How to learn russian from scratch

Russian Language lessons

Welcome to my free Russian language online course for beginners

How to start learning russian?

How to learn Russian? Where to start? – these are the most frequently asked questions from my students. That’s why I’ve decided to create a free Russian course for beginners, where we will start from scratch.

In this course, you’ll learn:
– How to learn Russian easily and effectively;
– The Russian alphabet and how to read Russian;
– Russian pronunciation exercises;
– Russian grammar made easy;
– How to speak Russian like a native.

What you need to learn Russian:

– Set your goals. Think about what your main reason for learning Russian is. Maybe you are a student in some Slavic studies department? Maybe you are in love with a Russian person? Maybe you are an intrepid adventurer who wants to travel to Russia? From the very beginning you should understand WHY you’ve decided to learn this language. It will help you when something difficult appears on your way (and believe me, there will be a lot of tricky things in learning Russian).

– Set your Russian learning schedule. How much time should you dedicate to studying? Of course as much as possible! But even 5 minutes per day is better than nothing. We are all busy, and it’s so difficult to find time for foreign language learning. But try to make learning Russian a part of your daily routine: listen to podcasts, keep a diary, read interesting stories… ENJOY learning Russian!

– Prepare a nice “language learning kit“: notebooks, pocket journals, beautiful pens in different colours… Anything that will give you additional inspiration to learn Russian. By the way, check out my Real Russian Club Shop.

Learn Russian Online for Beginners: Your #1 Resource Guide

Making your own tomato sauce is easy.

Marcella Hazan’s famous recipe calls for only four ingredients: tomatoes, butter, onion, salt.

But many people still buy jarred sauce. Maybe because it’s slightly easier.

Or because no one has ever told them, “Hey, just throw some butter and tomatoes in a pot! Seriously! You can’t screw this up!”

Sometimes, a bit of straightforward encouragement is all you need.

When it comes to learning Russian online, especially if you’re a beginner, the smallest obstacles can seem like a reason to just give up.

You might balk at the idea of learning to type in Russian. Or you might wonder what reference materials or texts you should have on hand to support your online learning.

This is sort of like fussing over what ingredients to put in your spaghetti sauce. “How much oregano and olive oil do I add? When do I add it?” You just want someone to tell you what to do. Or better yet, to tell you that all the fuss isn’t necessary.

This post is the beginner Russian version of a super simple, obviously good tomato sauce recipe that you can’t screw up.

Of course, learning Russian as a beginner isn’t really as easy as following a short recipe. You still have to make decisions on your own and carry them out. But we’re here to help with both of those things.

Once you get started, you can add your own variations to your study routine as needed.

But for now, you don’t really need anything except the beginner-friendly, online Russian learning resources that are easily accessible below.

Just like when you’re hungry now, you don’t really need oregano.

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Tips for Learning Russian Online as a Beginner

Before we get into the resources, here are a few things you can do to make learning Russian online easier on yourself.

You should also have a few other reference materials bookmarked, like forums where you can ask native speakers questions and sites where you can get insight into language usage. We’ll go over all of this below.

Wikihow has instructions for setting up Russian typing on your computer, and here are some resources for typing practice.

Ready to learn Russian from scratch? Let’s dive in!

Learn Russian Online for Beginners: Your #1 Resource Guide

Russian Beginner Resources for Regular Online Learning

As a beginner, you’ll want to do a bit of thinking about what you want your main learning resource(s) to be. There are various factors to consider, but the major one is your learning inclinations. Do you need structure? Hate structure? Do you lack the motivation to slog through a more traditional course, no matter how engaging?

As long as you’re honest about your feelings and preferences, it should be fairly obvious which courses are best for you.

Learn Russian from RT

This is a Russian learning resource from the RT network, which is funded by the Russian government and free to you. As you can see from the home page, there are options for learning letters and sounds if you’re an absolute beginner.

If you can already read Cyrillic, you can jump right into the lessons, of which there are 100. These lessons include cultural information, sample dialogues and audio—everything you need to learn the language as a newbie.

Lessons are typically based around grammatical subjects, so the site has a similar flow to a textbook, but with more interactivity and engaging features. If you feel like you can stick to a course daily for at least a few months, using this one will help you build a strong foundation of Russian knowledge.

Tip: You need to enable Flash to use this course.

Russian Language Learning from Real Russian Club

Looking for something a bit more personal? Would you rather learn directly from a real teacher? Daria takes you through this course with a series of friendly whiteboard videos, accompanying notes and homework.

Russian Language Learning is also designed for complete beginners but incorporates a bit more hand-holding than the Learn Russian lessons. It’s an especially good option for learners who enjoy creating their own notes, as it encourages you to make up your own examples and gives you everything you need to do so. It currently includes 10 video lessons of about an hour each.

Like the Learn Russian course, this one is free. However, it’s not as extensive as the RT course or some of the others on this list. This is more of a starter course for beginners who need a push. Once you complete this one, you can more confidently tackle one of the others.

FluentU Russian

FluentU gives you a combination of independent learning and structure while incorporating the ability to learn Russian from native-language video.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Click here to check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

Try FluentU for FREE!

When you use FluentU, you’ll be able to easily navigate your learning while catering to your personal interests. You’ll have access to a huge database of Russian-language media that’s been sorted by level and into categories for your convenience, paired with interactive bilingual captions and split into vocab and dialogue tabs with audio. Customized quizzes allow you to “learn” a video by working to memorize the key words in it.

