Things To Know Before Learning Russian

In this video, I go over the things one would need to know before learning Russian. Before immediately explaining these things, I begin by describing the different methods of teaching that I will use for future videos. Russian is a complicated language that requires more understanding and feel, as opposed to simpler languages like English and Spanish. I plan on making a change in teaching, explaining concepts much slower, and describing ideas as simply as possible. For people who only speak English (or who use English as a placeholder to learn other languages), this video and further videos will make perfect sense to you. I hope that I can teach the Russian language and its fundamentals with more accuracy and make your learning as easy as possible, as I put myself in the position of those who only speak English. However, as a native speaker, I assure you that there are things to know before learning Russian grammar. In the video, I go over everything in-depth, but to keep things short, here is their order in the description:

Things to know before learning Russian (compared to English):

1. There is a big difference between literal and spoken Russian
2. There is a big difference between typed and written Russian
3. Russian has no definite or indefinite articles (̶t̶h̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶)
4. Russian has no sense of progression ( ̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶i̶p̶l̶e̶s̶)
5. Russian has no perfect tenses ( ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶/̶h̶a̶d̶/̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶/̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶i̶p̶l̶e̶s̶)
6. Russian doesn’t use the verb “to be” in the present ( ̶a̶m̶,̶ ̶i̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶)
7. Russian has only three tenses of time: past, present, future
8. Russian nouns have three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter (neutral)
9. Russian has a devocalization of consonants (hard and soft consonants can sound differently)
10. Russian has vowel reduction (vowels can sound differently)
11. Russian has stress on syllables (pronouncing one word differently can make two different words)
12. Russian has a flexible sentence structure (Subject-verb-object, SOV, OSV, OVS, VOS, VSO)
13. Russian has declensions (6 cases or 6 different ways to modify words)
14. Russian is an extremely expressive language (based on emotions and sounds)

Here are some links for further explanations, in case you’re interested in learning more about these concepts that I went over in the video:

For further explanation on Cyrillic cursive Russian:

For further explanation on consonants and vowels in Russian:

For further explanation on the 6 Russian cases/6 Russian expressions:

For further explanation on things to know before learning Russian:

Feel free to share this video with people you know who love learning languages or with people in general. I very much appreciate the support.

About me:

I’m Alex, and I’m a student at UNLV. As I major in Spanish, I advance in my linguistic skills, learn new concepts, and understand how learning within languages works. I’m fluent in Russian, Hebrew, and English, and I’m learning Spanish and German. I’m simply trying to make languages seem very easy.

My social media outlets, if you want to check them out:

[MrPolky]

I’m glad YouTube recommended me your 4 hr Spanish video. Been looking for a place to help me learn Russian 👍

[Riitumnoke]

As a Finnish person I noticed a fun thing : D “будка” (🇫🇮=Putka) is a slang word in Finnish meaning jail! We also have more slang words borrowed from Russia, for example за́втрак —> safka, which means food! Was cool to notice :)

[ill_illo]

Gran video amigo, te has ganado un subscriptor.
Saludos desde España

[a.d.n]

The flexible word order thing you mentioned is also in farsi, my native language
Based on changing the word order you can change what you mean and even the VOS Being the poetic version.
And i just find it so cool how you always find random similarities between seemingly unrelated languages out of nowhere.
I'm not currently studying russian but will be looking forward to your videos to get a good base on it, as i am planning to study it in the future.
Good high quality videos man👍 big respect

[whiffs]

Thanks for this video and this channel in general. Your spanish fundamental video has tremendously helped me develop an understanding of spanish that has me motivated to continue learning. It was very well put together and I know its going to help thousands of people.
I doubt I'll ever be a polyglot, but learning spanish has made me want to see how other languages work and how they are set up. Seeing how other people speak just makes you see and think about things differently.
Please keep the lessons coming🙂

[venatorpaul]

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

[devin]

I wish there was this for Brazilian portuguese as well it’s difficult to change the expectations in my mind of how a language conveys ideas

[Ab-cjgl]

awesome. i'm trying to learn russian

[NeonBeeCat]

Im a native English speaker, Russian learner, and the first thing I ever learned was how to write in cursive lol. (Btw the photo you used in the video is Ukrainian not Russian cursive)

[stuckinsj]

Every language is "extremely expressive." Human languages aren't comparative this way as long as humans need to express the entirety of human experience. Number14 seems to be on this list to apologize for the first thirteen things when it does not need to.

[roxanadanielsson]

I know Swedish, English and Spanish. is there any advantage for me who is trying to learn Russian?

[glebbaburin]

Красиво объяснил, где бы найти такое по французскому)
Мб было бы проще дать список задач, которые стоят перед языками(хз на скольких лингвисты сошлись, пару десятков наверно), и отдельно разобрать то, как они решают поставлененные перед собой задачи. Ибо все равно объяснять концепты русского через английские понятия немного странно, а так можно сразу брать определенную задачу и сравнивать, мол, в английском для понимания, кто совершает действие есть порядок слов, в русском же язык придумал систему падежей, и у кого именительный падеж - тот и субъект.
Удачи

[Eques_Mors]

you said you don't recommend learning russian using english. my mother language is portuguese, is it better to try to learn in Portuguese?

[philippe-I]

Mikel Hyperpilyglot method for learning languages i superior to whatever garbage grammatical based you using ❤

[PerdoSanchez-stib]

Будка or бутка, does not metter, Russians will understand you. Just do not say путка. 😂

[philippe-I]

This video is one of the worst in the matter 🔥🔥🔥