How to learn Russian by reading

Russian literature is one of the great reasons to learn a language. Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov: for many readers, these are the writers who make the effort worthwhile. And Russian is a language that rewards reading, because its grammar is rich and regular in ways you absorb best by seeing it, over and over, in real sentences.

The first step is the alphabet, and it’s a smaller step than it looks.

What makes Russian hard to read

• Cyrillic and its false friends. Thirty-three letters, some familiar (А, К, М, О, Т), some new (Ж, Ш, Щ, Ы), and some deceptive: В is v, Н is n, Р is r, С is s, У is u and Х is kh. Many learners can sound out words within a couple of weeks; see our guide to learning a new script.
• Invisible stress. Russian stress can fall on any syllable, moves between the forms of a word (рука́, “hand,” but ру́ку, “hand” as an object), and isn’t marked in normal text. It matters, because unstressed vowels change: молоко́, “milk,” sounds roughly like ma-la-KO.
• The letter ё. It’s often printed as е, so все, “everyone,” and всё, “everything,” can look identical on the page.
• Six cases. Endings show a noun’s role in the sentence: книга (book), книги, книге, книгу, книгой. Prepositions choose cases, and so do numbers: два дома, “two houses,” but пять домов, “five houses.”
• Aspect. Most verbs come in pairs: imperfective for processes and habits (читать, “to read, be reading”), perfective for completed actions (прочитать, “to read through”). Novels alternate between them constantly, and the choice carries meaning.
• Verbs of motion. Идти and ходить both mean “to go on foot,” one for a single trip in one direction, the other for repeated or round trips. Add prefixes and you get войти (go in), выйти (go out), уйти (leave) and прийти (arrive).
• No present-tense “to be.” Он студент means “he is a student.” A dash often stands in for it: Москва — столица России, “Moscow is the capital of Russia.”

Russian reading at each level

Here is roughly what each CEFR level looks like in Russian:

• A2, elementary. Short sentences in the present and past, all six cases in their commonest uses (в комнате, “in the room”; у меня нет, “I don’t have”; с другом, “with a friend”), and common aspect pairs.
• B1, intermediate. The cases in their wider uses, aspect choices in narration, motion verbs with prefixes, and relative clauses with который.
• B2, upper intermediate. Participles and verbal adverbs (прочитав письмо, “having read the letter”), the passive, the conditional with бы, and longer sentences with a more literary vocabulary.
• C1, advanced. Close to the original, lightly condensed: long sentences, inner monologue and the author’s own voice. C2 is the complete novel.

See CEFR levels explained for more on the scale.

Crime and Punishment at A2 and at B2

Two moments from Dostoevsky’s novel, written for this page at two levels:

A2

Раскольников — бедный молодой человек. Он живёт в маленькой комнате в Петербурге. У него нет денег, и он часто думает о старухе-процентщице.

Raskolnikov is a poor young man. He lives in a small room in Petersburg. He has no money, and he often thinks about the old pawnbroker.

B2

Выйдя на улицу после разговора со следователем, Раскольников вдруг почувствовал, что Порфирий Петрович давно обо всём догадался и лишь ждёт, когда он сам себя выдаст.

Coming out into the street after his conversation with the investigator, Raskolnikov suddenly felt that Porfiry Petrovich had guessed everything long ago and was simply waiting for him to give himself away.

The A2 sentences already use three cases: the nominative for the subject, the prepositional after в and о (в маленькой комнате, в Петербурге, о старухе), and the genitive in у него нет денег, Russian’s way of saying “he has no money.” The first sentence also shows the dash standing in for “is.” The B2 sentence opens with a verbal adverb, выйдя, “having come out,” then sets perfective verbs for single, whole events (почувствовал, догадался and the future выдаст) against an imperfective one for an ongoing state (ждёт). Notice too that Russian keeps the present tense in reported thought: ждёт, “is waiting,” where English shifts to “was waiting.”

A daily routine for reading Russian

1. Pair your eyes and ears. Play a few pages with the read-along on, so each word lights up as you hear it. You’ll hear where the stress falls in every word, which ordinary printed text doesn’t show.
2. Reread without audio. Go back over the same pages at your own pace. Endings you skimmed the first time start to make sense.
3. Tap for the base form. When an ending hides a word you might know, tap it: книгой takes you back to книга. Then keep going.
4. Notice aspect, lightly. Once a week, pick a page and ask of each past-tense verb: completed event or ongoing process? It builds the instinct that Russian narrative depends on.

Why start with adapted books? Paul Nation (2006, “How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?”) estimated that reading an unsimplified novel in English takes a vocabulary of around 8,000 to 9,000 word families. The figures for Russian aren’t the same, and every Russian word comes in many forms, but the lesson holds: an original novel asks for far more words than a learner has. Reading at your level, and moving up when it feels easy, is how you close that gap. How many words you need to read a novel has the details; extensive reading and reading while listening cover the habits.

Classics to start with

• Crime and Punishment is set in the streets and stairwells of St. Petersburg. Read it adapted at B1 or B2, and keep the complete novel as a goal.
• Michael Strogoff is Jules Verne’s thriller about the Tsar’s courier crossing Siberia through an invading army: Russian places, Russian names and nonstop action at B1.
• Treasure Island is an ideal first novel at A2 or B1, with simple sentences and a lot of dialogue.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes offers short stories, each with its own solution, at B1 and B2.
• The Count of Monte Cristo is a long, gripping read for B2.

How Lexo helps with Russian

Russian print doesn’t show stress, so start with the audio. Every word can be played on its own, so you can hear where the stress falls the moment you wonder. The whole book is narrated too, with different voices for different characters, and each word lights up as it’s read.

Tap any word and the card shows its meaning in that sentence, its base form and its part of speech: выйдя leads to выйти, книгой to книга. It also spells the word in Latin letters, a quick check while you’re still learning that В is v and Р is r. Because the meaning is given for that sentence, you see what each verb means in context, not just its dictionary definition. Phrases and idioms are explained as a whole, the full sentence is translated into English, and words worth keeping go into your Words list. For Dostoevsky’s longer sentences, sentence-by-sentence mode shows one sentence at a time with its audio and translation.

Choose a level per book, A2 to C2: you might read Crime and Punishment at B1 first and the complete novel at C2 later. First editions are written when someone asks: chapter 1 takes a few minutes, the rest follows while you read, and the first reader keeps a dated mark. Books download for offline reading on iPhone and iPad, and there’s no account.

Other Slavic languages share much of Russian’s grammar: see Ukrainian, Polish and Czech.

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