As a beginner, you can start with the videos in the Beginner 1 or Beginner 2 section, depending on your current level. You’ll be able to select from simple videos like the Russian-language version of the Baby Shark Song, a cute dog food commercial or a Soviet-era cartoon. If you learn one new video every day, or even a couple of times a week, and keep up with reviews, you’ll be well on your way to intermediate Russian before you know it!

FluentU keeps track of all your learning for you, so you never need to worry about when it’s time to review. You also don’t need to spend time learning any material you already know. It gives you a complete learning system right up through the advanced levels that you don’t have to work to maintain yourself.

Plus, you can try it out for free and access it through the website, the app or both.

Super Easy Russian from Easy Languages

Brought to you by the popular Easy Languages YouTube channel, this playlist lets you dive right into learning complete sentences, even as a total beginner. The first video takes you around a house, learning simple phrases to describe common actions like picking up a book, putting on headphones, watering plants and even petting a cat!

All the sentences introduced aren’t only physically demonstrated by Anya, the host, but also captioned in Russian, Romanized Russian and English. The rest of the videos in the list follow a similar format while taking you through other typical settings and scenarios, such as a park, a kitchen and a forest.

Super Easy Russian won’t teach you grammar as actively as some of the other courses on this list, so this may be a good resource to practice with while you use a different course for structure. What’s great about it, though, is that you can dip in and out for listening practice as you like. It’s a fun, free, low-stress way to hear simple spoken Russian.

Complete Russian Language course for Beginners A1 from Siaso Academy on Udemy

This is another video lecture course designed by a native Russian speaker. Like all the other courses on this list, this one is appropriate for complete beginners but also promises to help you with speaking confidence, which is something that can be hard to come by if you don’t focus on it specifically. Unlike the other courses, this one also offers a certificate of completion.

The course includes 45 video lectures that add up to a total of 4.5 hours, with accompanying PDF files. It may be best for those for whom making a commitment to Russian is important. By making a monetary investment in a course that has a clear beginning and end, you may feel more obligated to stick to your studies than if you were casually studying with a YouTube playlist.

50Languages Russian

Like Super Easy Russian, this is a vocab-based course that puts emphasis on sentences rather than grammar, so it may be useful to combine it with a more structured course. On the other hand, it does have some decent structure itself, so if you’re more of a hands-on learner who likes to discover a language rather than having it explained to you, you might consider using this as your main learning tool.

What you get are 100 lessons that can be reshuffled into games and quizzes or simply played through with audio files.

This course is totally free and is available as an app. There’s really no downside to trying it out.

Duolingo Russian

Duolingo is all about getting to know a language. It’s not the most practical course by far, but it’s one of the most popular and enjoyable.

If you’re struggling to get started with learning Russian, or know that you’ll suffer from a lack of motivation, Duolingo can be great for keeping you on your toes. It uses sentence-based quizzes that get you playing with the building blocks of the language through listening to, reading and recreating it.

Duolingo won’t get you used to authentic language or take you past the intermediate level, but it’s one of the easiest courses to stick with. It combines well with courses that do offer access to authentic language, like FluentU or Easy Languages.

Also like FluentU and 50Languages, Duolingo comes in app form.

Handy Online Tools and Reference Materials for Russian Beginners

So now we’ve gone through some courses that you can use for your main online learning method, but what else do you need? Here are some resources to have on hand and keep coming back to.

Which ones you’ll use regularly will depend on your personal needs, but you’ll want to bookmark at least a couple of these.

MasterRussian.com

This site is a great general reference to have on hand for learning the basics of the Russian language. It covers grammar, vocab and culture topics, and also links out to other resources like blogs, online libraries, newspapers and magazines.

As most of the questions you have as a beginner will likely be pretty basic, this is a good site to visit if you want to try to find answers to those questions yourself.

RT Grammar Tables

Part of what can make Russian seem difficult is just the sheer amount of information you have to memorize. It’s important not to get discouraged early on and as a beginner, having easy access to an organized version of that information can be a godsend.

This part of the RT Learn Russian site is actually a bit more extensive than the name “Grammar tables” lets on: It has everything from lists of numbers, to countries and nationalities conjugated for gender and number, to case explanations. It’s sort of like a series of back doors to the essentials of the RT lessons—here, you can just get the info you came for and go.

Linguee

Linguee is a dictionary and so much more. By looking up a word in Russian or English with the other language selected, you can find side-by-side comparisons of real-life Russian and English sentences.

For example, if you type in a Russian word, you’ll get a definition and then examples of how that word is used on real Russian-language websites (and also how the same site has been translated into English, or vice versa).

It can be such a deflating experience to look up a word in a dictionary and find every usage except the one you’re looking for. Linguee can make this experience much less common.

Reverso

Of course, sometimes you don’t need such an advanced breakdown of one word, but just a solid definition and some examples.

Reverso is a good site to use as a simple, everyday dictionary. You can search for words in either Russian or English, and find definitions from the Collins dictionary, along with a few examples to help you get the gist of usage.

WordReference Russian Forum

WordReference is another dependable resource for simple lookups, but it has the added cool feature of a fairly active Russian-language forum.

