Category: Russian

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An Introduction to Russian News Sources

Since it is sometimes hard to find unbiased news sources, the Russian media can be hard to navigate. Here are just a few suggestions when trying to learn about the various facets of Russian media and culture.

Russia Today

https://www.rt.com/

This is a state-funded news outlet that is understood as the point-of-view from the Kremlin. It’s always interesting to learn what kind of thoughts the Kremlin wants to support, and since they cater to an international audience, they have a great Russian learning page that has lots of grammar, vocabulary, and speaking exercises.

Медиязона (MediaZona)

https://zona.media/

Pretty much the exact opposite of Russia Today, Медиязона was founded by two members from the group Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina. They cover political stories, such as those about law enforcement and judicial news. This is a good way to find out about the few opposition media outlets, and what they are focusing on today.


The Moscow Times

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/

This is an English-Language, Moscow-based online newspaper. They are independent, and cover stories about pretty much anything. If you just want a more familiar outlet that still discusses current events in Russia from a local perspective, this is a good one to start with.

Of course there are many more Russian news sources to choose from. These are just a few very different ones that might get you started!

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Need help with verbs? Try Cooljugator!

Cooljugator (https://cooljugator.com/ru) is a verb conjugation app for many languages, including Russian! This is great for a refresher on how to conjugate verbs you already know, or if you run into a new type of verb that you’re not sure about. Because it’s just for verbs, you don’t have to sort through a dictionary entry to find this part of the word. It’s quick and easy!

It shows a grid, for which you can change the settings, and it does this for the future, present, and past tense forms of verbs.

It also gives example sentences for context, along with English translations.

The website even provides trickier parts of Russian verbs such as participles and the aspect pair!

 

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Phone apps for beginning language learners: Duolingo vs. Memrise

Duolingo: Duolingo’s app is very intuitive, is free, and has short exercises for both grammar and vocabulary for 100-level French. Structured exactly like the website, Duolingo features a ladder-like structure of learning; each lesson introduces new material based on past information. One nice feature to the app is the possibility of “testing out” of lessons, which is helpful if you find yourself bored by the current material.

Memrise: Almost identical to Duolingo’s mini-lesson/game-based platform, Memrise uses incrementally more difficult lessons with easy responses, presenting words or phrases and then asking for repetition. Some minor variations are present, however: Memrise uses short videos of native French speakers to help with listening comprehension. There is also a texting-based portion, where you can practice composing short messages by stringing together suggested words or letters. Memrise is less polished than Duolingo, and each lesson seems to introduce less material overall, with more repetition. This may be useful for learners who have a more difficult time learning new words or phrases. Memrise is free, but has frequent prompts to purchase a subscription. These can be ignored by simply tapping anywhere on the screen (other than the “purchase” button).

Visual of the Memrise user interface

Image credit: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/duolingo-ios-app-new-bot/
https://www.pcmag.com/review/356293/memrise