culture (IVDK). But it is usually schools to which he is invited and where children learn German as a foreign language. The guitar is always with you. And German songs by Rammstein are also among the classics that shouldn’t be missed.
He rarely goes to the same school or the same city twice, says Ehlert. Because he also wants to see something of Russia. He finances his trips himself and is happy when he gets accommodation on site or is invited to dinner. After one to three weeks he has to go back because his activities are a passion that he has to live out on his vacation. After all, the enthusiast has already gotten to know 50 places in Russia, “from Smolensk to Vladivostok”, from the village to the metropolis of Moscow. The smaller the place, the more intense the experience is and the greater the gratitude shown to it. “As a native German speaker you are a Martian.”
Many events used to take place through the Goethe Institute. But after the developments of the last few years, Ehlert is now on his own. And while many other German-Russian contacts have broken down, he is still traveling in Russia. The interest from schools and teachers is still great, he says. But approval from the authorities is required. And the number of rejections has increased noticeably. But Ehlert is not discouraged: “As long as I’m invited, I’ll keep going.”
Tino Künzel
