When you tell someone you're learning Russian, there's a good chance you'll hear something like:

You’ve been learning Russian for months.

You know the word.

This sounds simple, but I think it's one of the most important changes you can make.

2. Practice Answering Questions Out Loud

3. Give Yourself a Time Limit

4. Learn Phrases as Chunks

5. Build a Small Arsenal of “Thinking Phrases”

6. Practice Talking Around a Word You Forgot

7. Practice the Russian You Are Actually Likely to Use

8. Repeat the Same Conversation More Than Once

9. Don't Immediately Switch Back to English

10. Use the Word Again After You Forget It

When I tell people I’m learning Russian, I often hear: “Russian? Why?” It’s a fair question. Spanish is everywhere in the U.S., French spans continents, and Japanese/Korean have huge cultural pull. Russian seems… less obvious.

One of the things I’ve learned while studying Russian is that knowing a word and knowing how that word actually sounds can be two very different things.

When you first start learning Russian, you spend a lot of time learning useful words and phrases.

One of the questions I get asked is why I decided to build my own Russian learning app. The answer is simple: because I built the app I wish I had when I started.

The truth is, I enjoy it.

One of the easiest word pairs to remember in Russian is включить (to turn on) and выключить (to turn off). At first glance they look almost identical, and that's actually what makes them easier to learn.