Russian for complete beginners: your first 30 days

Week 1: sounds and your first 70 words

In the first week your goal is to get used to the sounds of the language and learn the most basic words: greetings, yes and no, thank you, numbers and family. With 10 words a day you reach 70 words by the end of the week.

Always listen to every word. For a complete beginner, learning the right pronunciation from the start is far easier than fixing it later.

Weeks 2 and 3: everyday conversations

As your vocabulary grows, seeing words in sentences matters more. Start the introduction and everyday conversation lessons in these weeks; they are free.

Listen to each dialogue first, then repeat it line by line. Memorizing set phrases (“What’s your name?”, “Where are you from?”, “How much is it?”) helps a lot in your first conversations.

Week 4: 300 words and review

In the fourth week keep learning new words but pay more attention to the daily test. Listen again to the words you struggle with and reread their example sentences.

By the end of the month you have learned about 300 words. A large share of the words used in everyday conversation are among these first words.

What can you do after the first month?

You can greet people, introduce yourself, ask simple questions and understand the answers, and use basic phrases for shopping and asking for directions.

The 300-word Russian core list takes about 30 days at 10 words a day. After that you continue with the remaining conversation lessons and review tests.

Sample Russian words

As a member you learn 10 new words like these every day, with pronunciation, meaning, an example sentence and audio.

Tips for learning Russian

• The 33-letter Cyrillic alphabet

  Some Russian letters look Latin but sound different: В is “v”, Н is “n”, Р is “r”, С is “s”, У is “u” and Х is like the “ch” in “loch”. Learn these “false friends” on day one and you’ll read Cyrillic within a few days.

• Stress and the reduced “o”

  Russian stress moves from word to word, and an unstressed “о” usually sounds like “a”: молоко is “malakó”. Consonants can be hard or soft, and the soft sign ь marks a softened consonant.