Part of what makes the forum so effective for communication is its rules and moderation. It’s important to follow the rules yourself for best results and continued access. As long as you do follow the rules, this is an excellent place to get friendly, helpful answers to your nagging Russian language questions.

Russian.typeit.org

Okay, so back to our discussion of keyboards. Look, it’s easy enough to set up a keyboard on your computer, but it does take a while to learn how to type using a new alphabet. And unless you’re planning to switch all your internet activities over to Russian, it’s sometimes just not convenient to be tapping back and forth all the time.

Whenever you need to generate some Russian text—whether it’s to insert in a field for your Russian lessons, for using Russian social media or just for practicing your Russian writing—without switching your own keyboard to Russian, this online Russian keyboard is a great resource to have bookmarked.

It also makes it possible for you to put off typing in Cyrillic for a little longer if you feel that’s just too much right now.

Cooljugator

The name doesn’t lie! You’ll feel very cool studying your Russian if you have this tool on hand, albeit in a thoroughly geeky way. Conjugations and declensions are generally some of the biggest pains in language learning, and cases in Russian can seem like a gigantic hassle—but the right resources can make all the difference.

Check out how awesomely the Cooljugator allows you to instantly break down Russian nouns into their case- and number-appropriate forms and you might start getting a little giddy at the idea of learning how to instantly break them down in your own mind.

In the meantime, the Cooljugator is there for you as a source of endless support. If you don’t have a particular word in mind, you can explore declensions through the list of common Russian nouns.

In addition to its noun declinator, Cooljugator offers a Cool Russian Verb Conjugator and a Cool Russian Adjectives Declinator.

With the above resources, learning Russian online is foolproof. Even for beginners.

Some of the best recipes have simple ingredients.

And if you use the right ingredients, even if you don’t get the proportions quite right, the end result isn’t going to be bad.

In fact, it’s probably going to be quite delectable.

Elisabeth Cook is a freelance writer who just recently learned how to make her own tomato sauce and is enjoying talking about it knowingly and with a hint of condescension, as if she’s been doing it for years. She blogs about books at Lit All Over.

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Three Steps You Must Take Learning Russian From Scratch

So you have finally made up your mind to start learning Russian. Absolutely from scratch. Would you like to be fluent in less than half a year and have lots of friends among the native speakers? Here are three easy tips for you which will make these daring goals achievable.

1. Master basic phonetics.

There are three basic things you need to know about the Russian phonetics at the very beginning and these are the stress, the soft and hard consonants and the sound “ы”. It will take you less than an hour to become aware of these aspects so please take your time and look into the matter before starting to learn any vocabulary or grammar.

Once you have an idea about the pronunciation basics you will feel comfortable with the language, find it much less difficult to understand native speakers and be more relaxed during a conversation.

If you would like to know more about this issue, please, visit my blog “Say it in Russian or Как это будет по-русски” at: http://thewayitgoesinrussian.blogspot.ru/2016/11/hithere-this-post-is-ab.

2. Learn phrases instead of words and don’t cram the information from charts in the books.

Imagine you need to learn a new word like, for example, печéнье (cookie) and then you have to learn the paradigm with the cases: печéнье (Nom), печéнья (Gen), печéнье (Acc), печéнью (Dat), печéньем (Instr), печéнье (Prep).

Ok, and now imagine that you are actually talking to somebody and you need to say “We had tea with cookies” or Мы пи́ли чай с печéньем. Will you really have time to figure out in a split second before actually uttering it that your need the Instrumental case after the preposition with and that the Instrumental case for печéнье is печéньем?! Not to mention that you might be needing time to remember the word печéнье itself.

Of course, you need to know the rule, but in order to speak fluently you need those phrases to come out automatically. So wouldn’t it be easier if you focused on learning phrases with identical patterns instead?

Once you have learned that you need the Instrumental case after the preposition с (with) try to make up, practise and remember as many phrases with this structure as you can.

Next time when you are speaking about tea with cookies it will just come out naturally. You won’t probably even realize it was the Instrumental case!

3. Find a language partner and start practising ASAP.

Seriously, you can do it right after a couple of hours of studying. Not even days! There are plenty of opportunities to find a professional teacher or a language partner in the Internet and practice with a native speaker. Like http://pen4pals.com/, for example 🙂 Just learn some basic phrases, think of what you may want to tell your partner and ask him / her about and make a call via skype.

Communication is exciting and emotional. It provides the minor stress necessary for the major improvement of perception and memory. You will never forget the word or a phrase once you were in desperate need of it in real conversation. Moreover you will see how many things you can actually say and understand with quite limited vocabulary. And of course, talking to a positive and friendly person provokes the production of endorphins which also may improve the efficiency of the learning process:-)

When I said you could try talking to a native speaker in a couple of hours after opening your Russian student’s book for the first time I wasn’t joking. You don’t want to learn to swim on the shore. Books and tutorials are good but they provide abstract language, not the real one. You will learn real Russian only in the real conversation with a real person. Don’t wait for weeks. Just call your pal or teacher and see what will happen!

And of course while following the above mentioned tips, don’t forget to learn the alphabet. That also might be of some importance:-)

Thank you so much for reading my post!

Good luck to you with your Russian! Hope you are learning it with pleasure and enjoy every moment of practising!

PS: I would really love to see your comments either on this site or in my blog.

