Russian is one of the most widely spoken native languages in Europe. It belongs to the Slavic group of the Indo-European language family. The total number of Russian language speakers around the world is estimated to be from 255 to 285 million.

Russian is one of the five official languages of the United Nations and ranks as the major world language along with Chinese, English, Spanish, and Hindi. It is the native language of 142 million citizens of the Russian Federation, the world’s largest country.

As the language is widely spoken and ranked in the major languages of the United Nations there are many benefits from being able to communicate with all kinds of people in all types of situations in Russian-speaking countries and beyond.

Now in this blog, we will discuss how to improve your Russian oral skills.

1. Practice with Native Russian Speakers

Having real-life conversations with native speakers is hands down the best way to improve your Russian orally. Learning grammar and vocabulary is of course important too (after all you can’t speak Russian if you don’t know what to say). But having your nose stuck in a textbook or app will never help you develop the ability to hold a conversation.

You see, knowing Russian is one thing. Speaking it is quite another. Your Russian speaking skills are just that…skills. Much like riding a bike or playing the saxophone, you have to practice before you become proficient.

So how exactly do you go about finding native Russian speakers if you don’t live in a Russian-speaking country? The answer may be simpler than you think.

 

2. Work on Your Russian Pronunciation

Pronunciation probably isn’t the first skill that jumps into your mind when you talk about learning a foreign language. To a certain extent, everyone knows that pronunciation is important because if your accent is really bad people will have a hard time understanding you. However, most Russian learners don’t try to improve their accent past the most basic level. Don’t be deceived though, being able to correctly pronounce Russian words is a powerful asset in your journey to fluency.

To work on your Russian accent, start by focusing on the individual sounds of the Russian alphabet. It also wouldn’t hurt to read a little about the general mouth and tongue placement used to create the Russian accent, also called Russian phonology. Pay close attention to the difference between hard and soft consonants as well as vowels, as these are both fundamental concepts in the Russian language.

Once you can pronounce individual letters reasonably well, it’s time to move onto words and longer phrases. Speechling is a perfect tool for this. Listen to the recorded phrases of native speakers and do your best to emulate the sounds and intonation they use. Record yourself trying to mimic what you hear and then use the feedback you receive from your coach and make the necessary adjustments.

If you repeat this process consistently you will see drastic improvements in your pronunciation abilities.

 

3. Learn Longer Phrases, not only Single Words

Oftentimes it’s a lot easier to remember and make longer phrases in a foreign language versus short phrases. You certainly should learn individual words, especially when you’re learning grammar. However to increase your conversational abilities you will also want to learn Russian phrases as language “chunks” which you can easily use during a conversation.

We’ll give you an example of this. Take a Russian phrase that means I don’t care: Мне все равно. Literally, this sentence doesn’t quite translate to English’s “I don’t care”, but it does carry the same meaning. Now let’s take a second common phrase “I don’t like..” (Мне не нравится…). Again this phrase doesn’t translate literally to “I don’t like”. In Russian, this phrase translates to something more along the lines of “It is not pleasing to me”.

Still, if we know both of these phrases and a Russian speaker asks us something about a topic we’re not too passionate about (let’s say politics). Then we can respond with these two phrases together: Мне все равно. Мне не нравится политика. We can use them together even if we’re unsure about how they translate literally.

This is an example of how learning whole phrases can improve your conversational ability, even if you don’t yet understand what exactly is going on grammatically. As you continue to study Russian you will learn the necessary grammar and fill in the gaps.

Professional in the Russian language is an admirable goal, but it’s also not an easy one. There’s a long road between being a beginner and becoming professional. Yes, you might not be fluent yet, but if you follow these tips you should be able to start effectively expressing yourself in Russian sooner than you thought! 

Also, you can join Multibhashi for learning Russian we have quality teaching and have a live online language learning class. Join now click here.