- For the Site, see Ling: Learn Russian.
- Available both on the browser and as an iPhone App.
- I've found the initial page-load to be a bit slow in the browser (at least using Chrome), so anyone clicking the above link may need to be somewhat patient.
- Ling Introduction:
- Russia is the largest country on earth. Spanning two continents, its culture shares elements from both Europe and Asia. The landscape is also just as diverse from the metropolitan Moscow to the more desolate Siberia. Thanks to the Trans-Siberian railway, travel across the length of the country is very easy and offers an insight into the Russian way of life, making for a great way for travellers to see what Russia has to offer.
- There are around 150 million native speakers of Russian, with an additional 110 million speaking it as a second language. It is an official language in 11 countries, with several more that have been influenced by Russian. This can be seen by the continued use of the Cyrillic alphabet. Due to this widespread use, there is understandably some considerable differences in the dialects spoken both in Russia and elsewhere.
- The Cyrillic alphabet is used when writing Russian and consists of 33 characters. The language uses grammatical gender with masculine, feminine and neuter variations that are indicated by the ending of the word. Notoriously, Russian has 6 different cases based on the grammatical function of a word in a sentence.
- Anyone looking to visit the country would greatly benefit from learning some Russian. English is not very widespread outside of the main cities, if even there. These language skills can then be applied across many of the surrounding countries of the former Soviet Union. Then there is the ability to read Cyrillic characters that will prove beneficial in a number of different countries and their alphabets. As such, learning Russian is highly recommended for anyone interested in the region.
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)