Russian lessons (video)

While learning one of the easiest aspects of Russian — ordinal numbers used to express dates — you’ll also discover the country’s most important holidays, along with the historical events and national traditions behind them.

This lesson reveals a clever tip to help you memorize the names of the twelve months in Russian. You’ll also get a glimpse of winter in Russia’s capital, so you’ll know exactly what to pack for a winter visit.

Don’t miss your train — or your flight — in Russia! This lesson teaches you how to tell and understand the exact time, including how to ask questions such as "At what time is the train?" and follow the answers easily.

Don’t believe those who say Russian numbers are hard to remember. In this lesson, Tanya Semke offers a real-life approach to learning the numbers from 10 to 100, helping you remember them once and for all.

This lesson introduces the numbers 11–19 and teaches you how to talk about your own age and the age of others when you’re under 20.

You’ll love learning that Russian makes things simpler: there’s no difference between asking "how much?" and "how many?". This lesson shows you how to use this handy feature to talk about prices, age, and time.

This might be the funniest lesson yet! Watch the Russian language teacher struggle through a set of physical exercises while you learn to count from 1 to 10 in Russian and pick up some interesting insights about the Russian national character.

In this lesson, Tanya and one of her top international students talk about the striking beauty of Russian women – while teaching you how to ask about and explain reasons in Russian. You’ll also hear the student describe why he decided to learn the language.

Discover how love works in Russian in this short and fascinating lesson. You’ll learn how to talk about what you and others love — and see how the Russian language reflects the powerful idea that love transforms the person who is loved.

Tanya Semke wakes up terrified in the middle of a nightmare – and this lesson turns the experience into a learning opportunity. You’ll learn how to ask if someone speaks a language and how to say that you speak Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, English, Hindi, or Farsi.

In this lesson, you’ll expand your vocabulary with frequently used action words like “call,” “speak,” “ask,” “remember,” and “learn.” As a bonus, you’ll learn handy phrases to say that you’re studying Russian and that you already speak a little Russian — and you’ll meet one of Tanya’s top students.

Understanding what’s acceptable – and what isn’t – is key when discovering a new culture. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to navigate modern Russian life using just two powerful words: "allowed" and "prohibited".

They say knowing how to say "no" is an essential skill – and it’s just as important in Russian. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say "I can" and "I can’t," along with practical phrases for real-life situations, like explaining why you can’t talk on the phone: "I can’t talk right now – I’m at work."

You’ll learn one powerful little question in Russian that lets you ask what someone does in life, what their job is, or what they enjoy doing in their free time.

In addition to practical skiing advice from Tanya Semke, this lesson expands your vocabulary with useful action words like “smile”, “laugh”, “hope”, “do your best”, “get ready”, “get dressed”, and “fear”. You’ll also learn how to discuss activities such as riding a horse, biking, scootering, skiing, and ice skating.

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to confidently show off your skills when introducing yourself in Russian. You’ll be able to say “I can,” “I know how to,” and “I’m good at” while talking about sports, musical instruments, singing, dancing, and painting.

In this lesson, you will learn how to ask and answer different questions about near-future plans – like “What are you doing tonight?” or “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

You already know how to talk about actions in the present – so now it is time you learned how to describe the future and give promises!

Today, you will join Tanya and her husband on a restaurant date to pick up some hugely useful words like "well", "badly", and "often" plus their comparative forms "better", "worse", "more often", and others. You will also get the hang of how to give advice in Russian. All you need to compare, comment and counsel is in this lesson!

In this lesson, you will learn how to express generalisations in Russian – like saying “All women do …” You will also pick up handy phrases to agree or disagree in conversations.

Time for a key grammatical insight – and a pleasant one! In Russian, there is no distinction between Present Simple and Present Continuous forms. So whether you want to say “They work” or “They are working”, you simply use the same form: “Они работают”. Relax and enjoy this bit of grammatical good luck!

This lesson focuses on ongoing actions – you will learn how to say what you are doing at the moment and how to ask others: “What are you doing now?” Do not miss this one as you will gain some essential Russian grammar.

You will learn to talk about obligations using the key Russian word for "must". We will cover its four different forms so you can say what you – or others – have to do.

This lesson is almost hijacked – yet again – by Tanya Semke's little son, who is always willing to play. Still, she powers through to teach you how to suggest an activity and agree to a proposal using just one word. You will also pick up several names of sports and games from this lesson.