What’s The Best Way To Learn Russian?

By Author: Daniel Bryan
Total Articles: 2
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This is a fair question, especially since it takes a lot of time and effort to learn Russian, or any language. Thus, if you’re going to spend the time and effort to learn Russian, you want to make sure you do it in the most effective way possible. Like getting a direct flight to Moscow, and better yet, on a supersonic jet, non-stop.

To start with, Russian is a difficult language so it will take time to learn. But don’t be overly intimidated by it. Learning to read Russian Cyrillic is actually quite easy. Learning to speak Russian is also not difficult, but it will take practice to get some sounds exactly right. Even learning Russian grammar is not a huge hurdle if you don’t try and tackle it all at once.

A step-by-step approach to learning Russian will very quickly give you the basics. Then it’s a long steady climb to the summit. Learning vocabulary and knowing all the various forms for Russian words will ultimately be your biggest challenge. Thus, a slow, steady approach is the most effective approach. A bit like climbing Everest. You simply have to take it slow and steady.

Trying to learn to much ...
... at once will likely tire you out and make you frustrated. Sticking within your limits and slowly expanding them will likely encourage you and give you energy and enthusiasm to spend more time learning Russian.

Now let’s jump back and look at where to start learning Russian.

Step 1 is to read, listen and try to copy the sound (speak Russian) and it must be something simple, like “What’s this? / What’s that?” : Что это? (Schto eta?)

Don’t waste time learning the Russian alphabet. Does learning to say A-B-C help you learn to speak English? Not really, and the same applies to learning the Russian alphabet. It’s best to learn the Russian alphabet ‘as you go’, while you’re learning real words, and real expressions.

As you quickly increase your understanding and knowledge from 10 Russian words, to 20, up to 50 and 100 Russian words, you’ll have mastered the Russian alphabet and will be comfortably and confidently be reading and speaking Russian.

At this point, you will begin learning all the endings for Russian verbs, but in a slow, gradual, ‘non-threatening’ manner. Trying to memorize tables of Russian verb endings is the surest way to complete frustration. You will also begin to see that the endings of nouns change in some situations, but it will be easy to manage and understand since you will be exposed to them one at a time, and given plenty of time to get comfortable with one form before moving on to another.

Learning Russian Cases is somewhat of a nightmare. Really. But learning to understand Russian grammar can be fairly simple and straight forward if you take it step-by-step again, rather than trying to learn all aspects of all 6 Cases all at once.

Simply by reading Russian, listening to Russian and speaking Russian, with material that you know 80-90% of it, is the best way to learn Russian. Gradually you’ll learn new words, new expressions and new grammar aspects, but it will all be ‘manageable’ and will gently add to your growing knowledge of the Russian language. Soon you will be up to 400 and 500 words and you’ll be able to understand quite a lot and say quite a lot.

Finding Russian learning material that ‘guides’ you in such a manner; from nothing, to 50 words, to 100, and 200 and so on; that’s the tricky part. The only site I know that really does that is eLearnRussian.com With other sites and other material for learning Russian, one is often overwhelmed with too many new things at a time, or the progress is so slow you nearly fall asleep.

learning Russian