Tips for Learning Russian Words

Ah, learning new words, my favourite thing about studying a foreign language. It really does make my day…not. Unless you have a razor sharp mind for learning words at a drop of a hat (and I really hate you for it if that’s the case), most of us spend ages trying to learn the vocab that we come across. If only we could absorb them as easily as osmosis. Unfortunately, we have to put in that little bit more effort. But how we study new vocabulary can have a big impact on how quickly and how effectively we learn new words. The more ‘traditional’ methods are often the least effective. Not meaning to dismiss them completely, but from personal experience, the more varied and more creative the method, the more the vocab sticks. If you use a combination of different methods, then your brain somehow retains words much better. Here are a few suggestions that have helped me and friends out in the past.

The Plain Jane Approach…flashcards

Flashcards can be useful when it comes to learning new words

I hate flashcards, personally. I sometimes feel like Edna Mode from The Incredibles; my first instinct is usually to scream “NO FLASHCARDS”. However they are a safe go-to, quick and convenient, and their popularity prevails. Vocab-building apps such as Anki, Quizlet, or Memrise, to name a few, are really useful and do somewhat make this approach that bit more engaging. However, because you essentially learn translations of words, rather than the word itself, I don’t really engage with this style of learning. On the other hand, using pictures with the Russian word, instead of a mere translation, thus means you have a visual representation of what the word is. That way, the word “cow” (“корова“) is gonna come to mind more simply as a clear mental image of what the word actually is, rather than a translation into your native language.

Get Creative!

If you really want to effectively learn new words, you need to get as creative and as varied as possible. And this really all depends on how your mind works. For me, I like knowing how the word works in a sentence. So, say I have just come across the word “mammoth” (“мамонт“), I think of really simple sentences and say them to myself over and over again, even if they are a bit ridiculous: (“Today I saw a mammoth, he was really big. He has a friend…”). What you end up doing is learning an active pattern in which that word can operate. In so doing, the word becomes much more than some abstract idea on a flash-card. Listening to songs and watching films is also a good way to drill words you already are familiar with into your head, again because you engage with how the word works in a sentence.

“Family Trees”

Creating a family tree of words might help you visualise how new words relate to each other

Another way you can learn words is by learning how words are “related” to each other. So, if you have a vocab book, divide the book into categories and sub-categories. For example, you can have a section on animals, and sub-divide that into pets, farm animals, zoo animals and so on. This means you learn words in a related group.

Or, if you take a basic word, such as знать, you can learn the several off-shoots of that word.  For example, from the verb знать, you get the noun знание (knowledge),and from there on follows other words such as знак, значить, значение, сознать, сознание… which all derive their meaning from the same word. Even if you learn all these words separately, and then go back to revise the connections, I find that word sticks much more clearly, for some reason. Think of mentally drawing a “family tree” of words that you can add to over time…

Break things down

If that doesn’t float your boat, try breaking the word down. Let’s take сознание, which means ‘consciousness’, and break it down into ‘со-‘ and ‘знание‘. Since we know ‘знание‘ means knowledge, and the ‘co-‘ bit looks like ‘con’, meaning ‘with’, you can then think to yourself: ‘with knowledge we have CONSCIOUSNESS’. Or, lets take the word for ‘detail’, “подробность“. This word you can break down into “под” (under), and “роб” (which sounds/looks similar to robe)…so you can then you can create a sentence that helps you remember that word: under the robe you see a lot of DETAIL. 

Obviously, we all think differently, and some of these methods may not help you as much as others. The key is to get into a routine that you’re comfortable with. When you learn your words, though, the surest way to keep them in your mind is to use them and speak them over and over again. See this other post by Liden & Denz for more useful tips. 

Posted by Thomas Reid

A passionate Russian and history student, I'm here in bonny St P. to build on my knowledge of Russian and learn more about the shared history between Scotland and Russia.