Need to Improve Your Russian Now? 8 Resources for Powerful Progress

You’re a Russian language warrior.

You can never have enough amazing resources in your Russian learning arsenal.

But to learn Russian efficiently, you need useful, focused tools.

With the 8 amazing learning resources below, you’ll improve Russian speaking, listening and reading skills in a flash.

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Why Use Online Russian Learning Resources to Improve Your Russian?

  • Using online Russian learning resources is a good way to break up your more conventional learning. Study fatigue is real. If you keep trying to grind away at learning with the same old resources, your mind will go numb in no time. If you change it up, though, you can study longer, better and smarter.
  • Online Russian learning resources also help you see the Russian language in different contexts. Don’t get us wrong—Russian courses are a great way to improve your skills. But if you only see Russian in academic contexts, your comprehension will be limited. Seeing Russian used in all kinds of situations is a great way to ensure you can understand it regardless of how it is presented.
  • Additionally, using online Russian learning resources will improve several different facets of your Russian skills at once. Online tools can help you improve your speaking, reading, listening and writing—all the things you need to become fluent.

With so many great benefits, you might be wondering…

How to Use Online Resources to Improve Your Russian

  • Assess your areas of need and choose the most appropriate resources. We all have our weaknesses. Take a moment to consider what yours are (with regards to the Russian language—no need to correct your sweet tooth just yet). For instance, if you struggle with remembering grammar rules and your writing and reading comprehension suffer because of it, online grammar tables are the tool for you. Never spoken Russian with a native speaker? Give conversation practice a try!
  • Use a wide array of online resources to improve multiple facets of your Russian skills. There are so many different areas of learning. If you stick with one resource, you often only improve one area. Using diverse resources is a good way to ensure all your Russian skills get their workout, and with so many great Russian learning apps, doing this is more possible than ever.
  • Find resources you enjoy using to make learning fun. For instance, you can read Russian learning blogs or watch Russian TV shows as part of your study regimen. If you enjoy the resources you’re using, you’re much more likely to study often.

Now that you know what to do with your arsenal of online resources, it’s time to dive into the resources themselves.

8 Resources to Improve Your Russian

Acquire Vocabulary Rapidly

We can’t say enough on the importance of vocabulary. Even if you know all the grammar rules, you won’t be able to communicate even basic information without a strong vocabulary of diverse words. When it comes to learning a lot of words quickly, nothing can compare to these programs.

Morpheem

Morpheem offers a free program that uses repetition of the same word in various contexts to help you remember it. Additionally, seeing it in so many contexts will give you a good idea of when and how you might use that word. With over 50,000 words and 1,000,000 example sentences, there is a whole lot of content.

You’ll learn common words first, so this is a great way to learn the most important vocabulary before delving into more advanced words.

The format is simple: You see an example sentence. You click on any words you don’t know to learn their meanings. Move on to the next sentence once you think you have all the words down.

Additionally, Morpheem is flexible since you enter in your personal goals. For instance, you can aim to be fluent in Russian or focus on travel Russian (among several other options). Beyond that, you can also enter your more specific goals in the calendar so that you make consistent progress. You can also test yourself to see how far along you are.

This format allows for rapid vocabulary acquisition in your area of choice, whether business, travel or general vocabulary.

FluentU

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FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

Plus, the videos are all naturally entertaining since they come from the shows, movies and channels that native Russian-speakers enjoy on the regular. You can watch documentary footage, television show clips, funny commericals and more all while learning the Russian language!

Take a quick look at what FluentU has on offer for yourself:

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Didn't catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? FluentU makes native Russian videos approachable through interactive captions. Tap or click on any word to see a definition, in-context usage examples, audio pronunciation, helpful images and more.

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Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab. Easily review words and phrases with audio under Vocab.

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Don’t stop there, though! Use FluentU’s quizzes to actively practice all the vocabulary in any video. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you're on.

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And FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that information to give you a 100% personalized experience by recommending videos and examples.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Memrise

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Memrise offers a number of free Russian learning options, including great flashcard sets like Top 10,000 Words and 500 Russian Verbs. These flashcard sets are great multimedia to keep you engaged and ensure you learn both the spoken and written words.

Memrise also offers a unique format that allows you to compete with your friends. There’s no better way to acquire vocabulary quickly than making a game out of it!

Plus, you can even create your own courses—this is a good way to customize your learning and focus on the vocabulary you want to acquire.

Master Rules with Grammar Tables

Getting down your Russian grammar rules will help you communicate more confidently and ensure you understand what is being communicated by others. The case system can be particularly confusing to students learning the Russian language. Because of confusing details like this, it is essential to study grammar tables to make yourself comfortable with grammar rules.

Learn Russian

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Learn Russian offers dozens of free grammar tables ranging from simple topics like gender endings of nouns to more complex topics like forming passive participles.

Through clear explanation, you’ll be able to learn any grammar topic you need more work on. Meanwhile, the abundance of examples will help you see each rule in context, which will help reinforce your learning and ensure you never forget it.

Russian for Free

Russian for Free offers a colorful array of free grammar tables.

Each table offers rules, examples, helpful notes and exceptions to the rules. Additionally, the color coding makes it easy to differentiate between sections and see important ending changes.

This is great for visual learners since it helps you see the rules clearly.

Level Up Your Writing and Speaking Skills

Conversation and writing skills are important. After all, what’s the point in learning Russian if you can’t communicate in Russian? And practice makes perfect—the more often you practice, the more confident you get. Practicing writing and speaking with natives will cut down on the time you spend thinking about conjugations and grammar rules and allow you to relax and enjoy the conversation, as well as to master the language much faster.

Russian Accelerator

Russian Accelerator is an online course that focuses on conversational techniques and confidence in speaking Russian, along with practical travel-related skills, natural integration of grammar and vocab building. It gives you access to multiple native speakers, coaching and support.

Russian Accelerator uses “super-literal” translations, pattern recognition and contextual learning for more adept usage of the vocabulary you learn.

This video-based course is recommend for those who are planning on traveling to Russia or Ukraine soon and want to learn Russian quickly. It’s meant for beginners or for those who have struggled with the language, so you may want to use it to fill out your skills before or while gaining additional practice with one or both of the resources below.

Lang-8

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Lang-8 is a free service that runs on the kindness of strangers and the free exchange of language knowledge.

To use it, upload your writing and native speakers will correct it. Not only will it help improve your writing skills, but it is an easy segue into real conversations. You can connect with native Russian speakers and learn from them.

One tip that Lang-8 offers is to write a daily journal in your target language. This is a great way to get daily practice and master Russian writing.

HelloTalk

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HelloTalk is a convenient app that offers the opportunity to speak directly with native Russian speakers. The app itself is free to download, but each feature requires an in-app purchase.

HelloTalk is formatted as a language exchange. Through the app, you can connect with native Russian speakers. If that isn’t already cool enough for you, it can also keep track of your favorite words, phrases, grammar rules and more, making it easy to improve any skills you notice are lacking during your conversation practice.

 

So dive into these Russian learning resources and watch all your Russian skills take off!

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