The Russian language lesson

The Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers trained for more than one year in order to be prepared to take part in the Delta mission to the International Space Station in April 2004.

The following texts are taken from his diary (part 6). If you want to know more, visit the Delta mission website: www.esa.int/delta

In the following text, conjugate the verbs in the present tense:

Russian _____ (to be) the main language during the mission, so I _____ (to have) a Russian lesson every week. My teacher _____ (to be) also a lecturer at the University of Moscow. The lessons _____ (to be given) on a one-to-one basis in a classroom, just like at school. We just _____ (to use) textbooks and a blackboard or whiteboard, on which she _____ (to write) the most important things. For the first quarter of the lesson, I _____ (to have) to talk about my experiences in Russian. That _____ (to be) a very useful exercise. We also _____ (to use) Russian songs or newspaper articles about space travel, which we then _____ (to analyse). I have brought two videotapes from Holland. One _____ (to be) about Amsterdam and the other _____ (to be) about the Netherlands, but the voiceover for both _____ (to be) in Russian. They _____ (to be) intended for Russian tourists in the Netherlands, but they _____ (to be) excellent material for my lessons. In this way, I _____ (to learn) something more about the language, while my teacher _____ (to learn) something about the Netherlands. She really _____ (to enjoy) that.