large groups studying russian

Proven Course Teaches Russian Quickly with Audio, Video and Mobile Apps

Beginner and advanced levels alike will enjoy RussianPod101, an excellent online and mobile way to learn Russian quickly.

RussianPod101's fun method and modern platform immerse you in the Russian language, giving you just what you need to achieve your goals for travel, business, family and other needs.

RussianPod101 is web and mobile based, giving you a custom Russian Learning Center anywhere. Download podcasts on your iPhone, Android, iPod Touch, iPod or any mp3 player and take them with you for practice and learning on the go.

High-Quality Content for Learning Russian

A key aspect to learning a language is quality content. RussianPod101 creates a steady flow of fresh content covering everything from cultural aspects of Russian to tidbits about navigating in Russia, plus practical information to help you get by.

Beyond Audio and Video

Engage in a combination of audio and video lessons, lesson notes and checklists, transcripts, PDFs, vocabulary training with flashcards and quizzes plus a Russian dictionary, grammar bank, a verb reference, social network and plenty more.

It's simple to get a free lifetime account.

Outstanding Language Resource Localized in 20 Languages

Bab.la offers free dictionaries, vocabulary sets, flash cards, quizzes, games, conjugation tables, phrases, travel survival guides, a forum and, yes, even more.

The website is localized in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto (!), French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish and Turkish. Wow!

What does "localized" mean?

"Localized" (localised in British English) means that Bab.la's interface is available in all these languages, so speakers can surf the site in their native tongue. This can be useful for intermediate and advanced learners who want the challenge of surfing in their target language.

Learning Resources for 20 Languages

All the above languages also have learning resources available!

Of special note on Bab.la are the free Survival Guides, downloadable PDFs for quick access to phrases and language essential for travel conversation, complaints and computers. Chatting, computing and complaining has never been so simple!

The phrasebooks available are also of special note, as they cover quite a lot of ground that is often not covered in traditional phrasebooks. These are separated into four main categories: Application, Academic, Business and Personal, and are available for all the languages above - quite a boon to anyone needing quick access to phrases used commonly in application processes and academic, business and personal settings.

To give a quick example of this, you can quickly find useful common phrases for email communication, invoicing, reference letters, announcements and invitations, reservations and more.

Dictionaries, Vocabulary Sets, Quizzes, Games and Conjugation Tables

The dictionary area of Bab.la offers quick and easy translation between all the languages above.

The vocabulary section offers vocab sets for job, school & university, travel, self-study, fun & hobbies and official exams.

The quizzes and games are fun for children and can even help keep teens and adults entertained while learning.

The conjugation tables are quite useful for the appropriate languages, which currently include Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Portuguese. Some of these are also offered in sets, such as Polish <> German or French <> Italian, for the polyglots out there who like learning another language via a foreign language they already know :)

Tools: Broswser Plugins, Webmaster Widgets, Mobile Apps

All in all, Bab.la offers an amazing amount of material for free! There's even more that hasn't been covered here which is included in their Tools section. This includes dictionary toolbars and plugins for common browsers, dictionary widgets for websites and mobile dictionary apps (the apps are not free).

Have Fun Learning Russian Fast

Busuu Russian offers Russian learners a dynamic combination of online lessons, language exchange and mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android.

Busuu offers many of their features for free :) This includes picture-based vocabulary training, writing exercises, reading comprehension exercises, video chat, interactive exams and a bustling community for social exchange in Russian.

The Busuu system allows you to keep a track record of your Russian studies and mark your progress as you complete each lesson. You can work through your lessons at any time, enabling you to fit your study schedule into your daily life however you choose.

Find Friends and Practice or Exchange

Finding friends is easy in the Busuu community! Quickly search and contact other Russian learners to practice with as well as exchange partners to share and trade with. Plus, there's a free video chat function for easy access to language exchanges right in the same interface you're using to learn.

Stay Motivated in Style

In order to keep you motivated, Busuu has created a beautiful interface which allows you to grow and visualize your own language garden as you make progress learning Russian. If you are interested in learning more than one language, you will have a tree for each language that sprouts and shoots to the sky as you progress through the lessons and levels. It's quite a thrill to see this grow and know it's a visual representation of your language skills!

Free Russian Mobile App for iOS and Android

Busuu offers free mobile apps for learning Russian on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android. The free app takes you through the basics for getting around, and is especially useful while traveling.

Summary

LearningRussian.Net is a good entry point for beginner Russian learners. The site provides clear lessons on the basics of the Russian language, including the alphabet, verb conjugations and aspects, case forms, pronouns, numerals, mood and more. There is also a number of introductory level lessons on meeting and greeting, introductions, fun and games, directions and congratulations - with more lessons being added regularly.

Of special note are their Russian-English dual-language texts available right through the site! Currently the beginning chapters of two novels are available in dual-text format: Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy and Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Audio is also being integrated into the site as this article goes to press, so expect more audio soon.

From Website

Learn Russian language with Free Lessons

If you are feeling excited about learning how to speak and understand Russian, this is the right place to be. Designed to become the best online destination for Russian language study, our website offers free high-quality Russian lessons with audio recordings, online dictionaries, original texts of Russian literature classics, and other practical resources to help you learn the Russian language. Our site is absolutely free for you to use and we plan to keep running it as a totally free service for everyone.

Visit LearningRussian.Net

Summary

If you don't know about Wikipedia, now is the time to find out! Especially since it is so useful in learning languages.

Wikipedia is the "Free Encyclopedia", a collectively-authored, dynamic, online encyclopedia that is free not only as in price, but also as in freedom. This means that the content you find anywhere on Wikipedia is free and open in the Public Domain. You can reproduce, redistribute and rehash the information there. This is empowered by the GNU Free Documentation License. This same license protects and empowers the content on Free Language! (How?)

This particular resource links to the Wikipedia entry on the Russian language. This entry contains loads of information for the curious reader as well as for the serious Russian language learner, including historical and linguistic data.

Use this resource to become familiar with the Russian language and its context in today's world, to discover facts and linguistic data about Russian and its many varieties, access further information about and resources for learning Russian, and much more.

From Resource

Russian (русский язык), transliteration: Russkiy yazyk, [ˈruskʲɪj jɪˈzɨk]) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the East Slavic languages; the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian).

Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards. While Russian preserves much of East Slavonic grammar and a Common Slavonic word base, modern Russian exhibits a large stock of borrowed international vocabulary for politics, science, and technology. Due to the status of the Soviet Union as a superpower, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century. Hence, the language is still one of the official languages of the United Nations.

Russian has palatal secondary articulation of consonants, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found in almost all consonant phonemes and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels, which is not entirely unlike that of English. Stress in Russian is generally quite unpredictable and can be placed on almost any syllable. Syllabic stress is one of the most difficult aspects for foreign language learners.

Link

Visit "Russian Language" on Wikipedia.

License

GNU Free Documentation License