If you’ve always dreamed of a trip to Russia, or want to learn some basics to show off to friends, here are a couple words that look and sound similar to English to peak your interest.
- му́зыка = music
- аэропо́рт = airport
- Интерне́т = internet
Unlike the hundreds or thousands of characters in writing systems like Mandarin Chinese, Russian has only 33 characters in the Cyrillic alphabet. Once you’ve mastered the structure of the characters, learning to match them with sounds isn’t as difficult. Many of the sounds mimic those in the English alphabet.
There aren’t many diacritic marks to guide the pronunciation of Russian. The exception is the acute sign, which is used to show stress on the vowels. For example, the word for castle (за́мок) and lock (замо́к) in Russian are spelled the same. However they are distinguished by the pronunciation of stress on the different vowel sounds. In the word castle, the stress is on the first syllable of the vowel (за́мок,) but in lock, it is on the second (замо́к.)
Perfecting your pronunciation will rely on you receiving immediate and accurate feedback on your Russian pronunciation attempts. Rosetta Stone’s TruAccent™ speech-recognition engine is the tool to guide you to the correct pronunciation. Our patented speech technology compares your voice to native speakers instantly, so you get real-time feedback for the most accurate pronunciation. It’s also adjustable, which allows you to perfect your accent. TruAccent is a powerful tool for helping you learn and speak the Russian language.
Learn To Speak Russian
Learning a language like Russian isn’t just about knowing handy phrases for a vacation. It also opens the door to a world of new experiences, and is a highly marketable language in business, academics, and government. If your travel plans do take you to Russia, it’s important to speak at least a little Russian. Unlike most parts of Europe, those who speak English are not as common, with only 30% of Russians who are able to speak or understand English.
As with any other language, the ease in which you learn Russian is going to be a result of the time you have to commit, the ability to incorporate learning into your daily practice, and the quality of your language learning program. Rosetta Stone makes fitting language learning into your daily commitments as convenient as possible with bite-sized lessons that sync across all your devices. This allows you to make consistent daily progress on learning Russian.
Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion® methodology will teach you to speak the language, not just memorize the words. What makes it so effective is that we prepare you to use your new language in your everyday life. It’s not just about the features, but what you’re able to do because of them. You’ll be ready to handle situations in Russian with confidence.
Try Our Award-Winning App
Surround yourself with Russian whenever, wherever with the Rosetta Stone app .
Download a unit and knock it out on the train or a flight. Select a 5-10 minute lesson and sneak it in while you wait in line or for your ride to show up. And explore dynamic features, like Seek and Speak, where you can point at an object in the real world and get a translation .
The best part? You don’t have to choose between app or desktop. Both come with your subscription and sync, so you can switch between devices seamlessly.
