Learn Russian together

Writing and sounding the first half of the Russian alphabet.

1. А to Е: the first six letters
2. Ж to Л: six more
3. М to С: the letters that look Latin
4. Checkpoint: А to С
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The last letters, the two signs, and your first Russian words.

1. Т to Ч: six more letters
2. Ш to Я: the last eight
3. Your first Russian words
4. Checkpoint: the whole alphabet
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The letters, the sounds they hide, and how stress rules Russian reading.

1. Letters you already know
2. The new letters
3. Stress and the vowels it moves
4. Checkpoint: The Cyrillic Alphabet
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Hello and goodbye, your name, and the ты/вы line that runs through every Russian conversation.

1. Hello and goodbye
2. What is your name?
3. How are you? Where are you from?
4. Checkpoint: Meeting People
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Кто это? Что это? and the three genders every Russian noun belongs to.

1. Who is this? What is this?
2. Он, она, оно: every noun has a gender
3. Мой, твой, чей: whose thing is this?
4. Checkpoint: это, gender and чей
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Plurals, adjectives, and the first way to say a thing exists – or does not.

1. More than one
2. What kind? Adjectives
3. У меня есть: having and not having
4. Checkpoint: One and Many
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Counting, prices, age and the phone number you have to read out loud.

1. Zero to twenty
2. Twenty to a thousand: prices
3. How old are you?
4. Checkpoint: Numbers
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The two conjugations, and what a Russian verb tells you about who is doing it.

1. First conjugation: работать, знать, читать
2. Second conjugation: говорить, смотреть, любить
3. Verbs that do their own thing
4. Checkpoint: Verbs in the Present
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The first case with a job of its own: в and на for the place you are.

1. Where you are: в школе, на работе
2. Talking about something: о чём? о ком?
3. When the ending is not -е
4. Checkpoint: Where? The Prepositional Case
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

What the verb acts on, and where you are going.

1. The direct object: Я читаю книгу
2. A living object: Я вижу брата
3. Where are you going? В школу, на работу
4. Checkpoint: Что? Кого? Куда?
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The clock, the week, and the parts of a day you plan your life around.

1. The days of the week
2. What time is it?
3. Morning, day, evening, night
4. Checkpoint: Time and Days
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Ordering, buying, and asking for what you want without a grammar book.

1. Food and drink: я хочу, я буду
2. In a cafe: ordering with Дайте and Можно
3. In a shop: the price question and килограмм сахара
4. Checkpoint: ordering, prices and quantities
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The easiest tense in Russian – and the one that makes you agree with the speaker's gender.

1. The past tense: -л, -ла, -ло, -ли
2. The past of быть and the frozen не было
3. Telling what happened: сначала, потом, вчера
4. Checkpoint: the past and не было
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The choice a Russian speaker makes in every single sentence about the past or the future.

1. Two verbs for one action
2. The result: perfective in the past
3. The process and the habit: imperfective
4. Checkpoint: Aspect
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Two futures, and the aspect decides which one you get.

1. Буду plus an infinitive: the future you describe
2. The simple future: сделаю and приду
3. Talking about plans: собираться and хотеть
4. Checkpoint: both futures and the plans
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Absence, ownership, quantity – the case Russian uses most.

1. Нет plus the genitive: saying what is missing
2. Whose thing is it: книга брата
3. How much? Counting with the genitive
4. Checkpoint: The Genitive
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The person something is given to, happens to, or seems true to.

1. Кому? The person the action reaches
2. Мне нравится, мне холодно: when the person is not the subject
3. К and по: towards a person, along a street
4. Checkpoint: the dative in three jobs
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The tool, the companion, and what somebody becomes.

1. Чем? Writing with a pen, cutting with a knife
2. С кем? The companion, and what goes into the coffee
3. Кем? He became a doctor
4. Checkpoint: the tool, the companion, the role
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The famous Russian pairs, and the prefixes that turn them into a route.

1. One trip or many: идти and ходить
2. On wheels and in the air: ехать, ездить and the rest
3. Prefixes turn a verb into a route
4. Checkpoint: Verbs of Motion
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Describing, and saying that one thing beats another.

1. Adjectives in every case
2. Bigger, better, more interesting
3. The best of all
4. Checkpoint: Adjectives and Comparison
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The conjunctions that turn two sentences into one thought.

1. И, а, но: three words where other languages have two
2. Cause and consequence, in both directions
3. Reporting and wishing: что and чтобы
4. Checkpoint: Joining Ideas
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The same choice again, now where the textbook rules stop working.

1. Aspect in the infinitive
2. Aspect under negation
3. The prefix that changes the meaning
4. Checkpoint: Aspect in Depth
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Telling, asking and warning – and why the aspect changes the tone.

1. Making the imperative
2. Politeness around a command
3. Don't – the negative imperative
4. Checkpoint: The Imperative
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The -ся that turns a verb inwards, sideways, or upside down.

1. Doing it to yourself: the truly reflexive verbs
2. To each other, or to nobody at all
3. Verbs that exist only with the piece
4. Checkpoint: Reflexive Verbs
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Бы – one syllable that moves a whole sentence out of reality.

