How to Learn Russian

There are many ways to improve the language skills before leaving home or upon arrival at the selected university, such as summer language camps, distance modular education or preparatory courses for foreigners at the leading Russian universities. But what is the best way to learn Russian?

Language Knowledge Aspects

To study in Russia, students should be able not only to read and to write in the Russian language but also to compile correct phrases and sentences and to understand an oral text with terms used in their specialty. This requires from deepening their knowledge in several directions:

• Reading and writing;
• Speaking and listening comprehension.

Russian is considered one of the most difficult languages and, therefore, one should follow an integrated study approach and try to have some practice in addition to studies in classrooms.

Language Immersion

Language immersion is a way of learning when all information around a student is in the language to be learnt. Therefore, a preparatory university course for the foreigners together with living in Russia will be the right choice.

In addition to lectures, you may watch movies and TV shows in Russian. That provides extensive and free-of-charge listening practice. You may use subtitles if your vocabulary does not yet allow to fully understand the meaning of what you’ve heard.

Besides, living in Russia you will have to face daily Russian speech and texts: names of streets and public transport stops, communication in shops and public transport, printed and electronic media – all this will allow you to quickly learn the language at the required level and will be a helpful supplement to lectures in the preparatory course.

To preliminary prepare for learning Russian, you may take a course in your home country. Paid and free-of-charge classes are conducted by Russkiy Mir charitable foundation on the basis of local educational institutions in almost fifty countries. A detailed list is available on foundation website. In addition, you may use modular online courses held by Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, Moscow State University or Saint-Petersburg State University. The curriculum is available after a user’s registration on the website.