Learn Russian with Song Lyrics (1)
Song lyrics are compact, memorable, and accessible at all levels. They make studying fun and effective at the same time.
Звезда
A great first option is Звезда (Star). With a page of explanation and translation (Explore Russian). The song (2013) is by Глюк’oZa or Glukoza ( website, Wikipedia). From the same channel are Вечная молодость (Eternal Youth), also with explanation and translation, and an analysis of Синие сугробы (Blue Snowdrifts).
Тебе
A bit on the sweet side but still fun is Тебе. “You” in the dative case, meaning for or to you. Лишь тебе (only for you) are эти песни мои (these songs of mine) and все слова о любви (all the words about love). With English translation, and nice big letters. From Изучайте русский с носителем (learn Russian with a native speaker), aka Elen Sheff.
More
Anna Cher made an analysis of Секрет (Secret) and Привет (Hello). Also of Прованс (Provence) and Обезоружена (Disarmed). See also Billie Eilish in Russian. From R for Russian comes a wildly edited home video – if you like the style, you can also check out here and here. Katya 2RU (with phone) talks about Катюша and Видели ночь, and on Learn Russian with Songs there’s a whole collection. The lyrics in the clip below are from Natasha speaks Russian – see also Постой, паровоз and Я не люблю.
Better
Choosing for yourself is always the most fun and effective. See the Music section for options in multiple directions. For Russian music with lyrics, see the Rusland1 Playlist on YouTube. The question какое ваше любимое направление в музыке (what’s your favorite genre in music) gets varied answers in Saint Petersburg (Easy Languages/Russian, 2016, 5 m). Bilingual (RU/EN) subtitles.
See/Read
- Learn Russian with Great Music (FluentU)
- Learning Russian with Music (therussianblog, 2012)
- Learning Russian through Music (Russian Language Blog, 2015)
- 8 Best Russian Songs to Learn Russian (Speechling, 2019)
More
Language
Verbs work for those who want to make sentences. There - work and make, there you already have two. And try to make Russian out of that sentence if you if you don’t know работать or делать. So work, also on your vocabulary.
Even with bad news there is good news: there is a lot to learn from it. Russian news articles are excellent teaching material, even for the more advanced student.
The sixth noun, in Russian предложный падеж, is for most students the first one they learn. The reason is simple: the sixth grammatical case itself is.
And then it became war. Or should we say began the special military operation. On
February 24 2022 Russian troops entered Ukraine. It was allowed
neither war nor invasion be called, but it was akin to both.
This often comes as a setback for students of Russian: of (almost) every Russian verb there are two. Which do mean approximately the same thing, but express very different things. So you need to know both, and of both learn the conjugations.
Making mistakes in Cyrillic is no big deal. Everyone does. But wrong Cyrillic, that’s the biggest mistake you can make. And the worst thing you can do with that noble Cyrillic can do.
