{"id":176596853,"date":"2020-01-06T11:33:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T19:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lingq.com\/blog-new\/?p=176596853"},"modified":"2025-05-19T11:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T18:26:08","slug":"how-to-speak-russian-a-step-by-step-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lingq.com\/blog\/how-to-speak-russian-a-step-by-step-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Speak Russian: A Step by Step Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Russian language learning journey started out with my father asking if the Russian alphabet was anything like the Greek one. Despite the fact that he worked on a computer and regularly used the Internet, he couldn\u2019t figure it out and and asked me to find out. I did a cursory search of Wikipedia and found a comparison of the two.
\nIt turned out that my father was right and the Cyrillic alphabet was actually based on the Greek with some letters added in. His interest in the topic passed, but looking at those letters, I suddenly became infatuated and started to take my first steps towards learning Russian<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before You Think About How to Speak Russian, Learn the Cyrillic Alphabet<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"How
\nIf you\u2019re serious about studying Russian, then the very first thing you have to do is buckle down and learn the Cyrillic alphabet. <\/span>
\nWith 33 letters, it might look intimidating at first, but it\u2019s a lot easier than you\u2019d expect once you dive into it. After all it is an alphabet just like English, so the rules aren\u2019t so different. Even better, Cyrillic is mostly phonetic, so you don\u2019t have to learn a whole list of strange exceptions to the spelling like people learning English do. And if you can read this, then you know about half the Cyrillic letters already.\u00a0<\/span>
\nThere are a lot of resources you can use to learn Cyrillic. Heaps really. Plenty of introduction books dedicate the first chapter to it. Online, you can find YouTube videos and there is a great lesson on LingQ that takes you through the letters one by one so you can get the pronunciation down<\/a>. After a week or two of reading and writing, you\u2019ll be ready to move on to the real meat of the language. I managed to get it down in six days and spent a lot of time writing out random words in the alphabet I\u2019d just learned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning the Basics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After getting down the Cyrillic alphabet<\/a>, I was thoroughly excited. Everything seemed less daunting now that I had broken through the intimidating looking curves and swirls of the Russian alphabet. However, this was where the real challenge began as now I had started learning some basic conversation.<\/span>
\nMy father, now thoroughly entertained with my new hobby got me a book called <\/span>Teach Yourself Beginners Russian<\/span><\/i>. At the time I wasn\u2019t actually aware that there were language learning apps around and had never bothered to think of them.<\/span>
\nSo after some quality time with<\/span> Beginner\u2019s Russian, <\/span><\/i>I started to feel really comfortable with those essential basics needed for everyday life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u0417\u0434\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0441\u0442\u0432\u0443\u0439\u0442\u0435 (formal) – Hello<\/strong>
\n\u041f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442 (casual) –\u00a0 Hello<\/strong>
\n\u041c\u0435\u043d\u044f \u0437\u043e\u0432\u0443\u0442\u2026 – My name is\u2026<\/strong>
\n\u041a\u0430\u043a \u0412\u0430\u0441 \u0437\u043e\u0432\u0443\u0442? –\u00a0 What is your name?<\/strong>
\n\u041a\u0430\u043a \u0434\u0435\u043b\u0430? –\u00a0 How are you?<\/strong>
\n\u0421\u043f\u0430\u0441\u0438\u0431\u043e – Thank you<\/strong><\/p>\n

After chapter 2, I continued on and started learning some basic conversation and slowly added on to my vocabulary. If you\u2019re learning the basics, then you have your choice of online resources like DuoLingo, Memrise and of course the huge library of Russian content on LingQ<\/a> as well as so many different YouTubers and blogs you can follow with great information.<\/span>
\nLooking back with more experience I can safely say that you shouldn\u2019t start worrying about grammar yet. At this point you should just try to master the sounds of Russian and learn entire phrases. It\u2019s going to be a lot more useful than reviewing large tables of noun declensions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Build up Your Vocabulary\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After getting a better handle of basic sentence structure and the general \u2018flow\u2019 of Russian I was eager to start building up my lexicon so that I could start actually speaking Russian. <\/span>
\nNow is the ideal time to be a language learner in the world, especially for learning some fundamental vocabulary. You can learn from anything: YouTube videos, TV shows, blog posts, movies, whatever. LingQ lets you turn any content of interest into a lesson. If Netflix shows or movies are your thing for example, check out the video below and try turning your favourite show into a lesson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n