Growing up in the bilingual city of Kyiv in the 1990s, I studied the Ukrainian language like a museum object—intensely, but at a distance, never quite feeling all of its textures or bringing it home.

Many of us have entertained the idea of expanding our horizons. Learning a foreign language is an obvious option. It’s one that I would personally endorse: My individual circumstances were such that, ...

For the last year, I have been watching a bunch of Russian movies on Netflix. I started doing so to make up for my indolence: my Russian language tutor – a saint – would give me piles of exercises to ...