FREE material to help you learn Russian?
We all love to get things for free, but the fact is, you generally get what you pay for. And the most important thing to remember is that your time is valuable. If you want to learn Russian, it really doesn't matter how much a program costs. What matters is that it can save you time, and make your time spent more enjoyable and effective. What's that worth?
Can you learn Russian using only free material? Of course! There's a lot of good material for learning Russian, provided by generous Russians who have put in a lot of time and effort with little or no financial reward. And trust me, money from Google ads might add up to a hundred dollars every few years. So if there is a 'donate' button on their site and you like their material, please donate.
Please enjoy our FREE material to learn Russian.
We want to help as many people as possible to learn Russian, so we're also happy to give a lot for free. And of course, we want to show you just how helpful our program is so that you'll want to join as a full member.
The material listed on the right, complete with 'active text' audio and videos, will really help you learn Russian and practice your listening and speaking skills. And to help you really 'hammer home' everything you're learning, we're busy creating a new series of exercise pages. We already have a lot of exercises for those who have learned to type Russian, and now we're doing a new series that doesn't require typing and focuses on those nasty grammar details that are so hard to remember. Enjoy!
Basic Grammar Exercises :
Level 0 (very basic) :
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Level 1 (basic) :
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Level 2 (basic plus) :
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Level 3 (pre-intermediate) :
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Level 4 (intermediate) :
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More about learning Russian.
So why am I going to all this effort to create a "NEW method to learn Russian"? Well, because I think it can be a big, big help to anyone trying to learn Russian. I've seen all the other material and programs, and nothing has even come close to answering all my detailed questions. So, why not layout everything I learn for others to follow? That's what I'm doing.
Why not give it to everyone for free? Basically I believe that nothing is free. 'Free' simply means somebody else paid for you. And for those doing all the work, either they have another job where they earn a living, or their spouse is earning a living for both of them. And trust me, it's a TON of work to make these websites for learning Russian.
I have a good friend in the UK who does an enormous amount of work making a free website for learning Russian, WikiTranslate.org. She's a wonderful lady and is getting a lot of support from many people but I don't find it effective for learning Russian.
Similarly with all the 'social' language sites like LingQ, LiveMocha, etc. There is some good material there, but it's just a collection from various contributors with no clear plan for how to get from A to Z.
I want to create a clear path that everyone/anyone can follow. Thus, it needs to include every detail of the Russian language, and the relation to English thinking, and it needs to allow for as much or as little repetition as is needed by each individual learner.
Most people tell me that that's an impossible task, but I'm willing to prove them wrong. Certainly it's very difficult and will take (has taken) an incredible amount of time, but I already know that it's completely possible.
Other people tell me that it's already been done, and the method for learning / teaching Russian most effectively has been known and used for hundreds of years. Well, maybe for native Russian kids, but the explanations that are used for them make absolutely no sense to me.
And all the Russian speakers who have helped me develop my program have all discovered that Russian really is an incredibly difficult language to learn and they're very thankful that they learned it as a child.
There's nothing really 'magical' or 'mysterious' in what's needed to make a high quality, effective language learning program. As a student you quickly realize what you need and when you find it, if you can find it, you latch on to it quickly. Many teachers use such methods and a few took the time and effort (and expense) to reach out to millions of students. (Pimsleur, Berlitz, Michelle Thomas, etc)
There are good aspects to each of these programs, and others, but none of them really have everything a student needs. They all discovered 'part of the solution' then focused on the 'business of teaching languages' and making money.
My focus is simply to keep making the program better and better. I'm constantly discovering new details and getting new ideas, and I want to implement them into the program. Having members who are paying $10 a month simply keeps me motivated and working on the program. It doesn't matter if that's a 'salary' of less than $1 an hour, it's simply a means of knowing that my efforts are appreciated. That's enough for me.
