Русский · Russian
Fifteen pairs of hard and soft consonants, six cases, and vowels that vanish when unstressed.
Slavic (East) · compare with Georgian
Sounds
46 phonemes, 84 spelling rules. Trace any word letter by letter.
Words
610 concepts carry a Russian form. Switch Russian on at the top and browse any field.
Grammar
12 of 12 chapters written.
🎚️ What Russian does with pitch, stress and rhythm — the layer that isn't spelled.
Sound snapshot
Russian spelling is far more regular than English, once two things are understood. First, HARDNESS: almost every consonant comes in a hard and a soft pair, and the softness is not written on the consonant — it is written on the vowel that follows, or with a silent ь. а/я, о/ё, у/ю, э/е and ы/и are the same five vowels twice over, and the second column means 'the consonant before me is soft'. Second, REDUCTION: unstressed о and а both collapse to /ɐ/, and unstressed е and я to /ɪ/. Stress is not written, moves around within a word, and changes meaning — so the tracer here needs you to mark it with an acute. Mark it and the transcription is right; leave it out and every vowel reduces, which is what a foreigner sounds like.
Grammar chapters
Articles
the, a — definite and indefinite, and how they bend to gender and number.
Nouns & gender
Does the language sort nouns into classes, and can you guess which?
Plurals
How to make more than one.
Pronouns
I, you, he/she/it, we, they — subject, object, and the formal 'you'.
Present tense
Regular verbs now, and the handful of irregular ones you can't avoid.
Negation
Saying no: where the 'not' goes.
Questions
Yes/no questions and question words.
Word order
Where the verb goes, where adjectives go, what moves and why.
Past tenses
Finished vs ongoing, spoken vs written past.
Future & conditional
Will, going to, would.
Adjectives
Agreement, position, comparison.
Prepositions
In, on, at, to — the small words that never translate one-to-one.
Words by field
🏠Home
The house, room by room — the words you touch every day.
🌲Nature
Out of the city: landscapes, weather, creatures.
🧩Little words
Adverbs, prepositions, connectors — small words that carry the sentence.
🧱Essentials
The bedrock: numbers, yes and no — the words you need on day one.
🧰Trades & expertise
Jargon of people who do things with their hands — and their heads.
💭Concepts
Abstract words: feelings, ideas, character.
🧭Navigation
Finding your way: streets, junctions, the places you're heading for — and how to say you're lost.
🧑People
Who someone is: what they do, and what you call them.
🎬Actions
Everyday verbs, in the form that follows 'I want to…' — go, eat, buy, see, say.
🍽️Food
What's on the plate and in the cupboard — the staples first.
🫀The body
Head to ankle — the words you need at the doctor, the physio and the gym.
🥋Sport & fighting
The gym, the cage and the corner — built for fighters learning English.
🎭Register
The same idea said in the street, at the office, or in a textbook.