Lana had largely enjoyed a fair number of things since becoming an Animalian. It restored her youth and strength, and even improved on it. It was something that would make a good future when the war in Ukraine was over and she could return home, hopefully to find that her sons survived the conflict. But it did come with the obvious fact that few people in Lyre understood her language, and while Ukraine had decent schools and some language courses for those living in the cities, her family had come from the rural areas north of Kyiv. The Chernobyl disaster had made them move, but while a part of her family was killed by the radioactive disaster, but she had survived and moved with her family to a safer spot, and one that was still rather rural.
That smaller rural area had ultimately limited the ability to learn things like English. She learned Russian, as the Soviets had wanted that and even in the post-Soviet era, Ukraine's close relations with Russia had still made understanding Russian to be important. By the time that Lana was in a position to consider further education, her situation was different from her youth. She had a husband and a small farm to run, and a family to raise. It kept her busy to where learning languages wasn't needed, and for years, she'd enjoyed that simple life. They didn't make a lot of money, but they were content, and they had the choice to farm or do anything else they wanted. Finding out she'd had cancer as a result of what happened in Chernobyl had hurt, but by that time, her sons were working in some of the villages nearby and had managed enough success in transporting supplies to the farmers that they could help Lana afford the anti-cancer medicines to put them into remission.
It was only the recent war that changed things. Her sons were drafted to serve in the Ukrainian Army, and the last contact from them was a call on the "smartphone" that said they were being sent somewhere east of Kyiv for training. Her husband was killed when the Russians bombed her farm, and she was ultimately evacuated by neighbors, but all this aggravated her cancer, which came out of remission and provided added pressure. She could have been treated in Poland, but they were already crowded and overtaxed and offered to go to America when their government promised to accept refugees. That enabled her to become the very buff and curvy Mountain Lion Animalian she'd become. She wasn't one of the "Big Cats," as they were all under the Genus Panthera and while the Mountain Lion was of the Genus Puma, but she liked being strong, and figured that once adapted, she would be strong enough to return to defend her homeland and defend her sons.
But, for the moment, since she was in the US and would likely be there for some time, it would require learning English. There were various Ukrainian Americans across their wide country, but they still did business with people who didn't know Ukrainian and that made Lana's lack of knowledge of English troublesome. Thankfully Christopher Spike had been quite helpful in translating and personable, as he'd helped her converse with the Mountain Lion Animalian that started Animalia, with a fellow survivor of Chernobyl, who'd become a Rabbit Animalian, and one of the stars of Animalia Ambassadoria, which she'd liked seeing when her sons came to visit her on the farm, before Russia decided Ukraine belonged to Putin. But now, she had to learn English, or at least enough of it that she wouldn't need Christopher Spike for everything.
Though, a part of her was also pleased to see that Hunni Bunni was willing to learn some of the basics of her birth language, and they often met at the Lyre Public Library to go over material for about an hour or so a day. For a few days after becoming an Animalian, even Jessica came with Hunni Bunni, though by late August, as Lana got out of the car that Christopher Spike had driven them in from the hotel the two of them were staying at, Lana found that Hunni Bunni was alone, and that surprised her. Partially as she liked talking with Jessica a bit, even if it was through her translator.
"Is your friend... ne mozhe pryyednatysya do nas?" Lana asked. She had gotten better at English and had picked a few words and the most basic parts of sentences, but more complicated things often had her drifting back into Ukrainian, and in this case, saying, "unable to join us."
Hunni Bunni awaited the translation, as she had been getting a bit better, but her progress was slower than Lana's and eventually she did answer.
"It is now late August, Mrs. Sierkorsky," Hunni Bunni answered, "she and her friends had to go to college. Jessica, Sarah, Malice, Roger, and Travis go to UNLV, Abby and Samson go to a small Ag school in Oregon. Sophie, Roland, JC, and Pauline go all the way to Texas... to a college in Dallas, I think."
Lana listened to the translation and then responded, trying to practice her best English, "I un... un.. I zrozumity."
"Understand," Christopher Spike corrected, and said to Lana, "when you wish to say, "I understand" in English you would say, "I understand." It is not too hard."
Hunni Bunni watched as Christopher Spike translated for both of them, English to Ukrainian so that Lana could understand Hunni Bunni and Ukrainian to English so that Hunni Bunni could understand Lana. It had worked since Lana's conversion in late July to early August, and Hunni Bunni had also learned a lot. Some of it was simply learning about some of Lana's experiences in addition to learning bits of the Ukrainian language. She could manage a few things, like saying what her name was. In some ways it was like school and came complete with notebooks that Hunni Bunni and Lana both carried.
They quietly made their way into the library and moved into one section in the back that had a few tables set up, where Christopher Spike would help both work through translating words and how the grammar of each language worked. Hunni Bunni waved to the librarian as they passed and noted the fairly quiet atmosphere. With the college students back at their campuses and the WSA students of Lyre and Animalia back at WSA, the library had less activity than it normally did and that gave them some quiet to work through words and sentences. Christopher Spike started with the simplest things, such as identifying one's name and asking where the bathroom was, as well as "do you speak English/Ukrainian" and moved on from there. As they sat down, Christopher Spike went over some review.
"Now, for practice," Christopher Spike began, doing his best to work with ways to instruct both Hunni Bunni and Lana on the two languages, "Hunni Bunni... In UKRAINIAN say, "my name is Hunni Bunni" for me."
Hunni Bunni recognized this from practice and said slowly, "Mene zvaty Khunni Bunni."
Lana smiled. Hunni Bunni's "accent" was more scholarly, like Christopher Spike's, but she also remembered that Hunni Bunni had had things a little rougher. While Lana had been able to put her cancer into remission and thus could have a family as she grew up, Hunni Bunni had her cancer affect her brain and mind, while coming to America had assured better treatment, because the cancer had focused on her brain, a lot of things had been damaged there over the years and the drugs provided likely didn't fully help. Becoming an Animalian cured Hunni Bunni of her cancer but had cost her her memory of her birth language as the Animalia Virus rebuilt everything. Thus, Hunni Bunni was essentially teaching her "native" language as though it were foreign to her. Thus, having something akin to an "American" influence was understandable.
Christopher Spike then looked over to Lana and gave a similar instruction to Lana to have her identify herself in English. Lana swallowed and then gave her answer.
"My name is Lana Sierkorsky," Lana spoke and then tried something new, "I am an Ani... Ani... Tvarynnyy."
"An-ni-mail-le-an," Christopher Spike said slowly to give the phonetic sounds of the word Animalian.
For Lana it was new and interesting. In the videos for Ukraine from Animalia Ambassadoria, there were automatic subtitles, and she could read what was said. Some things were funny. At times it let her pick up on some words that were often repeated, but because Ukrainian was a Slavic language and English was a Germanic language, there were elements to these languages that couldn't be easily taken up just by seeing the subtitles as there was always a question on the order of how a language placed words in a sentence in the language in question. Knowing the words for "they go to the beach" individually wouldn't always work if one language had different rules for grammar and so on.
"Animalian," Lana managed slowly.
"Very good," Christopher Spike said with a smile, "both of you are holding onto things very well, something Horizon says comes along with the conversion."
"It makes us learn things?" Hunni Bunni asked.
"It HELPS you learn things," Christopher Spike answered, "let's keep going."
Hunni Bunni nodded and offered, "Tak. Prodovzhuyemo."
Christopher Spike smiled at Hunni Bunni repeating what he'd said, and Lana smiled at the progress Hunni Bunni was making, as it partially helped encourage her to practice with her English.