1. The бы sentence: a past form that is not the past
2. Если бы ..., то ...: the condition that did not come true
3. Чтобы after wishing, asking and fearing
4. Checkpoint: conditions and wishes
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Который, когда, пока – and where the comma goes.

1. Который: the word that carries two jobs at once
2. Putting two events in order in time
3. Cause, purpose and result clauses
4. Checkpoint: Complex Sentences
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Passing on what somebody said, asked or told you to do.

1. Passing on a statement: он сказал, что
2. Passing on a question: ли and the question word
3. Passing on a request or an order: the infinitive and чтобы
4. Checkpoint: reported speech
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Можно, нужно, холодно – Russian's favourite way of saying something is true.

1. Можно, нужно, нельзя, надо: saying it without a subject
2. Мне холодно, здесь темно: words that are the whole sentence
3. Somebody did it, and nobody says who
4. Checkpoint: sentences without a subject
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The part of Russian grammar native speakers get wrong too.

1. Ordinals, dates and the year
2. Declining a numeral
3. Time spans and deadlines
4. Checkpoint: Numbers, Dates and Quantity
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Opinion, agreement, and the little words that carry the tone.

1. What I think: marking an opinion as yours
2. Agreeing, refusing and the space between
3. Же, ведь, ну, вот, -то: the particles that carry the tone
4. Checkpoint: Talking Like a Person
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The verb that learned to behave like an adjective.

1. Active participles
2. Passive participles
3. The participial phrase
4. Checkpoint: Participles
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Two actions of one person in a single sentence.

1. Reading, thinking, waiting: -я
2. Having read: -в / -вши
3. The rule everybody breaks
4. Checkpoint: Verbal Adverbs
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Nineteen prefixes, and a verb for every shade of an action.

1. Prefixes of space
2. Prefixes of time and measure
3. The prefix changes the government
4. Checkpoint: Verbal Prefixes
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Which case a word demands, and why the dictionary is not enough.

1. Verbs with a case you would not guess
2. Prepositions that compete
3. Nouns and adjectives with their own case
4. Checkpoint: Government and Prepositions
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Must, ought, might – Russian's many ways of grading a claim.

1. Obligation and its degrees
2. How certain am I
3. Advice, permission and reproach
4. Checkpoint: Modality and Nuance
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The same thought in four different Russians.

1. Spoken Russian on paper
2. Official Russian
3. The press and the headline
4. Checkpoint: Register and Style
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Collocation, the layer of a language a dictionary hides.

1. Verbs that go with the noun
2. Near-synonyms
3. The pairs Russians confuse
4. Checkpoint: Words That Travel Together
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

What holds a paragraph together when the sentences are already correct.

1. Connectors of written Russian
2. Word order carries the news
3. A B2 text end to end
4. Checkpoint: Building a Text
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Reading a word you have never met, from the inside out.

1. Roots and their families
2. Suffixes that build meaning
3. Guessing a word you have never seen
4. Checkpoint: Word Formation
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Where both forms are correct and the difference is the message.

1. Aspect where the rule runs out
2. Tenses inside a story
3. Repeated, single, or almost
4. Checkpoint: Fine Aspect and Tense
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Lighting up one word in a sentence that has no articles.

1. Word order as emphasis
2. The particles that point
3. Splitting and repeating for effect
4. Checkpoint: Emphasis and Focus
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

What a Russian sentence means when it does not say it.

1. Refusing without saying no
2. Hint, understatement and irony
3. Softening bad news
4. Checkpoint: Reading Between the Lines
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Thesis, evidence, objection, conclusion.

1. Stating and supporting a claim
2. Concession and objection
3. Academic Russian
4. Checkpoint: Building an Argument
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The expressions a dictionary translates word by word and gets wrong.

1. Everyday idioms
2. Proverbs
3. Winged words
4. Checkpoint: Idioms and Set Phrases
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The difference between correct Russian and Russian a Russian would say.

1. How speech really sounds
2. Fillers and hesitation
3. Rhythm and the shape of a spoken turn
4. Checkpoint: Sounding Natural
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The constructions that only appear in careful, high-level Russian.

1. Constructions with бы and не
2. Bookish and archaic forms
3. Agreement at its hardest
4. Checkpoint: Grammar at the Edge
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Pairs a dictionary translates identically and a native never confuses.

1. Near-identical verbs
2. Cases and prepositions in dispute
3. Aspect where either is possible
4. Checkpoint: Hair-Splitting Distinctions
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Slang, humour and the Russian that never reaches a textbook.

1. Slang and youth speech
2. Humour and wordplay
3. Internet Russian
4. Checkpoint: Living Language
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Making a correct sentence into a good one.

1. Rhythm and sound
2. Image and metaphor
3. Editing: taking things out
4. Checkpoint: The Craft of Style
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Writing that has to be right, not just clear.

1. Scientific and technical Russian
2. Numbers said carefully
3. Speaking in public
4. Checkpoint: The Expert Voice
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The layer of Russian that is not in the grammar.

1. Words with no equivalent
2. Shared references
3. Names, address and the diminutive ladder
4. Checkpoint: Culture Inside Words
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

Everything at once, at a native speaker's length and speed.

1. The fine print
2. A difficult text, read properly
3. At native length and speed
4. Checkpoint: The Summit
5. Reading, listening and 10 questions