🚀 Russian Recommended Learning Material

приветики приветики

Here’s our selection of content for people learning Russian.

Put a link to this page in a phone note so you can very quickly access it. Then add links to videos you want to re-watch in that same note. That way your listening practice is just one click away.

(Click / Tap to expand the sections below)

Basic Phrases

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.

Here are basic phrase sets for beginners, recorded by a linguist. With a teacher you will create your own personalised phrase sets:

“01 – Basic phrases Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/319d1cb3-0fed-45ec-b36f-fcb39e840111/01-basic-phrases-russian

“02 – Introductions ( Talking about yourself) Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/f6026349-69a8-4e30-98db-861c1ef2c292/02-introductions-talking-about-yourself-russian

“03 Useful Reactions Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/1678f363-2241-4ff9-a52a-525daf8cf704/03-useful-reactions-russian

“04 Clarifications Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/f8560cc5-2b66-4c59-90bc-5af3b4a501df/04-clarifications-russian

“05 Learning Languages Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/a250a524-3483-4a05-a1ef-cacb19ef3aae/05-learning-languages-russian

“06 Interests, opinions, preferences Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/645bb5ea-2ed6-426c-9174-f74875f2f320/06-interests-opinions-preferences-russian

“07 – Travel Phrases Russian” https://phrases.lingophant.com/06d62d54-4ce4-4110-97c4-aea51f51a9cd/07-travel-phrases-russian

“08 Politeness Russian”

https://phrases.lingophant.com/43c05ae1-acd5-40eb-bd59-924e44840e8d/politeness

Language Introduction and Pronunciation

Regarding the script, you can learn it in 2x 15 minutes. Read this comic below twice you’ll pretty much get to a level where you can practice and perfect it quickly when reviewing phrases in the Cyrillic script with Lingophant.

Learn to Read Russian in 15 Minutes

No need to learn how to write by hand (we cut out the boring and annoying parts).

The basics of the grammar:

Below, a language introduction by LangFocus (great but nerdy).

Main infos:

Every Russian word has one specific syllable that has an accent on it.

Like priviét instead of príviet.

The letters O and A both sound like A. Only one O per word may sound like 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”)

Next to know is that the Russian words have case endings, based on gender (one of three genders and like 6 cases), and that Russian verbs have a completed version and an incomplete version in some of the tenses.

But since you’ll learn with phrases and listening, it will come naturally to you. Just mentioning these because you will notice them sooner that way.

If you want a deep dive, you can watch this nerdy video which is pretty fun.

Check these pronunciation guides by Fluent Forever as well. If you want perfect pronunciation, these give you a perfect overview of the language.

Watch some soon and later during your journey come back.

Start your Listening training here.

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 so complex you can’t understand it, but you can get used to it. To the patterns, to the sounds, to the way words are created. 30 minutes of deep listening per week will really help you.

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

We have selected a few videos in Russian that you can watch from your phone and 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 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.

Again: copy the links you’ve watched to a note so you can quickly start listening session anywhere. Use a note app that opens on your computer and phone, for example the apple Notes app or the Google Keep app.

The easier it is to start, the more likely you are to do that.

YouTube Channels

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:

This should be already enough material here to keep you busy for more than 12 weeks. Pick your 10 videos and rewatch them later. It’s better to review old videos because you already know the meaning and can settle your vocabulary a bit. Especially if you copy vocabulary to you note with links.

TV Series

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 – About a family in a society where everyone has robots to do stuff. But maybe something will go wrong with that?

Recommended Teachers

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.

And show them our for teachers page that explains everything.

Let us know if you found a good teacher and we will add them to this page.