What aspects of Russian do you find particularly difficult? I would really like to devote my next post to your problem and help you improve you Russian!

Dear friends,
I would really like to help you improve your Russian!
I am a professional teacher and the blog project I have recently launched was virtually inspired by my students.
Please, visit my blog “Say it in Russian or Как это будет по-русски” at thewayitgoesinrussian.blogspot.com (the blog is in English) and leave your feedback there.
Every two weeks I will choose the most active participant of the discussion and give him or her a free professional lesson via skype!
If you are interested in professional lessons, feel free to contact me on my vk page: https://vk.com/speak_russian_say_it_in_russian or Skype: daria.eng.rus.tutor
Best wishes to you and CU soon!

Author: Daria Rusan

How to Teach Yourself Russian in 8 Simple Steps

Some people are born with an independent streak.

But when it comes to finding the right language learning skills, you might find yourself in need of a little help to know where to start.

There are a lot of options out there, that’s for sure! Where do you even begin?

If you’re trying to teach yourself Russian, read on to see how to get started in eight straightforward steps.

Contents

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Why Teach Yourself Russian?

Russian is a very useful language. It is considered an “area of need” or “critical language” by the US government, so learning to speak it can open up job opportunities.

It can be hard to find formal Russian courses in some regions. This means that, for some people, if you want to learn Russian, learning by yourself is your only real option.

Even if you want to take a formal course down the road, learning basic Russian on your own can help prepare you for success in formal courses. This independent learning might simply make future courses easier for you, or you might be able to skip some coursework altogether.

Learning Russian opens up a lot of cultural options. You can visit Russia, read classic Russian literature, enjoy Russian movies, watch Russian TV shows or listen to Russian music.

How to Teach Yourself Russian in 8 Simple Steps

1. Learn the Cyrillic alphabet

The Russian language employs the Cyrillic alphabet. At first glance, it may look intimidating. However, it is actually quite easy to learn.

The Cyrillic alphabet shares several letters with the Latin alphabet that the English language uses. Additionally, many letters that are not the same between the alphabets still look similar. Because of this, the Cyrillic alphabet is relatively easy for English speakers to learn.

Why learn the Cyrillic alphabet:

How to learn the Cyrillic alphabet:

The University of Chicago offers a great lesson on the Cyrillic alphabet.

2. Learn a few basic nouns and adjectives

The next step in the learning process is to learn some nouns and adjectives. This will help you describe and identify things.

Why learn nouns and adjectives:

How to learn nouns and adjectives:

Master Russian offers helpful lessons on gender of nouns and adjectives.

There are also helpful YouTube videos like “Learn 20 Russian words at once” and others from RU-LAND Virtual Russian Language Club that will help teach you common Russian words.

To focus more on cognates, you might want to check out the Speak Russian list of Russian-English cognates.

3. Learn present tense verb conjugations

Russian only has one present tense, so conjugating is often simpler than in other languages. Even though present tense is not the simplest type of conjugation, it is the most widely used, so it is important to learn this before other conjugations.

Why learn present tense verb conjugations:

How to learn present tense verb conjugations:

IE Languages offers a Russian present tense verb tutorial to teach you the basics.

Antonia Romaker — English and Russian Online offers a useful YouTube video to help you learn present tense.

4. Put together simple sentences

Finally, the step you’ve been waiting for.

Putting together simple sentences is one of the most exciting things an early-stage language learner can do. You can finally start to communicate in Russian. Plus, putting together simple sentences is very useful.

Why put together simple sentences:

How to put together simple sentences:

5. Learn to pluralize words

In the Russian language, whenever a noun is plural, the adjective must be plural too. Practicing pluralizing both nouns and adjectives together is an important way to ensure your nouns and adjectives always agree.

Why learn to pluralize words:

How to learn to pluralize words:

Russian for Everyone offers a guide to basic plural nouns.

The Fun Russian YouTube video on basic plural nouns gives an excellent, multimedia introduction to the topic.

RussianLessons.Net offers a terrifically thorough guide to everything you need to know about adjectives. Just focus on plurals for now.

6. Build your verb vocabulary

Now that you are able to put together basic sentences, you will need more verbs in order to more accurately convey your ideas.

Why build your verb vocabulary:

How to build your verb vocabulary:

Master Russian offers a list of the 500 most used Russian verbs.

FluentU uses videos made by Russian native speakers to teach you verbs (and other vocabulary words) in context, and offers tools to boost your retention of what you watch.

CoolJugator offers a list of common Russian verbs complete with conjugations and usage examples.

7. Learn past and future verb conjugations

Good news! Basic past and future tense verb conjugations are surprisingly simple. For many learners, they are actually easier than the present tense. Be sure to send a thank you note to the creators of the Russian language for this one.

Why learn past and future verb conjugations:

How to learn past and future verb conjugations:

IE Languages offers a guide to past tense verbs and future tense verbs.

Fun Russian offers a YouTube video to teach you past tense verbs.

Russian Plus has a helpful video on future tense verbs.

8. Study the case system

If you’ve studied German or Latin, perhaps you are already familiar with case systems. If not, they might come as a rude awakening.

Basically, in the Russian case system, the ending of a word might change depending on the role it plays in a sentence.

The case system adds a lot of meaning to sentences without adding actual words, so it is highly efficient, but it can be confusing for new learners.

