Word book

I had some confidence for my linguistic study. If it's in Latin language family, I could guess the meanings of the word and master basic conversation with a couple of week study. Or if it's in "Kanji", Chinese character, I could communicate in written words. And with English, I must be more comfortable in my communication. However I also knew there were many places not enough with those languages. For example in Arabic spoken country, every thing must be in chaos to me.

"So in which group Russian language is categorized to me? Of course, it's in former group" I thought it too easy. As long as I knew the conversion from Cyrillic to Roman alphabet, it's very easy to understand the meaning of Russian word and get start conversation with the people.
So two weeks before I left for Ukraine, I bought a textbook of Russian as usual and got start study for it. However Russian was much more difficult to learn than I had expected. I couldn't find out the meanings with simple conversion from the Cyrillic to Roman. I met absolutely strange word in almost every sentence.

For me "Book" should be written like "Libre""Libro". But what's the "Kneega"? Where did it come from? Is "Station" written as "Stazione" "Gare" or "Terminal" at best? "Vakzal"? Where did it originate? Of course there were some words which has same origin to the Latin. "Magazin" meant "Store" like French. "Douche" meant "Shower" for instance. I could guess what it said with the sign "Hotel" but I could not with the "Gastinitza"
So as the last effort, I made a word book after 25 years. However the most different point from the 25 years ago was a bad memory of mine. My brain certainly got older. I cannot memorize the new words.
As a result, time's up. I had to leave without accomplishing it. Ukrainian language include much more English words than Russian. Even though it's very tough job to get across my idea to the people."E.K.S.P.R.E.S.S" I read the sign board with voice on the street corner. I read it in loud voice unconsciously. People looked me as a strange guy.

At a shopping center in Chernihiv,Northern part of Ukraine, a madam asked me in Russian "Are you Korean?" "No, I'm Japanese" Well, this is it I can insure what I'm talking about in Russian. Then her long story was started. She told me something in intensive tone. "Soviet Communist Party ..... Brezhnev ...." some times I heard the words I knew. Suddenly, she rolled up her sleeve and showed me a bruise on her forearm. I thought the madam might be telling the very long biography. I fully concentrated on her mouth. I stared on the mouth. Half an hour later, I opened my mouth. It's a limit of my concentration. "That's very interesting story. Thanks very much" But to tell the truth, I didn't understand at all. Only thing what I knew from the conversation was the fact she had whiskers around the mouth. I was very sad for myself.

What I learned from it was the lesson "hire a translator if you don't speak the language". I had been tried to solve the problem by myself. However if I could hear the real voice of local people with it, the translate fee must be expenditure worth to pay.