🚀 Russian Recommended Learning Material

Here are basic phrase sets for beginners, recorded by a linguist. Ask your teacher to record phrases in future lessons:

How to get phrases from the cloud onto your phone.

1. Download the Lingophant app from the app store
2. Go to the sharing tab and create an account
3. Unlock the phrases with the links below. Then download them to your phrasebook.
4. Find 30 minutes every day (public transport? toilet?) to memorise phrases from the Practice tab. Tap the number at the top, or “practice” and you will try to memorize 12 phrases.

Regarding the script, it is possible to learn it in 15 minutes (I’ve done it). Read this comic to understand the mnemonics (memorable connections between shape and sound), and then review phrases in the Cyrillic script with Lingophant. You can switch in the app between Cyrillic and romanized script, and you’ll hear the sounds being pronounced anyways.

Learn to Read Russian in 15 Minutes

Only learn how to write by hand if you’re generally interested in it, or if you want to pass exams. You can always learn it later.

The basics of the grammar:

If you want a deep dive, you can watch this nerdy video by LangFocus:

Our main takeaways:

(1) Every Russian word has one specific syllable that has an accent on it. Like priviét instead of príviet. You must know this.

(2) The letters O and A both sound like A. Only one O per word can sound like an O. Like Сегодня я хочу поговорить. Cevodnja. it’s an O. But pagavarit’ has three A sounds for each O. (translation: “Today I want to talk”)

(3) Russian words have case endings, based on gender (one of three genders and like 6 cases)

(4) Russian verbs have a completed version and an incomplete version in some of the tenses.

Most of this will come naturally to you when you practice through phrase memorization and listening. The above rules you will likely notice sooner than later.

Pronunciation

Check these pronunciation guides by Fluent Forever as well. If you want perfect pronunciation, these give you an awareness for it. And it doesn’t take more than an hour. We can recommend to watch some now and come back later in your journey.

Here is the slow Russian Club, where you can just listen to little stories in Russian, while reading along with the text below.

We recommend to do this a few times per week, and also come back to previous stories you’ve listened to.

https://realrussianclub.com/slowrussianpodcast/

Don’t expect to understand everything. A lot is too complex to fully grasp, but your mind can get used to it. To the patterns, the sounds, the way words are created. Even only 30 minutes of deep listening per week will really help you over the course of 12 weeks.

Copy the links you’ve listened to into a note for quick review later. And add words to them, like here below.

We have selected a few videos in Russian that you can watch from your phone or laptop with double subtitles:

Here’s a video with Artyom, who speaks from a forest about learning languages.

Here’s a Russian traveler who’s traveling through Georgia.

Here’s a vlogger that makes an episode about thanking his mom for her support and getting her a present.

And here is a chuvak (dude) called Evgeny Eroshev, who talks about his video success and then language learning in general aimed at a Russian audience.

Here’s a link you can use to watch a weird Russian parkour competition.

Use a note app that opens on your computer and phone, for example the apple Notes app or the Google Keep app. Then add the link you’ve watched and paste useful vocabulary for later review.

The easier it is to review, the more likely you’ll do it.

Russian has great online content on YouTube, that interesting to listen to. In our journey you can learn AND enjoy this content.

With the Google Chrome extension “LanguageReactor” installed you can add double subtitles to any YouTube videos. And they pause playing and translate words when you hover your mouse over them.

Here’s how to work with videos:

• At first read the transcript so you know what’s coming.
• Then read along in English while listening to Russian words. Try to connect what you hear to what you read.
• You can switch at any time to reading along in Russian, though it’s more for when you’ve watched the videos 2-3 times already.

Here are channels made for native speakers and for learners, that can be quite enjoyable:

• Dude – Probably the most famous podcast host from there. Go to his page, pick a video, add it to your list. And then just dive into a perspective or story from there. https://www.youtube.com/@vdud
• Russian Progress – Great content made for language learners. You can watch from his website with a script, or on YouTube with automatic subtitles. Again, copy the link to an episode so you can come back later. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF0ZeqSkybD1aFtFxjA8z9w
• If you want to learn some slang, this channel is teaching some expressions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyJAFm70KVo&list=PLJ9HaJ0LGmvoERA6GibDuwboMeEICYy24

This should be already enough material here to keep you busy for 12 weeks. Pick your videos and rewatch them later. You already know the meaning and can settle your vocabulary a bit. Especially if you copy vocabulary to you note with links.

Are you more the type of person that watches series?

Well, using Language Reactor in Google Chrome, you can watch and rewatch Netflix episodes with two subtitles. Even if the level seems too high, reading along in Russian and sometimes pausing to understand can help you feel the structure of sentences and the rhythm of the language.

Here’s our selection of original Russian series:

• Better than us (Netflix)- About a family in a society where everyone has robots to do stuff. But maybe something will go wrong with that?

We can recommend Zhazira who has worked with our app before a lot and has a 5 ⭐️ rating.

In general you can book lessons with any teacher on iTalki. Just book five lessons so the teacher has an incentive to try out a new app. In the first lesson you find common interests and try to record a few phrases and share them.

On our for teachers page which explains everything. Feel free to share the link.

And if you found a good teacher or are teaching yourself, we’re happy to add you to this page.