How to study Russian more easily?

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

The earliest known writing in Russia dates from the 10th century and was found at Novgorod. The main languages written on them in an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet were Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic. There are also some texts in Finnish, Latin and Greek. Russian started appearing in writing regularly during the reign of Peter the Great (a.k.a. Peter I) (1672-1725) who introduced a revised alphabet and encouraged authors to use a literary style closer to their spoken language. The ‘Moscow dialect’ was used as the basis for written Russian. Russian literature started to flower during the 19th century when Tolstoi, Dostoyevskii, Gogol and Pushkin were active. During the Soviet era knowledge of the Russian language was widespread though the subjects authors could write about were restricted.

• Improve your listening skills with multiple online resources such as talk shows, Russian news, audiobooks to name a few! 
• Watch Russian films with English subtitles and English films with Russian subtitles to accelerate your learning.
• Learn with songs, podcasts and anything that you can lay your hands on to get maximum of some spare time.
• Set realistic goals!
• Identify your unique style of learning that helps you ace the language.
• Read aloud to clear your pronunciation 
• Find a conversation partner to practice speaking with and seeking feedback.
• Identify Russian genuine and fake cognates
• Don’t be scared to try and make mistakes. We all do it. Why let that deter or embarrass you?!
• Remember self studying is NOT meant for everybody!
• Watch out of fake online Russian learning tools!
• Sign up for an intensive course.
• Restrict translating Russian words/phrases into English to when you are just new.! As you progress move away from it consciously. 
• Avoid writing in your head
• Maintain a journal of new phrases that will help you build your first conversation and not just words.
• Keep a Russian dictionary handy.
• Prioritize. Start with spoken Russian if the idea is to learn for business or travel! 
• Choose commonly used words to start a conversation rather than tougher ones that don’t find a way into day-to-day usage!
• Try and link Russian words/ phrases to images and visual situations, not English words.
• Study a language every day in short intervals or for about 2-4 hours, as much you can spare. Goes for Russian too. Studying regularly, for a short time, helps dramatically than trying to do it all in one sitting over weekends! 
• Practice without a blink. There’s no escape from practice and no shortcuts.  
• Engage in constant review to measure your progress – repetition is the key!

While all the above will help you ace your learning smoothly,  the best way to learn great Russian still remains through the full immersion method. A technique sworn by best of best, that can be daunting at first but has been proven to scale up your Russian Learning immaculately, in no time. To avoid feeling completely lost, you can reach out to any language centre in Russia to feel secure and anchored; that offers programs for all levels.

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