The fastest way to learn Russian is to spend most of your study time on Russian you can mostly understand. That kind of Russian is called comprehensible input. What you read and listen to should change as you improve, so the plan below shows what to do at each level and how to split an hour of study.
What to Do at Each Level
Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.
- First Week
I can't read Cyrillic yet.
Learn Cyrillic 40 min. Listen 20 min.
The Russian alphabet has 33 letters, and some of them, such as Р and Н, look like English letters but stand for different sounds. Learn them first, and listen to easy Russian while you do, so the sounds start to feel familiar.
- Level 1
I can sound out words but not much else.
Read and listen 35 min. Review 15 min. Speak 10 min.
Read short dialogues with audio and a translation, and watch videos made for complete beginners. Review the words you saved, then say a few lines out loud the way the speakers do.
- Level 2
I can read simple sentences.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 10 min. Speak 10 min.
Hide the translation and look up only the words that stop you. Listen to easy stories told in Russian, and retell one in a few sentences to a tutor or a friend.
- Level 3
I can read short stories and messages.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 5 min. Speak 15 min.
Add a podcast made for learners, and listen to each lesson once more without reading along. Talk about what you heard for longer.
- Level 4
I can read longer texts about everyday life.
Read and watch 45 min. Review 5 min. Speak 10 min.
Watch street interviews with the Russian subtitles on, and replay any line that goes too fast.
- Level 5
I can follow complex topics, but miss some details.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read and watch the news in Russian, and look up only the words that block the story.
- Level 6
I can follow detailed arguments and different writing styles.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read novels and long essays, and talk about them, for their own sake.
Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Russian?
Russian takes 1,012 class hours, or about 44 weeks of full-time study, to reach professional fluency, according to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. That puts Russian in the third of its four groups for English speakers, with Polish, Ukrainian and Greek.
| Language | FSI group | Full-time weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Category I | 30 |
| German | Category II | 36 |
| Russian, Polish | Category III | 44 |
| Japanese | Category IV | 88 |
St. Petersburg State University teaches Russian in four-week modules of 80 academic hours. Its first two levels, A1 and A2, take three modules each, or 480 hours together, and its third level, B1, adds four modules, for 800 hours in all. Here is how long those take at different amounts of study a week:
| Study per week | St. Petersburg A1–A2 (480 hours) | St. Petersburg A1–B1 (800 hours) | FSI professional fluency (1,012 hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 2⅔ years | About 4⅓ years | About 5½ years |
| 7 hours | About 16 months | About 2 years | About 2¾ years |
| 14 hours | About 8 months | About 13 months | About 17 months |
| 28 hours | About 4 months | About 7 months | About 8 months |
These are class hours, so treat them as a rough guide. Time you spend understanding Russian on your own counts too.
What Slows Learners Down
- Guessing the StressEveryday Russian text doesn't mark the stressed syllable. Learn each word with its sound, so you don't have to unlearn a wrong stress later.
- Case Tables AloneRussian nouns change their endings across six cases, and endings learned from a table are easy to forget until you meet them in sentences.
- Content Far Too HardA Russian film where you know one word in five teaches you very little.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Russian app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Russian, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Our Russian app comparison covers courses, tutors and speaking apps too.
Can I learn Russian in three months?
You can learn Cyrillic and enough Russian to order coffee and introduce yourself. At 14 hours a week, three months is about 180 hours, which is less than half of St. Petersburg State University's first two levels.
How much should I study Russian each week?
Aim for three to five hours a week of Russian you understand, in sessions of at least 15 to 30 minutes. A longer session lets you get lost in a story, which teaches more than five minutes a day, and steady time each week matters more than a daily streak. Our post on deep sessions over daily streaks explains why.
Is Russian hard for English speakers?
Yes, by the Foreign Service Institute's measure, it takes longer than Spanish or French. Its 44 weeks are about one and a half times the 30 weeks for Spanish, and half of the 88 weeks that Japanese and Korean take. The alphabet is the quick part, and most of the time goes into the words and the case endings, which you pick up fastest from Russian you understand.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
The Russian Cyrillic course and the Russian lessons on this site are also free and need no account.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Russian alphabet (33 letters; stress marked only in dictionaries, children's books and learner materials)
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (FSI language categories)
- St. Petersburg State University, Russian as a Foreign Language: General Course (80 academic hours per module, modules per level)
- OpenRussian, Russian noun declension (six cases)