Why study the case system:

How to study the case system:

Antonia Romaker — English and Russian Online offers a helpful YouTube video on the case system for nouns and when to use each case.

Alpha Dictionary offers a guide to the case system for nouns.

The Russian Lessons guide to adjectives that we discussed above in regards to learning plurals has your back with a helpful guide to the case system for adjectives.

These eight steps will get you through the basics. To be fluent in Russian, you will obviously have a lot more work to do. As you grow, you will need more vocabulary and practice. Here are some helpful additional resources.

Vocabulary:

Exercises:

Additional resources for guided learning

While the above can help you get started, it’s also worth looking into flexible courses that you can use to learn independently with guidance. Here are a few to consider:

The road to fluency is long and sometimes bumpy, but with these steps, you will be well on your way.

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Learn Russian

“Babbel is one of the stalwarts of the online language-learning sphere.”

“Babbel exceeds expectations, delivering high-quality, self-paced courses.”

If you have always wanted to learn Russian, you’re nowhere near alone; tens of thousands of people study the language every day around the world. And it’s no wonder! Russian is a language that captures a rich culture and history. The language can take you around the world, from Russia to Eastern Europe and Central Asia and even to the United States.

But you might have a lot of questions about why you should learn Russian or what it takes to get started — or why it’s even worthwhile at all. The good news is you can rest assured that learning the Russian language is an effort worth undertaking. With the right tools and technology to guide you in your journey, you’ll see your efforts pay off in so many ways.

Why Learn Russian?

Learning any new tongue is a challenge that can open up your mind to new perspectives and help you connect with all types of people across boundaries of land and language. When it comes to learning Russian, these reasons are especially true.

To start, if you know the Russian language, you open yourself up to a whole world of Russian speakers that spans continental borders. There are roughly 153 million people on Earth who speak Russian as a first language, and millions outside of that who speak it to some degree, making it the eighth most spoken language worldwide. And Russian is the official language of 4 countries!

You’ll obviously find Russian all over Russia, but did you know that there are whole populations of Russian speakers in places like Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Mongolia, and even China and the United States? And that’s just a few. Most of the countries in the former Soviet Bloc still have a heavy presence of Russian speakers. Russian is the most popular spoken language in Europe, and the most widespread language in all of Eurasia. And were you aware that Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and the second most widely used language on the Internet?

You might want to learn Russian for its links to other world languages. Russian, a Slavic language, is closely related to all of the other languages in the same family, like Polish, Ukrainian and Czech, among more than a dozen more? If you ever want to learn the other Slavic languages, there’s no doubt that if you learn Russian, you’ll have a learning advantage right from the start!

Benefits Of Learning Russian

Picking up a new skill can help you express your creativity, stimulate your mind, and discover new sides of yourself along the way. Learning a new language like Russian is no exception! Here are just a few of the many ways you can make a positive impact on your life if you learn Russian.

Learn Russian Basics: Russian Lesson For Beginners

Learning The Cyrillic Alphabet, Russian Pronunciation And Russian Accents

For many Russian learners, one of the most daunting barriers to getting started is often the fact that Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. On the surface, Cyrillic looks a lot different from the Latin alphabet used by many major world languages like English, German, Spanish and French, to name just a few. It can seem intimidating to have to start from scratch learning a new spelling system.

But the good news is that learning how to read and write with the Cyrillic alphabet isn’t actually too difficult. Some language experts say that you only need two days to learn the Cyrillic alphabet!

Luckily, there are only 33 letters to learn, and several will already be familiar to you. Cyrillic is a blend of Greek, Latin, and Old Slavic symbols, so you’ll be able to recognize some of the letters — like A, K, M, O and T — right off the bat. But beware of symbols like B and H that actually sound different from what you’d expect in English (B makes a “v” sound, and H makes a “n” sound, for example). And then there are letters like Й, Ы, Я and Ж you might not even have seen before, so you’ll have to learn them for the first time.

When it comes to speaking Russian, you’ll want to sound like a native speaker by mastering Russian pronunciation. Learning to pronounce words in Russian means mastering the elusive rolled “r” sound that doesn’t exist in English. It also means learning about the difference between strong and weak consonants and between stressed and unstressed vowels, all of which will factor into play in your Russian pronunciation learning journey.

Don’t worry if you can’t master the Cyrillic alphabet, a typical Russian accent or the trickiest of Russian pronunciations right away; it takes time and practice! The best way to remember these rules is just to practice over and over, especially by reading texts out loud. Watching Russian TV and movies or listening to Russian-language podcasts, radio and film can certainly help you master Russian pronunciation and sound like a native Russian speaker.

Russian Vocabulary

Learning Russian vocabulary isn’t as hard as you might think. It takes time and practice, you’ll find there are a lot of Russian words and phrases that are connected with English expressions you already know.

You’ll be happy to learn that there are quite a few cognates between Russian and English — words in Russian whose meaning you’ll likely be able to figure out pretty easily because they stem from the same root word. When you read the Cyrillic and sound out the Russian words компью́тер (“computer”), па́спорт (“passport”), атом (“atom”) or дире́ктор (“director), for example, you’ll realize that though some of these words look different in Cyrillic, they actually sound very similar to their English equivalents.

When it comes to unfamiliar Russian vocabulary words you will need to learn, there’s no wrong way to master them. Some people prefer to use flashcards to learn vocabulary. Others find success with the sticky note method, asking a friend to quiz them on a list of words or something else entirely. It’s up to you!

