How to learn Russian when I am already 30 years old?

Russian is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe with over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and is used widely throughout the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltic states. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch.

Russian was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. Russian is used in an official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states. Russian is the largest native language in Europe, and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. Large numbers of Russian speakers are residents of other countries like Israel, Tajikistan, Moldova, Gagauzia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Mongolia.It is also recognised as a minority language in Romania, Finland, Norway, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by a number of native speakers, the eighth-most spoken language in the world by total number of speakers, and one of the six official languages of the United Nations! Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English.

Dialectal differentiation accelerated after the breakup of Kievan Rus’ in approximately 1100 leading to the emergence of medieval Russian on the territories of modern Belarus and Ukraine that became distinct (since the 13th century) following the division of the land between, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Poland in the west, and independent Novgorod and Pskov feudal republics, plus numerous small duchies (which came to be vassals of the Tatars) in the east.

The official language in Moscow and Novgorod, and later, in the growing Muscovy, was Church Slavonic, which evolved from Old Church Slavonic and remained the literary language for centuries, until the Petrine age, when its usage became limited to biblical and liturgical texts. The main languages written on them in an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet were Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic. Russian developed under a strong influence of Church Slavonic until the close of the 17th century; afterwards, the influence reversed, leading to corruption of liturgical texts.

The political reforms of Peter the Great (a.k.a. Peter I) (1672-1725) were accompanied by a reform of the alphabet and achieved their goal of secularization and Westernization. Blocks of specialized vocabulary were adopted from the languages of Western Europe and by 1800, a significant number of people started speaking Russian daily, and German sometimes. Many Russian novels of the 19th century, e.g. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, contain entire paragraphs and even pages in Russian with no translation given, with an assumption that educated readers would not need one.

The ‘Moscow dialect’ was used as the basis for written Russian. The modern literary Russian language is usually considered to date from the time of Alexander Pushkin in the first third of the 19th century when Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (so-called — “high style”) in favour of grammar and vocabulary found in the spoken language of the time. Even modern readers of younger age may only experience slight difficulties understanding some words in Pushkin’s texts since relatively few words used by Pushkin have become archaic or changed meaning. In fact, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19th century, in particular Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Aleksander Griboyedov, became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech.

Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following:

• United Nations
• International Atomic Energy Agency
• World Health Organization
• International Civil Aviation Organization
• UNESCO
• World Intellectual Property Organization
• International Telecommunication Union
• World Meteorological Organization
• Food and Agriculture Organization
• International Fund for Agricultural Development
• International Criminal Court
• International Monetary Fund
• International Olympic Committee
• Universal Postal Union
• World Bank
• Commonwealth of Independent States
• Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
• Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
• Eurasian Economic Community
• Collective Security Treaty Organization
• Antarctic Treaty Secretariat
• International Organization for Standardization
• GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development
• International Mathematical Olympiad
• Warsaw Pact (defunct)
• Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (defunct)

The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975.

In March 2013, it was announced that Russian is now the second-most used language on the Internet after English. People use the Russian language on 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian is used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su. The websites of former Soviet Union nations also use high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian is the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese.

With this, I hope I am able to express and help you realize the extent and value of Russian and know how/why it can prove beneficial for a learner! 

They say that children learn languages the best. But that doesn’t mean that adults should give up?

The older you get the more difficult it is to learn to speak Russian. But no one knows exactly what the cutoff point is—at what age it becomes harder, for instance, to pick up noun-verb agreements in a new language. In one of the largest linguistics studies ever conducted—a viral internet survey that drew two-thirds of a million respondents—researchers from three Boston-based universities showed children are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of 18, roughly 10 years later than earlier estimates. But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker.

As quoted in Scientific American.

So the first take away from the aforesaid research published in Scientific American for a Russian language learner would be that it is not going to be an easy task to learn Russian, after the age of 18. For the most basic reason, there is no simple universal way to do that! 

To top it, there are several other factors that play a major role in deciding your learning curve and the duration of your journey ‘to learn Russian’. A few of many considerations, specific to each individual, are as under: 

What’s your level of engagement! This becomes way critical when you are over 30, because you are in a responsible job, married, or have kids, parents, grandparents to look after! Amidst all these, how many hours you can spare each day, is a point of great concern. Because if your learning is limited to weekends it wouldn’t work! Remember the research published in Scientific American and prepare yourself for war! It is going to take much more effort, time and probably money than if you were five years old.

• Whether you are living in a foreign country that neither has as many resources to support your learning nor considers it a priority! Or are you in a Russophone country that supports you wholeheartedly – whether you opt for travel immersion or community learning! 
• Whether you are into an intensive course with multiple instructors or learning from a downloaded app! It’s largely unfair to expect an app to teach anything beyond the basics of a language!
• Whether you are steadily moving ahead with realistic goals or are burning out due to over-ambitious goals! 
• Whether you settle for nothing less than a well-structured course that teaches you intensely or are you content at learning anything unstructured and random.
• Whether you are motivated enough and can invest enough energy to pull along or are getting embarrassed and overwhelmed about making mistakes and feeling deterred from learning the language!
• Whether you have identified ‘your unique way of learning and are focussing right through it, if not, are you willing to experiment with the best learning style that would work great, for your age under all the aforesaid considerations?

• Try learning Russian in an adventurous way – the much proven, travel immersion! Living in Russophone countries imparts learner loads and loads of advantages besides an experience of a lifetime to cherish, if you have the time and the resources! Living in the environment of the language does have a lot to offer but what to do, in case that’s not feasible? Try seeking conversation partners in your neighbourhood, or a Russian community in and around. Assuming for some reason even these aren’t an option? Then we peacefully rest ourselves on the online community of native speakers at Italki, Hello Talk, Tandem and many more to communicate and seek feedback.
• Listen to as many reliable audio resources you can find online. It not only improves your listening but also helps you improvise on your speaking skills. Mimicking is the first basic technique that a child learns when days old to speak to his parents. Utilize this technique to the best of your ability. Ape the audio material, record yourself and repeat! 
• Use mnemonics to your advantage!
• Why leave YouTube behind?! Look for video lessons, audio pronunciations and so much more!
• Look for useful and effective resources. There is a wealth of resources online but it takes a sharp eye to separate great from mediocre! 
• Look for good books such as “The Berlitz Self-Teacher: Russian” by Berlitz” or Natasha Alexandrova’s “Russian Step by Step”.
• Surf through scribd.com. Lessons based on simple sentences are easy to learn, with the basics of grammar explained with the sentence usage that have change over time.
• Learning can be a challenge as an adult, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Just remember mankind is known to push in the face of adversity and challenges “Achieving the Unachievable” since ages!
• Learn Russian alphabets the sing along the way, just as it is taught to children in elementary school. Learn a new language starting with the ABC’s, singing along the tune. Russian toddlers learn the Песня русского алфавита (Russian Alphabet Song), something they will remember even as they grow up!
• An enlightening tip!
• Did you know, Alzheimer patients forget the names of their spouses and children but almost never forget the lyrics to songs! There is a connection between language and music.
• Learn Russian through music! When we sing along with songs we match the accent, speed, pitch, tonality and grammar. 
• Finally there is no progress without practice. Practise, review, repeat! 

Each journey starts with the first step. The idea of learning a new language can definitely be overwhelming. So many words! Unusual grammar! Maybe even a completely new alphabet to learn from scratch! Nevertheless, learning a language isn’t something that needs to take years and years of study. There are many people who become adept at multiple languages as adults.

There’s an amazing new way to learn Russian! Want to see what everyone’s talking about!

Click here.