Russian

Starting Russian from zero

You're right at the beginning — a few words and phrases stick, but full sentences still come apart.

Everyone starts here, and the first months will be the most important. Not because they are the hardest — they are not — but because what you build now decides how much of the next two years is spent unlearning.

What is actually happening

Russian looks like it has three obstacles: a different alphabet, six cases, and verb aspect. Only one of those is a problem right now, and it is not the one people fear.

The alphabet takes a week. Genuinely. Around a third of the letters are the same as English, another third are Greek letters you half know, and the rest are new. People spend months dreading it and then it is over in a few evenings.

Cases are not your problem yet. You will meet the first one almost immediately — the form after в and на — but as a phrase, not as a system. Learn в школе as a thing you say, not as a prepositional case of школа, and you will be fine for months.

Sound is your problem. Specifically, that Russian words are longer than they look and stress moves. This is what makes listening impossible at the start, and it is what most beginners underinvest in.

What to do first

Listen far more than feels productive. At this stage you are not learning words, you are learning what Russian sounds like — where words end, which syllable carries the weight. Everything later is faster if this happens now.

Learn phrases, not words. A word learned alone has to be assembled into a sentence later; a phrase learned whole is already usable. Как дела, я не понимаю, ещё раз, пожалуйста — these are worth more than fifty nouns.

Do not start with grammar tables. You will be shown a six-by-three case chart early and it will teach you nothing you can use. It is a reference, not a lesson, and looking at it now mostly generates the feeling that Russian is impossible.

What to ignore for now

Aspect. Motion verbs. The genitive plural. All of them arrive at B1 and all of them are meaningless before you have sentences to put them in. If a course introduces them in month one, skip ahead and come back.

How long until A1

For most people learning part-time, a few months of regular contact — not study hours, contact. The threshold for A1 is being able to handle a scripted situation: a shop, a greeting, a simple question about yourself.

The honest framing: Russian is a slow language for English speakers, and the first level is the fastest one you will ever clear. Do not judge the rest of the journey by how quickly this part goes, in either direction.

The one thing worth doing today

Pick a starting point you can measure from later. In three months you will not be able to tell whether you have improved — nobody can, from the inside — and having something to compare against is most of what keeps people going.