Basics Of Russian Grammar

Russian Verbs And Russian Verb Conjugations

Verbs are key elements of any Russian sentence. Whenever you want to express that someone or something does some action or is something else, you need a Russian verb.

To be used in actual Russian sentences, these verbs in their infinitive forms need to be conjugated, which is a technical way of saying that each Russian verb requires a special ending depending on the subject of the verb (who or what is doing the action of the verb) and the verb’s tense (past, present or future).

Verbs in Russian also have a special characteristic known as aspect, which means that they essentially come in two forms, called the imperfective and the perfective. As you learn more about Russian verbs, you’ll get a much better sense of how to use aspect, but the gist is that verb aspect describes the view of a Russian speaker towards the action he or she is referring to — including the completed or ongoing nature of the action and how important it is to emphasize that completeness. It’s a concept that’s unfamiliar to many native English speakers, but you’ll get the hang of it with practice!

Knowing how to conjugate Russian verbs and master the concept of aspect is essential to being able to express yourself in Russian, and you’ll likely spend a large part of your Russian learning journey focusing on the grammar of Russian verbs. Once you master them, you’ll be well on your way to speaking Russian with fluency.

Russian Nouns

Each Russian noun has a gender, meaning it’s classified as masculine, feminine or neuter. This doesn’t mean that every person, place, object or idea is inherently male, female or neutral; it’s just a system of grammatical categorization that exists in Russian and many other world languages that affects how speakers use these languages.

You can clue into the gender of a Russian noun in almost every case by looking at its ending; words that end with a consonant or -й, like Хлеб (“bread”) and музей (“museum”) are almost always masculine, while those ending in -я or -a are overwhelmingly feminine, such as неделя (“week”) and лампа (“lamp”). Neuter nouns most often end in -o or -e, like ухо (“ear”) and здание (“building”).

There are, however, several exceptions to these rules, and these irregularly gendered nouns must be learned and memorized separately. A major part of learning Russian nouns involves recognizing their gender classifications, so it’s important to practice this concept!

Learning Russian nouns also means becoming intimately familiar with the Russian case marking system. The general rule is that Russian nouns can take one of six cases — called nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental and prepositional — depending on the role they play in the sentence, like whether they’re doing the action of the verb or having the action done to them, for example. Depending on their case, nouns and pronouns take a different form, usually by changing their endings. For example, the noun капитан (“captain”) can take five different endings depending on its case: капитан (nominative), капитана (accusative/genitive), капитаном (instrumental), капитану (dative) and капитане (prepositional).

Though learning about Russian gender and case marking on nouns can seem like a major challenge, there are some saving graces, especially the fact that Russian doesn’t use definite or indefinite articles — the words “the” and “a” or “an” in English. In languages like German that also have gender and case marking on nouns, figuring out which of the many forms of “the” or “a” to use can be a nightmare. But in Russian you won’t have to deal with that problem!

As you learn Russian, you’ll get to know the rules governing how Russian nouns and adjectives behave in certain situations. It’s all part of the process of learning Russian grammar!

Basic Russian Phrases And Russian Greetings

To speak like a native Russian speaker, there are certain must-know Russian phrases and expressions that will help you navigate your way through a conversation.

The best place to start, of course, is with “hello”! There are many common greetings in Russian to choose from, the most popular of which include Привет! (“Hello!”) and the slightly more rough-sounding Здорово!, which you could follow with a firm handshake and translate as “howdy.”

You can also choose among Доброе утро (“good morning”) if it’s before noon, the stylistically neutral and polite Добрый день (“good day”) until the end of the work day, and if it’s later, Добрый вечер (“good evening”).

You’ll get familiar with basic Russian phrases like Как дела? (“How are things?” or “How are you?”) or Как жизнь? (“How is life?”), to which you can respond Отлично! (“Great!”), хорошо (“OK”) or ничего особенного (“Nothing special.”), among many others.

If you’re meeting someone for the first time, you’ll want to talk about who you are and perhaps where you’re from. To introduce yourself, you can say Меня зовут X (“My name is X”). To find out other people’s names, you can ask Как тебя зовут? (“What is your name?”) in a more familiar context and Как вас зовут? if you want to be more formal.

The way to say where you come from in Russian is Я из X (“I come from X”), and to ask where someone is from, you can say Откуда ты? (“Where do you come from?”) in informal settings and Откуда вы? in more formal ones.

To say goodbye in Russian, пока! is a classic and casual go-to, but there are plenty of other great options — like the slightly more formal but almost always appropriate До свидания!. Other ways to say goodbye until another time include До завтра! (“See you tomorrow!”), Увидимся! (“See you around!”) and До скорого! (“See you soon!”).

There are many other useful conversational Russian words, phrases and expressions you’ll get to know as you learn Russian, from да (“yes”), нет (“no”), Спасибо (“thank you”) and пожалуйста (“please” and “you’re welcome”) to где X? (“Where is X?”) and Вы говорите по-англи́йски?, or “Do you speak English?”

When you learn these Russian phrases and hundreds more like them, you’ll be better able to communicate with native Russian speakers with ease.

Ways To Learn Russian

There is no right answer when it comes to how to learn Russian — or any new language. With so many options for your language journey, it’s no surprise that choosing a learning style or method can be overwhelming!

