Free Russian learning resources
16 free resources, checked and categorised.
Every link is usable without paying. Some ask for a free account or keep extras behind a paid tier, and those are labelled.
Russian has a steep first month and a gentler middle. Cyrillic takes a few days (several letters are familiar, a few are false friends) and it is not the real obstacle. The six cases are, because they apply to nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers at once.
Use a structured course rather than assembling one. Russian grammar interlocks: cases, gender and verb aspect all depend on each other, and learning them piecemeal leaves gaps that are harder to fix than to learn properly the first time. Verb aspect in particular has no clean English equivalent and takes sustained exposure.
Stress is unmarked in ordinary text, unpredictable, and changes vowel sounds, so a word you know by sight can be unrecognisable aloud. Use a dictionary that marks stress, and prioritise audio early. Free Russian material is plentiful: courses, dictionaries, news and a large body of public-domain literature.
A realistic first year looks like this: a month on the alphabet and pronunciation, three or four months working through a course while the nominative, accusative and prepositional cases become automatic, then a long middle stretch where the remaining cases and verb aspect settle through reading and listening rather than study. Most people underestimate that middle stretch and conclude they are failing when they are simply in it.
For input, graded material beats native material for longer than in most languages, because unfamiliar case endings make an otherwise-simple sentence unparseable. Once you can follow scripted audio comfortably, Russian opens up quickly, and there is a very large body of free literature, news and broadcast material waiting on the other side.
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YouTube video channel with Russian lessons and language-learning clips, plus links to the creator’s site for further study
Free Russian course with 300+ lessons, including audio dictation, basic phrases, grammar practice, reading and listening exercises, and case drills
Click the link to download a free course (pdf + audio files).
A website where you can learn everything about the language: from the alphabet to pronunciation, from vocabulary to grammar. The exercise solutions can be found here at explaurafying
Free beginner Russian course with 21 units of short dialogs, bite-sized exercises, and video lessons, plus account tools to track progress and save lessons
Searchable Russian dictionary with translations, declensions, accents, example sentences, audio, related words, and synonyms for words from A1 to C2
Curated Russian music video collection with 18 modern and retro songs, letting learners watch clips for listening practice and cultural exposure.
Free online Russian course with lessons from alphabet and basic phrases through cases, tense, vocabulary, plus audio, video, grammar pages, quizzes, and tools
A site for Russian learners - courses, grammar, dictionary, media library and info about living in Russia.
Russian textbook with introductory grammar notes, 20 chapter lessons, listening passages, vocabulary, and downloadable tests for reading and writing practice
27 lessons based on dialogues with audio (read by a native speaker).
Polish blog with Russian lessons, vocabulary notes, and translation tips, letting learners read short articles on grammar, words, and language comparisons
Remastered audio for the FSI course listed above.
Searchable Russian dictionaries and encyclopedias covering language, terminology, reference entries, and specialized subjects from grammar to science and history
Russian radio station site with live streaming, station listings, podcasts, news, and a hit-parade voting page for listening practice
Russian-language radio news, podcasts, and programs from Radio Liberty with live broadcasts, articles, and regional reporting that learners can browse and listen to
Learn it there, practise it here
Free resources are great for input: reading, listening, explanations. They are weaker at the two things that actually move you forward: speaking Russian out loud, and remembering what you met once. That is what OwnSlides is for.
Say it out loud
Talk to an AI tutor that answers back, or get matched with other learners and native speakers for a text chat.
Practise what you read
Turn a grammar point or article into exercises, so it moves from recognised to usable.
Keep the words
Save new words to My Words and let spaced repetition bring them back before you forget them.
This directory began from a community-built list of free language resources, a year of collecting and checking by Joanna (u/chlebka) and dozens of contributors who suggested links, shared freely. See the original list. We have since expanded, re-checked and re-categorised it, and we keep the per-resource credits where the original list recorded them.