Learn Russian

Start at the alphabet

The Russian on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 472 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Russian voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random.

• 33letters
• 10digits
• 9pronunciation rules
• 300core words
• 60everyday phrases
• 60sentences

Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the course teaches them:

• о (unstressed) — an unstressed о sounds like “a”молоко — milk
• stress — stress falls unpredictably — its vowel is clear, the others blurутро — morning
• б в г д ж з (final) — voiced consonants at the end of a word turn voicelessхлеб — bread

Then material that does not run out

Once you are reading, the level is the point. Make a text writes Russian at the CEFR level, length, topic and format you ask for, so the step up is a setting rather than a new book. Speaking scores you word by word as you read aloud. Lexi talks back. The Translator fixes your mistakes as it translates and can give a simpler version at your level, and Writing marks what you wrote and says why.

Above the on-ramp sits the Course — a map of practice steps from A1 to C2 with grammar, vocabulary and a level test at the top of each level — and My words, where everything you save comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule in eight quiz styles.

What Russian actually costs a beginner

Stress falls unpredictably, and it decides what the vowels say — the stressed one is clear and the others blur, so an unstressed о comes out as an a and молоко is said malakó. A learner who has stored a word without its stress has stored something they cannot yet say, which is why every word in this course is spoken and not only spelled. Below that: voiced consonants turn voiceless at the end of a word, so хлеб ends in a p, and the soft sign ь changes the consonant in front of it while making no sound of its own.