What is the best way to learn Russian on your own?

Russian is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of four living East Slavic languages, and also part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. Russian is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely as a lingua franca throughout Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution and is used in an official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet states. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide and is the most-spoken Slavic language, the most spoken native language in Europe, as well as the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries, such as Israel and Mongolia. It is the world’s seventh-most spoken language by a number of native speakers, and the world’s eighth-most spoken language by total number of speakers. Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English.

• 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.

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:

• It will make pronunciation easier. Each letter has a specific sound. Knowing these letters makes pronunciation a lot easier than does look at a pronunciation guide, or attempting to sound out phonetic spellings in the English alphabet.

• It will enable you to sound out words. Once you know Cyrillic, you can look at a word and sound it out.  

• It will allow you to use a Russian-English dictionary. Without knowing the Cyrillic alphabet, you can’t effectively look up words in a Russian-English dictionary, so learning the alphabet is important for finding the meanings of words you see and hear.

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:

• It will help you practice the Cyrillic alphabet. You finally know the letters, but seeing them in context will help cement them in your mind.

• It will start to build your vocabulary. Focus on these words at the beginning so you don’t have to worry about grammar. When you start learning verbs, you are also going to need to think about conjugation and sentence building. Not so with nouns and adjectives—at least not to start. And even once you know the rules of the language, vocabulary is still key, so you will continue to use even these basic words once you are fluent.

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: 

• Learning the present tense will allow you to put together basic sentences.

• You will be able to describe everyday activities. Every time you do something simple during your usual, daily routine, you can start to think about how to describe that in Russian.

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.

• It will help you combine your previous learning sessions. Putting together sentences will help you cement your knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, basic words and present tense conjugations.
• It will help prepare you to hold conversations.

5. Learn to pluralize words

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

• It is an essential building block to communicating clear ideas.

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.

• Building vocabulary is key to fluency. You will need accurate, specific verbs to get your ideas across.

• The more verbs you know, the more ideas you can communicate.

7. Learn common words first.

Learning the most common words first will ensure that you’re able to use your Russian skills immediately. Getting fully fluent will still take some more time, but being able to communicate in Russian right off the bat is like getting a running start on the road to fluency. After all, if you know the most common words, you’ll be able to hold basic conversations and listen to authentic sources, which will in turn lead to more learning.

8. Immerse yourself in Russian, at home or abroad.

Immersion is the quickest way to learn any language.

If you can go abroad to immerse yourself in Russian, that’s terrific! If not, you can still immerse yourself at home.

Simple things like reading Russian magazines, labelling household items with their Russian names or watching Russian movies will go a long way to improving your fluency.

To really benefit from home immersion, put together a plan. What will you do every day at home to surround yourself with the Russian language? Think through your daily routine, and think about all the places you could insert a little Russian.

For instance, you might try downloading a Russian audio track to use as an alarm each morning. You could enjoy some Russian cartoons with your breakfast. You could listen to Russian podcasts during your drive to work. As you think through your day, you’ll find more and more places to work Russian into your routine.

9. Practice your skills daily.

Regardless of which fast learning techniques you use, it’s important to practice your Russian skills daily.

Daily practice is important to encourage your skills to keep moving forward, whether this is through immersion techniques or just studying daily. It can be tempting to study for hours one day and then wait a few days to study again. The problem with this is that your skills will backslide during your time away from learning, thereby slowing down your learning progress. If you make learning Russian a daily activity, you won’t have to waste as much time relearning material.

10. Find a native speaker to interact with.

Interacting with native speakers is a quick way to improve your skills. Speaking with Russians will improve your pronunciation, speaking and listening. A written pen pal relationship can also improve your reading and writing.

If you don’t know any Russians, try an online language exchange program like WeSpeke or MyLanguageExchange.com.

There is no “proper” way to learn Russian or any language in particular. It all depends on how you motivate yourself and dedicate your time and resources to learning new skills.

But we can always make the process easier and more fun!

If you need more guidance in studying Russian or other languages, don’t hesitate to try language learning platforms like Multibhashi. Learn at your own pace, set, and reach your goals with the help of certified private tutors online.

I hope that these tips will help you through your journey as a Russian learner. 

Good luck!