The Russian language or the Cyrillic language was basically spread to Europe in the ninth century where the monks used it to write the bible or the orthodox religious books to spread it to the whole of Europe and they succeeded.

Learning Russian language now is the sixth most spread language in the whole world and takes the first place as the most spoken eastern Slavic language, between native speakers and second-language speakers.

Due to the differences in the language origin roots between Russian and most of the European languages and definitely Arabic as well, you may find some unique characteristics.

The characteristics of the Russian Alphabet

The Russian language, unlike the hindu European languages in Europe or Asia, comes from the old Slavic origins that used the Cryllic system familiar to some languages in Eastern Europe.

And it’s used in plenty of countries that were likely under the soviet union formerly, alongside Russia for sure, and the Cyrillic alphabet was using the old Creek alphabet, and some of its characteristics are:

• The Russian alphabet has 33 letters which are А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я.
• It has 20 consonants: Including б, в, г, д, ж, з, к, л, м, н, п, р, с, т, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, and щ
• And also 10 vowels: Including а, э, ы, у, о, я, е, ё, ю, and и
• You can see that there are some letters that are similar to the Latin language in how they are written but not in the same way as the letter B which is pronounced like V and the letter S which is pronounced like C.
• On the other hand, there are some sounds and letters that don’t have an equal in the English language like Ё, Ж, Ц, and Щ.
• We also have what is called modifiers: which are some sounds that are added mainly to modify the sounds after them, but they don’t really have an actual sound like ъ and ь.

The Basic rules of the Russian language

The Russian language Grammar could be one of the most unique grammar in the whole world and you probably didn’t get exposed to it unless you lived in Russia or in a European country that has a Slavic origin.

We’re going to mention some of the main rules that the Russian language has:

• For nouns, pronouns and Adjectives

• In the Russian language nouns and adjectives are conjugated according to gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), besides the six cases that are nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional.
• The endings of the nouns and adjectives and the pronouns are based on gender, case, and number.

• For verbs

• Russian verbs are conjugated according to the Tense (present, past, future), person or pronoun (I/ you/ He/ She/ They) and number (singular or plural).
• Every Ending and verb group has its own verb conjugation pattern, that’s why you should be focused when you deal with them if you are a beginner.
• There are two verb aspects: the imperfective aspect indicated the ongoing or repeated actions, while the perfective indicates the completed actions.

• The sentence structure in Russian is basically subject, object, and verb, but their order is flexible depending on the intention of the speaker and whether it’s a confirmation or a negative or question, and both of them have different forms.

How to learn Russian for beginners

As a beginner, learning Russian language could be a challenge specially if you didn’t have any experience with it or with a similar language, but nothing is impossible with trying, then let’s mention some of the main advice for beginners to learn Russian for beginners:

• Establish basis

As with everything you want to learn in the beginning, building the basis is the most crucial step to mastering the language, so you must focus on learning the alphabet and how the sounds are pronounced properly, alongside numbers, and some simple phrases.

• Create a system

The process of learning the language is a pretty long one, and you must be already familiar with that, so you will need to consider creating a system to identify your level and your daily practice and how you would do that.

• Listen a lot

The first thing we did since our birth to learn our language was to listen carefully to it, how it’s pronounced, and how people use it, so consider training yourself to listen a lot whatever the source is, whether a podcast or a tv show.

• Practice speaking

One of the highly infected skills of the language by practice is the speaking skill, which is no matter how much time you spend on studying but you didn’t use your tongue, you won’t find it with any use so consider speaking even if you didn’t have a partner.

• Reading

Reading is a very essential skill not just to develop how sounds are pronounced or the speaking skill, its also a good source of vocabulary and phrases that you can learn and memorise and then use to express, and you can start reading short stories or easy texts that you prefer.

• Writing

You shouldn’t ignore working on your writing skill, as it helps to support the process of learning, and you can also start by writing short texts.

• References and dictionaries 

As a beginner you will find yourself in the first period when you start learning the Russian language that you can’t leave your references and dictionaries, and they are actually great sources in learning the meaning of the words and also explain the grammatical usages.

• Connection

Many people are now learning new languages from everywhere on earth, so you might put yourself in a polyglot community maybe on social media or live where you can learn from people with experience and also can help you find your own way.

• The sources

The internet is filled with educational sources that you can find useful to learn the Russian language as a beginner, whether you prefer the written or the visual, but be mindful when you choose the source to suit your level.

And we’re recommending that you try our courses on Elmadrassa.com to learn Russian where you can find:

• A group of highly experienced staff that are qualified to teach you the Russian language.
• Flexible time schedules
• Varied methods that suit your preferences
• Helping you through any difficulty or question during the course and outside of it.

And finally, you can learn the Russian language only through consistency and perseverance to learn it, and building your own plans, and it will be easier than you think.