Of the millions of people who speak and study Russian as a non-native language, you’ll find folks who have used all sorts of resources to learn the language, some free, some fairly cheap, and some more of a financial investment. There’s no right combination, and it’s up to you to decide which methods work best for you to learn Russian.

What’s The Quickest And Easiest Way To Learn Russian?

You’ll find that the fastest and easiest way to learn Russian is the way that offers you the least amount of friction — so if you can’t stand shuffling through textbook pages or you get bored flipping Russian flashcards, you might want to stick to a method that’s more exciting or engaging. Knowing yourself is key to success. Here are just a few of the ways to learn Russian quickly:

Learning Russian In The Classroom

Russian is among the top studied languages in school systems and universities around the world. Russian classroom learning is the most popular option for learners in grade school or university settings. It allows more intensive, regular study with feedback from teachers who know the Russian language and can correct mistakes as they happen and teach content in an interactive way. Depending on how large a class is and how engaged the teacher is, learning in a classroom might be a less personalized experience, but having other students to talk to and practice with is a valuable resource for a learner of any language.

Though full-time students make up a large proportion of Russian classroom learners, plenty of adults enroll in Russian classes, too. Many cities and communities offer free or fairly cheap language classes, and you’ll be very likely to find them in popular languages like Russian. Though a full-time job might limit your schedule, a commitment to a once- or twice-weekly Russian class after work or on the weekends can really improve your Russian language skills in a measurable way.

Learning Russian With A Russian Tutor

Private Russian tutoring offers a more tailored learning experience than traditional classroom learning with many of the advantages. Having a skilled Russian tutor at hand who can help you perfect your pronunciation and work with you closely on the aspects of Russian that cause you trouble is a great way to improve your skills fast — without a teacher needing to split time and attention among multiple students. And Russian tutoring doesn’t have to be inconvenient at all; many sessions can and do take place over video call instead of in person.

But the often steep costs of such individualized instruction can be a barrier to many learners. Well trained master Russian tutors often charge high hourly rates for their lessons, so finding a top-quality, budget-friendly option can be challenging.

Software and Online Russian Courses

There are many top-notch, expert-designed online Russian courses and programs that run from reasonably priced to very expensive. They allow you to learn Russian on your own time and are often more interactive and engaging than many free courses and resources. Plus, many of the best products out there are constantly updated with new, fresh material, so you can get the most relevant Russian learning experience available.

Can You Learn Russian For Free?

All of the above options have one thing in common: they cost money. For those learners who want to be more conscious of their budgets or are okay to spend more time finding and working with more cost-effective content, there are still plenty of options to learn Russian for free or for cheap!

Free Online Russian Courses And Apps For Learning Russian

There’s no shortage of free Russian courses, apps and content you can find on the web and on your phone. From Russian grammar wikis to online forums and Russian classes, you’re sure to find hundreds of options that might do the trick. Some of them are better than others in the ways they’re organized and how thoroughly they explain new concepts, so take them with a grain of salt.

Be aware that the tradeoff of a free product is that it usually sacrifices quality. Much of the content that’s in free apps or that’s scattered around the web comes from user-generated translations that are rarely verified and are often inconsistent or riddled with errors. These lessons often focus on writing and reading without much of a way to improve listening and speaking skills. And be wary that free interactive Russian lessons like these can often be basic, poorly designed, messy, rigid, and just downright boring — not to mention littered with ads.

That’s not to say these Russian resources can’t be helpful! But it’s important to know how and where to fill in the gaps in your language learning journey when certain content isn’t enough.

Learning Russian With Native Russian Speakers

Tandem learning is a technique where two people who speak different native languages meet up to help each other learn, swapping roles as teacher and student. For example, if you spend one hour teaching a friend who’s a native Russian speaker something about English, he or she would then spend the next hour teaching Russian to you. This is an effective method when both people are able to commit significant time and thought to the partnership, but keep in mind that not everyone is a good teacher. Explaining why your native language works the way it does is often easier said than done; you might understand English grammar subconsciously and use it flawlessly all the time but not be able to explain to a Russian person or Russian speaker the rules that govern how you’re supposed to use that grammar.

Immersion Russian Learning

Russian immersion programs or some form of immersive Russian language travel are definitely the most extreme and intensive ways to learn a new language, and they’re not for everyone. (They’re also not technically free if you count airfare to a new place and all the costs of living associated with wherever you go.) But without a doubt, immersing yourself in a new culture and a place that doesn’t speak your language and surrounding yourself with native Russian speakers will force you to make rapid progress in Russian or another target language as you struggle to communicate and understand those around you.

Of course, you’ll want to start with at least a little foundation in a new language before picking up your life and plunging yourself into a completely foreign locale. Using resources like Babbel, language textbooks and Russian classes, and practice with Russian native speakers can all help you prepare before you make a big transition through Russian immersion.

Useful Russian Media To Learn Russian For Free Or Cheap

When you don’t have access to Russian classes and teachers or even native Russian speakers, there are still plenty of Russian media resources to help you get on your way to fluency in Russian. Most of them can be accessed for free online or from a library or found for very cheap — or even through a subscription for a streaming service like Netflix or Spotify you’re likely already paying for!

