How to learn Russian if there are no tutors in my area?

Russian is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used 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 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. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries like Israel and Mongolia. Russian is the largest native language in Europe and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. It is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, with over 258 million total speakers worldwide. Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by the number of native speakers and the eighth-most spoken language in the world by the 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. Russian is written using the Cyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or a soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress, such as to distinguish between homographic words, for example, замо́к (zamók – a lock) and за́мок (zámok – a castle), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names.

Planning to learn Russian, but worried about getting an experienced Russian tutor in your area? Why worry when you have a laptop, a mobile phone and an internet connection. Though Russian is considered to be a hard language to learn, still, with an available internet connection, it is very much easy to learn Russian from the comfort of your home. In this article, I will discuss various methods by which you can learn Russian even if there are no tutors in your area.

There are many online free and paid resources from where you can learn Russian. Let’s take a look at some of the resources:

1. Duolingo – It is a free and popular resource for learning Russian and also it is easy and full of fun to use. The Russian learning program in Duolingo is divided into different skills. There are some notes that help you to prepare for the lessons. The lessons are very simple and they are formatted like a quiz. The lessons are brief and you can easily take out some study time for learning. Duolingo’s Russian language learning programme has enough material for studies. The study program is excellent and covers more advanced skills. 

2. Multibhashi – Multibhasi is an excellent platform for paid language courses. Multibhashi offers various language learning courses at an affordable price from the comfort of your home at flexible timings. There is a Russian language learning course for all ages. You can opt for group classes or one to one classes for learning Russian. Classes are taken up by professional tutors and extra care is provided to each and every learner. Courses are divided into different levels. You can learn complete Russian language learning courses at Multibhashi. Multibhashi even provides language certification after successful completion of the course. 

3. Learn Russian – Learn Russian provides great materials for beginners and intermediate Russian learning students. With more than 100 lessons it helps students to learn all the basics and along with this, there are regular tests also. Learn Russian also offers many vocabulary lists. And easy reference tools that can be used to clear up any confusion. 

4. FluentU – FluentU is another language learning platform where you can learn Russian. It is completely a video-based system and the lessons are composed of all kinds of videos like movie trailers, commercials, as well as music and business videos. The videos contain captions in Russian as well as in English for you to follow and learn new words along with new phrases. The trial version of FluentU is free for 14 days and after that, you need to opt for paid subscriptions. If you know the basics of Russian and you want to improve your skills by accessing real-world videos and immersing yourself in the Russian culture then FluentU is a good option. 

5. Russian for Free – It is designed to help to begin with advanced Russian learners without costing you a penny. It offers three-level courses. The first course focuses on reading, the second course focuses on Speaking and the third course focuses on the case system. There are written material, audio, vocabulary lists and dialogues to help you to learn Russian. Along with free courses, it also offers supplemental learning materials, including grammar exercises, vocabulary games, cartoons, music and phrasebooks.

6. RussianLessons.Net – RussianLessons.Net offers a wide variety of free learning materials for Russian learners. It also offers grammar guides, vocabulary lists and access to additional tools, and quizzes that are ideal for beginning through advanced level students.

7. Rosetta Stone – the Rosetta Stone study methodology is immersion-based. This means from the beginning only you will see and hear everything only in Russian. The immersion system tries to mimic the natural way of learning the first language. It uses short lessons with real-world scenarios. Video and audio contents are provided. They provide phrasebook and reading materials. It is a paid platform. 

Along with all these, you can take the help of youtube to learn from various video tutorials. You can take the help of online audiobooks for your learning purpose. There are many other online Russian learning platforms also. 

I would recommend you to take a class with Multibhashi as I myself have booked a Russian course with Multibhashi and from my experience I can tell you that you will get an awesome learning experience with Multibhashi. Multibhashi covers each and every sector of the Russian language learning course. And at the end of your course, you will also get a certification from Multibhashi. So think no further, nothing can stop you from learning Russian. всего наилучшего.