Why Harry Potter is a Great Way to Start Your Russian Reading Journey If You’re a Home-Learner

After about 1 year of learning Russian I started reading simple Russian stories. That’s a long time – because I didn’t take Russian that serious at the start. Today I’ve got a tip for you so that you can start reading a lot earlier than I did – maybe even after 3 to 6 months if you’re good.

What is it?

Read Harry Potter in Russian.

I have fond memories of my mother translating the first book to me when I was around 10 over a Christmas break. In hindsight, it’s probably the best thing she ever did for my English.

So it’s weird I didn’t think of it when I was learning Russian…

There are many reasons why Harry Potter is a great book and story, but here are the top 5 reasons why it’s exceptionally great if you’re just starting to read in Russian:

A good Russian book needs the following 5 things (& why Harry Potter has them all)

Reading in Russian is tough. Before you can make any sense of the book you’re reading, you need to:

• Know the alphabet well,
• Have a reasonable understanding of how cases and pronouns work
• Know at least the 500 most common words/nouns
• And be able to conjugate the 100 most common verbs

And this is for simple books. If you try to read Master and Margarita in Russian, it can take you several years before you’re good enough to understand the plot.

Anyway, the more of the 5 following things apply to the book you want to read, the better it will be for your Russian.

And it’s exactly why Harry Potter is the number #1 choice of real books.

#1 Easy language

It goes without saying that the language used should  be easy. If even native speakers struggle with reading Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, than you cannot expect to breeze through it after a couple of months of studying Russian, right?

That’s why children’s books are a great choice if you’re starting to learn.

However, most childrens books are short and only contain VERY simple vocabulary. So while these are great for a quick read, they won’t suck you in and you’re not going to be that stoked about the plot.

So it’s a balance of looking for an easy book that has simple language in it, but isn’t too short or non-relevant – and a book that’s not too difficult, but interesting.

So, why Harry Potter?

Harry Potter is classified as a middle-grade read. Which means that kids from around 9 to 12 should be able to read it. This means that in English it’s going to be an easy read for you.

But in Russian, being able to read a book that’s for kids from 9 to 12 means that it will be quite the challenge. If you’re able to speak like a kid that age, your Russian will be pretty good, and you’ll be able to easily handle yourself in most conversations.

#2 A lot of material

The next thing you want in a book, is that it’s not thin. I can’t count the amount of times that I was reading a simple book that I really enjoyed (mostly simplified adaptations of more difficult books), and I would finish it an hour or 2.

Great. But now what? Where to continue? It’s a lot easier if you’ve got one specific book or series that you know you have many hours ahead of you. That way you won’t have to break you reading with searches for a new book.

Another good thing is that the vocabulary you learn can be taken with you. It’ll be easier to recognize common words, and you get  feeling for which words are relevant.

Watch out though, and be sure to check how well the translation is done. And you might end up knowing perfectly well all the words for Wizards, witches, trolls and muggles in Russian ;)

So, why Harry Potter?

Well, there are 7 humongous books just in the first series. Now with The Fantastic Beasts series, there are even more books you can enjoy (even if it’s just the screenwriting). Not to mention all the fanfiction that the books brought with them.

Apparently, reading the entire HP series takes the average reader around 60.23 hours. (Tolstoy’s War & Peace 32.63). Since you read in Russian, I’d say we can easily double or triple that time.

Since Russian only should take 1100 hours to learn, you can easily spend 10 to 20% of your entire Russian journey to fluency running around Hogwarts!

#3 You must’ve read it before

This one may be a bit controversial, but If your main goal is the language, than it absolutely helps a lot if you have read the book before in English. That way you’ll know the plot, and it becomes many times easier to understand little nuances.

And you won’t need to take your dictionary (app) every 5 words for when you’re experiencing plot FOMO (when you’re afraid that you might miss some crucial information that will make the rest of the book un-understandable).

I repeat: when you’ve read the book before, it becomes 10X easier to just go with the flow and enjoy the book.

The book might be more predictable, but that’s why it’s a great idea to pick a book that you’ve read a while ago.

So, why Harry Potter?

This one’s easy. Who hasn’t read Harry Potter? Exactly. And the other thing that makes it good, is that you probably read it quite a while ago. So while you do remember the gist of the main plot, most chapters will still have some surprising things that you’ve forgotten over the years. So it will still be an enticing read.

#4 It can’t be boring

You’ve got to enjoy the book. This is even more true when you’re reading it in Russian. Why? Because otherwise you won’t have the motivation or will to actually pick it up and start reading.