Books To Learn Russian

If you like to read, you’ll find a whole range of literature written in Russian that can help you master the Russian language. There are thousands of Russian books that make great learning resources for beginner and intermediate Russian learners, from fairy tale poems like the famed Pushkin’s Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке (The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish), ideal for beginner learners, to longer, more substantive reads like the advanced Soviet-era literary classic Доктор Живаго (Doctor Zhivago)

Using books to learn Russian is a great way to sharpen your reading skills and to understand how the Russian language is used in a whole wide range of contexts, from historical fiction to fairy tales to personal essays to collections of short stories to nonfiction and everything in between. Reading books in Russian helps you move at your own pace, and you can stop to consult a Russian dictionary if you need extra help along the way. Keeping a language journal of unfamiliar Russian words and expressions helps you build your vocabulary. Plus, you can get some extra speaking and Russian pronunciation practice by reading the book aloud.

Learning Russian With Audio Lessons, Russian Songs And Russian Podcasts

There are many online Russian audio lessons you can find that can teach you the basics of Russian vocabulary and grammar without needing to look at a page or a screen. Russian audio lessons are great for multitasking; you can listen to them in the car or in the background of another activity, like commuting to work, cooking dinner or taking a walk in your neighborhood.

Similarly, Russian podcasts and Russian audiobooks are a great way to learn passively while you do something else that requires your visual attention. Luckily, there are lots of audio resources to pick from, and many of them are free. Russian podcasts like Russian For Cats are great for beginners and feature mostly English with Russian expressions mixed in, and others like Ракета: Simple Russian are suitable for learners who are more ready for an all-Russian listening experience.

And listening to Russian songs can be a great learning method, too. With songs, a chorus or group of lyrics is often repeated more than once, giving you plenty of opportunities to hear lyrics over and over. You can find many playlists of Russian songs on Spotify that are often organized by proficiency level, too, from beginner playlists to more advanced ones.

It’s important to keep in mind that to really master a language, you’ve got to do more than just listening to it; you’ll probably want to supplement audio with ways to practice writing, reading, and speaking Russian, too.

Learning With Russian TV Shows And Russian Movies

Watching Russian movies and Russian TV shows is an excellent way to connect with the Russian language in a fun, engaging format. You can find a lot of good Russian-language content of all different genres and for all learning proficiency levels on streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime.

When you’re watching, you can choose to display subtitles in Russian for some extra reading practice. Try to avoid watching media dubbed in your native language, as you won’t end up hearing any Russian! If the dialogue is too fast, you can pause what you’re watching to give yourself a chance to process what you’re hearing and look up and write down unfamiliar words. And when you use movies and TV series to learn Russian, don’t be afraid to break them up into chunks to give your brain some rest.

Learning Russian With Babbel

The goal of learning any language is to have real-life conversations with native speakers. So a language learning app should be designed to get you to that goal in the best way possible. It’s important to dedicate the time and effort to practicing with discipline, but outside of your own personal commitment, you’ve got to have technology that knows how to help you most effectively along the way.

Luckily, Babbel is designed by a team of language experts, educators, and designers who know all about what it takes to get the most out of learning a new language — so you are guaranteed a top-quality Russian learning journey that’s capable, engaging, and yes, even fun.

Here are the key ways Babbel Russian lessons are crafted to get you having real-life conversations in Russian with confidence, and all for less cost per month than your morning coffee.

The Full Spectrum Of Language Learning

Learning a foreign language is an endeavor of many dimensions. It takes a lot of skills and patience to learn how to start speaking on the spot, to write a text to a friend, or to translate dialogue you hear from a TV show in your target language.

We know how to make these elements work together to your advantage. Babbel’s lessons are interactive and cover all the aspects of learning Russian — reading, writing, listening, and speaking — with multimedia Russian content to train your ears and eyes. Our speech recognition feature even helps you hone your Russian pronunciation, too.

Russian Learning On Your Terms

One of the best parts of learning with Babbel is being able to fit lessons in seamlessly when you want them and where you want them. Our bite-size lessons take roughly between 10 and 20 minutes to complete and can be squeezed into your already busy schedule, whether you’re on your commute or waiting for a pot of water to boil as you cook dinner.

With Babbel, you can pick and choose the topics and themes that are most relevant to you. Taking a trip soon? Brush up on the Russian you’ll need for travel and navigating new places. Need to sharpen your Russian for an upcoming business meeting? Our Russian language courses have you covered.

The iOS and Android apps are fully integrated with the web application. And your progress is saved in the cloud and synced across all devices — so you can learn Russian anytime, anywhere.

Learn Russian — And Make Sure It Sticks

What good is committing to learning a foreign language if you’ll forget it before you even have a chance to use it? That’s why your personalized Babbel Review feature is optimized to help you retain the information you’re learning.

It takes advantage of the concept of microlearning, or bringing back information in short bursts to help you hold on to it better. You can practice writing, listening to, and speaking the Russian phrases, terms and expressions you’ve learned in your earlier lessons to lock them into your brain.

For Russian Learning, Try Babbel

We’re committed to making sure you get the most out of learning Russian. We offer a free first lesson in every language so you can get a feel for if Babbel works for you. And if you don’t like it, we have a 20-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked.

Try a free Russian lesson with Babbel and see for yourself how quickly you’ll be on your way to speaking Russian with confidence — like you’ve always wanted to!