Russian lessons (video)

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.

When communicating across cultures, it is often important to talk about where things come from. In this lesson, you will learn words like "Russian", "African", "Indian", "Chinese", "Arabic", "Argentinian" along with many others. You will also discover how to use them in popular collocations such as "Chinese tea" and "Brazilian football".

You will get to know the names of the four seasons and see what each one looks like in Russia – you might be surprised by how different the climate can be! Along the way, you will pick up some handy phrases for activities you might enjoy, like "go for a walk" and "listen to music", "swim" and "sunbathe", "study languages" and "take photos".

It's time for you to learn how to describe your day in Russian with 11 essential action words. You'll master words for daily actions like "to sleep", "to read books", "to lie in the bed", "to write emails", as well as phrases for meals and different times of the day.

This lesson is a proper milestone in your Russian language journey with Tanya Semke, as it introduces you to action words, or as linguists call them "verbs"! From now on, you will keep building up your vocabulary with more and more words for different actions. In this session, you will learn essential ones like "to help", "to work", "to earn", "to rest", "to travel", and "to buy". There is even a philosophical twist – Tanya has to tackle a tricky question from her child “Why work?” – which is not the easiest one to answer.

Family values are deeply important in Russian culture, which makes learning to talk about them absolutely essential. In this lesson, we will cover some key words like "wedding", "husband and wife", "married", and "happy" as well as how to say someone is married – which in Russian tells you more than just a status.

While getting ready for a BRICS summit, Tanya Semke is teaching you a useful formula: how to say "I need + something", along with some essential names for clothes and colours. You will quickly see that the words for colours change in exactly the same way as other description words.

Tanya was a bit shocked to discover she was not the most beautiful girl in the world. The way she got over it? By teaching some useful new vocabulary for describing people's looks. So, in this episode, you'll learn how to use Russian words like "beautiful", "handsome", "cute", "nice", "young", "tall", "slim", and others when describing men and women.

Tanya was a bit shocked to discover she was not the most beautiful girl in the world. The way she got over it? By teaching some useful new vocabulary for describing people's looks. So, in this episode, you'll learn how to use Russian words like "beautiful", "handsome", "cute", "nice", "young", "tall", "slim", and others when describing men and women.

Tanya Semke reveals an awkward truth about macho Russian linguists writing dictionaries. Even though she is visibly mad about the fact, she still teaches you how to describe plural things by changing one letter in a dictionary form.

Tanya Semke takes you to her favourite spot in Moscow, the capital of Russia, while teaching you how to describe neuter words, such as 'place', 'cafe', 'date', etc.

An extremely practical lesson teaching you how to chat up girls in Russian. You will also learn how to describe feminine words.

This lesson's filming nearly ended in a bloody crime... The thing is, one of Tanya's students made a silly joke about the capital of Russia... You will want to see this unfold. Against all odds, Tanya is teaching you how to describe things with the words 'new', 'interesting', 'beautiful' and so on.

Finally, in this lesson you will learn how to talk about travelling – specifically, how to share where you have been and ask your Russian friends where they have been.

In today's world, knowing how to describe living conditions – whether at home or abroad – is essential. That is why this lesson teaches you phrases like 'It is good / cold / warm / safe in Russia'.