It is not difficult to learn Russian if you take a new approach and don't get lost in the complicated grammar. Use natural and intuitive learning to master the basics quickly!
1Read and listen: Learning to read Russian in the Cyrillic alphabet is not difficult. Do not start learning the alphabet and making the sounds. Does learning to say your ABCs help you to speak English? No. Start with simple words in a dialogue where ideas are clear. You can see a representative example in the video below.Ad
2Start learning to type Russian: You can also learn this very quickly. In about two hours with a good method, your fingers will know the keyboard. Your conscious mind won't, but your fingers will! Just continue practicing and your speed will get faster and faster. It's best to start right away so that you're typing at the same level that you're learning. For example: – Что это? (What's this?) – Что? (What?) – Это. (This.) – Это книга. (That's a book.)
3Speak Russian: Follow simple Russian dialogues with audio reading and speaking aloud, 'echoing' what you hear. Simply focus on making the same sound. Since it's often difficult for beginners to hear the difference, it's best if you have a teacher to help point out the details and help you master the sounds, but with good audio files and practice, you can actually manage well on your own. Practice in private, or consider lessons.
4Practice Daily: It's best to take ten minutes, three times a day, every day and practice. Practice reading, listening and speaking. Language learning is actually more like learning a sport or music and requires physical practice not just memorization.
5Throw away your flash cards: They really aren't very effective. By simply following the above steps, you will be physically training yourself to speak Russian and you won't have to focus on consciously remembering anything at all. It will just happen 'automatically'.
6Have fun! Seriously, being able to speak a foreign language is fun, so learning it should also be fun. Have fun with it. Learn little expressions like Что что? (What what?) which people say when they didn't hear what you said. In English, we typically say "Sorry?" or "What was that?" or, politely, "Pardon me?"Ad
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|Here's a great way to learn Russian starting from zero.|
- Don't get bogged down in the grammar. Simply pay attention to the idea being expressed and the 'sound' being expressed. For example, in English, we commonly say: Wairdeego? (Where did he go?) And can you explain clearly why we use 'did' which is past tense of the verb 'do'? Similarly in Russian, there are two common expressions for "Let's go!" : Пошли! and Пойдем! ; They're different forms of the same verb (пойти) and пошли is past, plural, yet it's being used in a situation that is present or future. It's a bit like the English 'present continuous' tense being used for something you're going to do in the future. (I'm going to Moscow next week.) Don't get bogged down in grammar rules, just learn to express your ideas correctly and naturally.
- Learning the sounds of the Russian alphabet is helpful for reading the language.
- Learn Step-by-Step: Learning all six cases and genders from grammar tables is a monumental task. In fact, you don't even need to start learning the infinitive of a verb. Above, you learned how to say "Let's go!" and now, using the same verb, here's the expression when you're leaving a group of friends, "I'm off!" : Я пошёл! (if you're a man) and Я пошла! (if you're a woman), and if there's more than one of you leaving together, then you'd say, "We're off!" : Мы пошли! and you see the word пошли again, and slowly things begin to tie together and your understanding grows, and you haven't studied any grammar yet. And you've yet to need the root of the verb and all its cases.
- Many Russian letters have an English equivalent, so seeing common English words written in Russian is a big help when trying to learn the alphabet. Who's this well known actor: Брэд Питт ?
- Not all books and material are accurate or current. For example, some books teach Кто вы? (What do you do for a living?) but it literally means "Who are you?" and is no longer commonly used for asking "Where do you work?"
- Don't get bogged down in grammar.
In other languages:
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