How to learn Russian quickly (on autopilot)

There’s one activity you can do to learn Russian quickly that is fun, easy, and addictive. If you’re NOT doing this, you’re never going to become fluent in Russian.

But don’t fear. Everyone can do this, even if you’re “bad with languages”, or have little time to learn Russian.

Curious what I’m talking about?

You can watch the video below to hear me explain it:

Or continue reading to learn:

• What is this “autopilot” activity? (+4 Benefits of doing this)
• How to apply this to your life to learn Russian quickly?
• The 3 levels you’ll go through with while doing this

What is this “autopilot” activity to learn Russian quickly? 

I’ve been learning Russian since 2016, and I attribute a lot of my Russian fluency to this activity.

Curious what it is?

It’s watching Russian series.

Let me give you 4 reasons why this is such a game-changer for your Russian.

1) Series make it addictive to learn Russian quickly

Imagine it’s a Sunday afternoon. You’re a bit bored, so you decide you want to watch 1 episode of your favorite series. Then afterwards you’ll go do something else.

Then suddenly it’s 10 PM and you’ve finished the entire season…

You feel bad that you’ve wasted an entire Sunday evening without doing something useful.

Everyone knows this feeling.

And I used to feel bad about it.

Then I switched to watching Russian series. What used to be a wasted evening, now became 6 hours of Russian practice!

Series are made to be addictive. That’s why they use cliffhangers, overarching plots, and other tactics to keep you watching. 

Why not use that to your advantage? And use Russian series as a way to spend a LOT of time practicing your Russian. 

Alright, so Russian series are addictive and make it easy to spend a lot of time on your Russian. 

But are they useful for your Russian skills?

Yes, let me explain:

2) Series quickly upgrade your Russian listening skills

When I started learning Russian, I couldn’t understand where a word started, and where it ended.

Выговоритепорусски?

It sounded like one word.

Sounds familiar?

Now, over time, you’ll learn to recognize that these are 3 words:

Вы говорите по-русски?

But the fastest way to improve your listening skills is to LISTEN to spoken Russian.

And this is where series come in:

If you watch 50 minutes of a series, 40 minutes of that are conversations.

Series tend to have small budgets (compared to movies), so they have more talking and less action.

So I like to see each episode as “eavesdropping” on real conversations..

And this is HUGE for your listening ability.

You can watch 7 hours of series in a week. And you can do this week after week.

Most of us cannot reach this number of hours of listening practice.

Even if you have Russian family, partner, friends, or colleagues, the maximum hours you’re going to hear Russian speech is a couple of hours per week.

Unless you live in a Russian speaking country. But that’s not most of the people on this site.

So if you need for example 100 listening hours before you can understand intermediate speech, you’re going to get to that level much more quickly by watching series.

But wait, is just watching series ENOUGH to become good at Russian?

No, unfortunately not. But it’s a great addition to whatever else you’re currently doing for your Russian.

Why?

Let me explain:

3) Series help you passively learn Russian words and grammar

If you’re reading this, you’re probably following a course, app, class, or YouTube channel to learn Russian.

That’s great.

You learn words and grammar with these apps, classes, courses, and channels. 

But do you remember most of what you’re learning?

Probably not.

Unless you’re following a course that uses spaced repetition + “guided” speaking, like Russian Conversations Unlocked, most courses dump a lot of information on you and hope you recall it the next day/lesson.

One of the best ways to remember what you’re learning is to see and hear it in real-life conversations.

And what was the easiest way to immerse yourself for a lot of time in real Russian?

You guessed it:

By watching Russian series.

When you’re eavesdropping in on conversations, you hear words and grammar that you’ve just learned. Each time you hear a word or recognize a grammatical rule, you reinforce that concept in your brain.

Hear something 50 times, and chances are you’ll remember it

A student of mine told me about when he had just learned the word for “never” – никогда. He then watched the series лучше, чем люди (Better than Us). In one scene a character was screaming to another that he’d never do something. So he screamed НИ-КОГ-ДА!

My student said that “every time I hear the word никогда, this scene flashes through my mind. I think I’ll never forget this word in my life.”

So series make it easy for you to remember Russian words and grammar rules, as you hear them constantly being used in real Russian speech.

This alone will upgrade your Russian conversation skills. 

But there’s one more benefit that will help you get mistaken for a native speaker:

4) Series train your Russian “intuition” skill

Apart from series, I often watch Russian comedians. It’s fun, and it shows what’s currently going on in Russian society.

There is one downside though…

They swear a lot.

Input = output.

So after watching comedians for a while, I find these swear words creep into my own vocabulary.

I might be hanging out with Russian speaking friends, and out of nowhere I add a блять to the punchline of a story.

Now, it always feels inauthentic to swear in Russian, as I’m a foreigner. So I try to avoid it. And I need to actively hold myself back from saying it.

But the same thing works for other words. 

Since I’ve spent hundreds of (if not a thousand) hours watching Russian series by now, my subconscious has picked up on so many words.

In conversations, I often surprise myself with the words I know. I often say words I had no clue that I knew.

If you hear a word 50 times, you start using it yourself whenever it fits in your sentence.

Alright, so series are a great tool to learn Russian. But how do you apply watching them to your life so that you get the most out of them?

How to apply this to your life to learn Russian quickly?

Surveys show that the average Netflix user spends 3 hours a day on it.

Some people may say this is a waste of time.

I’d say it’s a great opportunity for your Russian skills.

Even if you were to only spend 1 hour per day watching Russian series, that’s still 7 hours a week, 30 hours per month of 365 hours a year.

You can’t imagine the wonders such an amount of time will do for your Russian skills.

So I recommend you switch (part of) your media consumption to Russian series.

I try to watch most of my series in Russian. But when friends recommend a great English or Dutch series, I make time to watch those.

That gives me the benefit of enjoying great English series, while at the same time making sure the bulk of my series time is useful and improves my Russian skills.

Now, there’s one more thing that’s important to know before you start…

The 3 levels you’ll go through with watching Russian series

Whenever I recommend someone to start watching Russian series, this question always pops up:

Should you watch with subtitles or not?

And the answer is that there are 3 levels you’ll go through when learning Russian with series:

1. Level 1: Russian audio + English subtitles
2. Level 2: Russian audio + Russian subtitles
3. Level 3: Russian audio + NO subtitles

Everyone should start at level 1. The main goal here is to get your brain and ears used to the Russian language.

This is a matter of time. So you want to have English subtitles, otherwise you have no clue what’s going on. And then it’s difficult to spend hours a week learning Russian.

Some language purists may say it’s more effective to have Russian subtitles. And sure, go ahead and try watching a series with Russian subtitles as a beginner.

You’re not going to understand what’s going on, and it will be frustrating. 

So better to turn on English subtitles, enjoy it, and gradually improve your Russian.

After a while of practicing, you can always switch English subtitles to Russian subtitles to test yourself. That’s level 2. 

It’s best to start off slowly. So maybe try watching with Russian subs for 2 minutes. Then switch back to English subs.

You can always rewatch the first couple of minutes with English subs, to make sure you understand the plot.

Then level 3 is when you know you’re getting good. It’s a great stage to be as I can now watch all Russian movies, series, YouTube videos and understand it.

But I have to admit if there are Russian subtitles, I still like to turn them on. It adds this little bit of extra understanding.