What do I need to learn Russian?

Russian is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe with over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely throughout the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by a number of native speakers and the eighth-most spoken language in the world by a total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English.

Have a fully developed age-appropriate Intellect: 

In all honesty, students must have a base minimum level of intellect, to be able to learn a new language. This is paramount for the learning language process. Your intellect can also be defined as your cognitive ability that in turn catapults your understanding of a language and its linguistic system. That is, language is derived from cognitive development and greater intelligence aids individuals in learning a foreign language more quickly and easily. This study has practical implications for both teachers and students.

Learning factors 

There are numerous factors that affect a student’s language learning. A few of them being: 

Attitude 

Attitude is widely regarded as one of the most significant elements influencing language learning. Attitude is distinguished by a high amount of emotional engagement, such as feelings, self, and community interactions. Language teachers, researchers, and students, it is stated, should recognise that students’ high desire and good attitude improve second language learning. As a result, learners’ attitudes might be included in language acquisition since they may impact their success in learning the target language. Attitudes are classified into three types: cognitive, affective, and conative (Baker, 1992). Cognitive refers to concepts and beliefs, whereas emotional refers to what individuals like or hate about an attitude object. The last component is conative, which is described as a willingness to act in relation to language. The manner in which people express their positive or negative attitudes may have an impact on the outcome of language acquisition. To summarise, each component describes how learners see, act, and perceive language acquisition.

Have a strong Reason that can Motivate you when you hit roadblocks: 

Motivation is an extremely important factor for language learning because it directly impacts the continuity of your language learning process. If you start your language learning without a strong reason or motivation you are likely to give up at some point where you meet adversities. To continue effectively you would need to have a strong reason or motivation to learn the Russian language such as the dire need to enhance your professional level etc.

Seek and study with Authentic Resources:

To accelerate your language learning you would also need to access reliable, authentic and error sources such as audiobooks, online videos, YouTube videos, movies, music, reading material such as literature and children’s books etcetera. You would need access to flashcard apps online such as Anki, Memrise, and many more. Also look for conversation partners for yourself from sites such as Tandem, Hello Talk, Italki etc

Bear in mind your Physical factors, and approach language learning to support you: 

Physical factors range from anything with respect to you being well and available, to age and strength. They could also reflect your surroundings or point to your support system. 

Command all Mental factors: 

The strength of your mind, conviction and decision plays a key role in shaping up your ability to pursue language learning. Another important factor that affects your language learning with certainty would be your broad-mindedness, your awareness or your ability to approach language learning with an open mind, in order to receive and accept new cultures and experiences. Retrain your mind to start accepting new things and focus on the important aspects. 

Manage Emotional and Social factors: 

If you have responsibilities that keep glaring at you, from your workplace or your home, you wouldn’t be able to keep up with your learning pace or study diligently. Therefore, you would need to maintain a fine balance with support from your family members which would prove really worthy at this point. 

Ignore all myths about the age 

While studies have shown that as younger students we tend to acquire the correct accent and language skills in their best format. And older students find that it’s more difficult to fully acquire a foreign language, but this isn’t true of everyone. So while this should not hold you back, I suggest you be prepared to put in double the effort to learn a language. 

Develop your Personality to learn like a pro 

More introverted students have been shown to take longer to acquire a language because they’re more hesitant to make mistakes. Extroverted students, on the other hand, are more likely to go all out and try out their newly learned vocabulary. To learn Russian, you need to understand that mistakes are part of the learning process and it’s more important to speak than to be perfect.

Search for convenient and calm surroundings that offer you peace of mind and comfort to learn. 

Whether it be your country of residence or your home do ensure that you have the convenience and peace of mind to be able to continue your studies. While as a child you are more likely to receive family support for studies, as an adult you would need significant support from your family members to be able to concentrate on your learning, for a few reasons. The first and the foremost of the reasons is that you have been out of touch with studies and so, you would need to invest significant time and concentration to be able to get back to the rhythm of studying. 

Have a favourable Environmental factor by your side:

If you are located in a country, which supports the learning of your target language, you would have lot of resources available, a lot of options with respect to classes to enroll in and lot of online support to seek help from; however if you are in a country that does not support your target language you would have to face numerous challenges while learning the language, that would eventually delay your learning process.

Be creative and involved when learning a language. 

Russian may be one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn, but a little guidance definitely won’t hurt (if anything, it’ll speed up your learning time!). Here are my top tips to learn Russian, so you can master this beautiful language in no time. Label items in your home. It would be even better if you could use stickies of two different colors, to differentiate masculine and feminine words.

Activate Your Passive Memory

Using passive memory can help you sail past bothersome spelling, tripping over choosing the right gender and conjugating the numerous tenses. If you happen to be a visual learner reading a captivating article or a book in Russian could help you remember the right orthography, use of tenses, nouns, gender and vocabulary. All you need to do is avoid focussing too much on understanding everything and pick a book for your level. By simply translating the most repeated words you will soon be able to integrate them into your vocabulary, with the context to back you up! 

Focus more on intonation and accent

The same can be said about auditory learners for watching TV series, films or YouTube videos in Russian. Not only will it help auditory learners to get the grammar right, but they will also pick up on the right intonation and accent. Once again, it’s advisable to watch suitable videos for your level, with English subtitles to begin with until you are comfortable with Russian.  

Master your grammar rules:

Keep practising your grammar, and the knowledge will take you places. 

Learn Russian alphabets

Russian is a phonetic language. This means more or less every Russian letter corresponds to a single sound, and it can be learnt by learning the Russian alphabet. Once you have learned the initial sounds to pronounce every letter of the alphabet correctly, learn what other sounds the letters can make. For example, ‘o’ can be ‘a’ sometimes in Russian. The Russian alphabet is derived from the Cyrillic alphabet and consists of 33 letters, including 11 vowels, 20 consonants and 2 letters which make no sound, but make a word sound harder or softer. 

Master your Russian pronunciations

The Russian alphabet can be pretty frustrating since it utilises a mixture of letters recognisable to us with the same sounds but characters with recognisable forms but foreign sounds, and letters with no English equivalent at all. In simpler terms, the first challenge for a prospective Russian speaker is to learn to distinguish between these characters and not confuse them with their Latin alphabet equivalents. Russian is (for the most part) a phonetic language, and reading is pretty straightforward after you figure out the sounds of the letters. Listening to native speakers and copying them is the best way to improve your reading and speaking skills. 

Practice the Cyrillic alphabet well

Talk about a language where not only the verbs, conjugation, and pronunciations are tricky but some of the letters themselves are alien to your knowledge. The Cyrillic alphabet is a Slavic language alphabet. Many students tend to get nervous when this specific section is brought up. The Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script, which is based on the Greek uncial character and is supplemented by letters from the ancient Glagolitic alphabet, including several ligatures.

Be aware of the loan words and prefer vocabulary you’ve learnt in a Russian-speaking context

Loan words that were originally taken from the Russian vocabulary in English,  aren’t necessarily used in the same context. Stick to the vocabulary you garnered during your vacation in Russia or through a Russian film or in your Russian lessons, rather than vocabulary carried over from English.

Russian was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. Russian is used in an official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states. Russian is the largest native language in Europe, and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries like Israel, Tajikistan, Moldova, Gagauzia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Mongolia.It is also recognised as a minority language in Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

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