Total Dictation: from America to Australia
Residents of 80 countries tested their knowledge of Russian.
The Total Dictation Russian language proficiency test was held across the world on April 13, 2019. Launched in 2004, the project brings together learners of Russian who wish to check their skills. This time, the test was written by more than 236,000 people, up 10,000 from 2018. More than 3,000 venues were open in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia and even Antarctica. Cuba, UAE, Peru and Myanmar joined the dictation for the first time, and Mexico rejoined after a pause of several years. Germany offered the largest number of venues among other foreign countires, followed by China and the United States. In 2019, Tallinn was selected as the Total Dictation capital. The text was read by the author, Russian writer and literary critic Pavel Basinsky. Previously, the dictation was comprised of three parts for different time zones. The fourth part was added this year for participants in North and South America as the region had been increasingly interested in the test. The first three fragments of the text were based on Russian literature pieces such as Alexander Pushkin’s drama Mozart and Salieri, Nikolay Gogol’s poem the Dead Souls and Maxim Gorky’s play the Lower Depths. The fourth part described an episode from Leo Tolstoy’s biography.
In Russia, the dictation was held in more than 700 settlements. Many venues were hosted by prestigious Russian universities. Over 1,000 people wrote the dictation at Far Eastern Federal University. Some 700 people joined the action at Kazan Federal University, including more than 200 international KFU students. The dictation venues at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University and National University of Science and Technology MISIS drew 600- and 200-odd people, respectively.
