Top 10 Tips for Learning Russian

With over 154 million native Russian speakers in the world, learning Russian is a very worthy endeavour.

Russian continues to elude many language enthusiasts due to the rich history of the country, its listing as one of the official 6 languages of the UN, and the bragging rights that await those who are patient enough to reach a high level of fluency in it.

Like every language, there are general rules to follow when aspiring to improve your skills. There are also certain rules specific to each language that can help you break through sticking points when learning.

The title is a dead giveaway, but we should mention it again because that’s how cool learning Russian is. We’ll go through some of the top 10 tips that can aid you when learning Russian.

Grab your Kalachnikov, and let’s shoot down those language weak spots you might have!

1. Learn the Cyrillic Alphabet:

Learning Russian is hard. Period. One reason behind that is the Cyrillic alphabet, which confuses learners from the get-go. It has a total of 33 letters, 7 more than the Latin alphabet.

Cyrillic letters are similar to what you see in English. There’s just a slight difference in sounds when pronouncing them. For example, the letter "H" is pronounced "N" in Russian.

Once you get familiar with that, you can build on this some more. Russian letters also have one distinct sound, which actually streamlines the learning process a bit.

Take your time learning how to pronounce AND write in Cyrillic because it will make learning more advanced Russian much easier.

2. Get Your “R” Right:

Russians are known for speaking with that rolled or trilled R. It’s a distinctive feature of the language, and it’s hell when English speakers try to learn it simply because it doesn’t exist in English.

For starters, you can make that Russian R when you pronounce something by:

• Placing the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.
• Let out a puff of air.
• Feel your tongue vibrate.

The tip of the tongue should tap against the alveolar ridge 2-4 times to get this right. From there, you can practise perfecting this sound by listening to a lot of Russian and doing your weirdest imitation of the R sound until it sounds natural.

3. Treat Your Consonants Right:

Russian is rich in consonants. There are so many of them that linguists have taken it upon themselves to divide them into two categories:

• Hard consonants.
• Soft consonants.

Soft consonants are usually followed by one of these:

• ю, я, ё, е or и, or the soft sign ь

Hard consonants are a bit harder to guess at first, but remember this golden rule: If a consonant falls at the end of a word, it’s most likely a hard consonant.

4. Keep Vowels in Their Place:

Russian is notoriously difficult when it comes to figuring out vowels. Stressed and unstressed vowels are VERY different.

In normal everyday speech, stressed vowels are elongated while unstressed vowels are shortened or voiceless.

Take the famous word “Vodka,” for example. In Cyrillic, it’s written as водка. The stress placement here is on the O.

So far, so good, right?

Well, now consider the word “water.” It’s written as вода. The O is pronounced as [a].

Two very similar words, yet they sound nothing alike! Watch out for these tricksters.

5. Immerse Yourself in the Culture:

This is a very important tip. When you want to reach real fluency in a language, it’s not enough to master its grammar and vocabulary.

You need to dive deeper and understand the culture of the country where the language is spoken.

Explore Russian history. It’s a very interesting and rewarding adventure. Learn how Russia switched from the Roman alphabet to the Cyrillic one.

Get to know Russian cuisine, dos and don'ts in Russia, and any detail you’re interested in.

Your mastery of Russian will improve tremendously.

6. Focus on Common Words First:

Sure, you have dreams of singing and rhyming in Russian, but you need to take baby steps first.

Any language has a list of at least 1000 common words that learners should master before moving forward.

There’s a very good reason for that. Those words are going to come up all the time. In addition, they probably include key roots and affixes you’ll run into when learning more advanced vocabulary later.

So, do your due diligence and learn the common words first.

7. Cognates and Loanwords are Next:

Once you have a basic foundation, you can move on to learning cognates. These are the roots common in most languages in the world.

The reason why that’s effective is that cognates are an excellent way to build your vocab quickly.

As for loanwords, they’re easy to learn because you’ve come across them in English or some other language, maybe. Languages intermingle more than you think, and it’s not rare to find many borrowed words that will improve your fluency.

8. Converse with Russians:

The globalised nature of our world makes it easy to break through cultural barriers and discover people from all walks of life.

When it comes to learning Russian, or any language for that matter, you should always refer back to the source.

In this case, native Russian speakers. You can find many apps and websites that facilitate reaching out and conversing with a native Russian.

This will build a stronger awareness of how the language works, its quirks, and its unique features.

9. Listen First:

Languages are acquired at birth when babies hear sounds coming from their environment. They can’t speak, they can’t talk, and they can’t write.

They just listen. Not soon after, they begin to imitate what everyone around them is saying, and that’s how fluency is reached in childhood.

This process is similar to when you’re an adult learning a new language. Listening should be your priority when starting out.

Listen to Russian news, Russian media, and Russian natives speaking. You’ll develop a stronger intuition for the language, and that will carry over to the other 3 skills.

10. Challenge Yourself:

The last tip is about striving for bigger things when learning Russian. It’s nice to speak the language well, but it’s even nicer to reach new heights and come closer to native-like fluency.

Once you reach a standard level of proficiency, look toward learning more advanced skills. This includes reading short stories in Russian, writing short paragraphs in Russian, and speaking in Russian for 30 minutes without stopping.

These will keep you busy for a while until it’s time to up the ante some more.

In Conclusion:

Russian is a very hard, yet very rewarding language to learn. It’s the language of one of the most interesting countries in the world, with a rich history behind it.

While it can be intimidating at first, it really shouldn’t be. You should take the time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, as it’s the foundation on which everything else is built.

This article outlined some key tips that will serve you well on your learning journey. We’ve discussed the phonetics of Russian briefly, good ways to improve fluency, and some tips to push yourself harder.

Now, it’s time for you to put all of that into practice, become fluent in Russian, and enjoy a shot of vodka with our red comrades while saying ‘кричать!’ in Russian correctly!