What you want instead, is that you have this feeling of urgency and curiosity. That the book lies on the table and it’s more difficult NOT to pick it up than to let is lay down. The feeling of ‘just one more page’ before you leave for work/school.

That way you’ll be able to go through the book sin no time. And it’s a lot easier to motivate yourself for a nice book, then for a Russian case review session at your desk, isn’t it?

So, why Harry Potter?

Some people even classify Harry Potter as addicting. People have become obsessed with the series. The books are just very well written and press a lot of right buttons. Bet you waited for that letter from Hogwarts, right?

It may seem less fantastic and magical now that you’re officially an adult, but that doesn’t take away the fact that the books are written in such a way that it’s easy for you to get hooked.

#5 Audio available

Reading alone is great. It works perfectly well for improving your Russian. But there’s one thing that can DRASTICALLY improve the benefits of reading a Russian book.

What is it?

Simple. Read the book while listening to the audiobook. This will do the following things:

• Understanding – make it easier to understand the plot/book, as you hear the intonation and words out loud
• Pronunciation – teaches you pronunciation and WHERE THE STRESSES GO.
• Speed – allows you to read faster.

The only thing why not many people do this, is because it’s a bit of a hassle to set up. Firstly, you need to get the book twice. Once the regular book and one time the audiobook. This can make it more expensive + takes extra time to get them.

The second thing is that you need to make sure that they are both the same translation. Otherwise the words just won’t match.

And the last thing is that your accent in Russian might start to match the speakers one. I know that mine did after I listened to Metro 2033 audiobook. I was fine with the author’s voice, but my girlfriend said that it sounded too lyrical and slow. Since I was listening to it so much, I sometimes ended up saying Russian with the same intonation as if I was reading a book.

Not that this is a big problem – it actually helps your pronunciation – but I do recommend you snap yourself out of this reading voice when you speak Russian. Otherwise it sounds pretty weird in regular conversations.

So, why Harry Potter?

Because it’s so popular. The more popular something is, the higher the chances that there are audiobook versions of it in Russian. If you go and try to find the audio version of your high school chemistry book in Russian, you’re probably not going to find it.

But Harry potter? People over the world were literally begging for translations after the first book came out. So you’ll have no problem finding the audio versions.

Four reasons why reading in Russian is awesome

Reading a book in Russian will easily allow you to add a lot of practice time. In the end, the more hours you practice your Russian, the better you’re going to get.

Who will speak better at the end of the year? The person that listened to audio courses for 20 minutes every day? Or the person who did that as well AND read the first 2 Harry Potter books?

It’s a no-brainer. Now, you might argue that it’s not as effective as taking a course or doing a grammar session… but that’s exactly what I want to show in the previous example. Reading is an additional activity.

It is fun. You want to read. You want to know how the story continues. You want to immerse yourself in this magical world.

So you do not need a lot of motivation to pick up the book.

And that is coincidentally something a lot of people struggle with if they’re not following classes or having meetings with a tutor.

Everything’s on you if you’re doing self studying. So if you can find a way to make learning Russian fun (you can also watch Russian TV shows if you want), then you can spend a lot more hours learning it.

Quick recap of the benefits of reading

Here’s the main benefits I’ve found that reading in Russian gives:

• Learn new vocabulary – the best way to learn new words is to see them repeatedly in a relevant context. Which is exactly what happens when you read a book. You can often deduct what a specific word means by looking at the rest of the sentence. And once you see a word pop up the 3rd time, you know that it’s worth knowing.
• Put in extra hours of practice – I prefer to do a little bit of Russian practice every day. It’s not often that I do 4 hours of learning. And the only times I’ve managed that is by watching Russian TV or reading a book. being absorbed in Russian for 4 hours will make you better in it.
• It doesn’t even feel like ‘work’ – once you get into that flow state when you are enjoying it, but it’s still slightly challenging, time will fly.
• You can read ‘useful’ books too – you probably have an endless list of books you still want to devour. Why not kill 2 birds in 1 stone and switch some English ones for Russian translations? Admittedly, your Russian needs to be pretty good for it, but once you’re there, you can improve your Russian and go through your to-read-list twice faster.

Where to go from here?

Harry Potter doesn’t end with the books. If you’ve gone through the books, but still want more, then you can easily watch all the movies in Russian as well. Bear in mind that the voice overs (especially in the first couple movies) aren’t that well done. But the later ones sound better. I recommend you start with Russian voice and English subtitles. Later you can opt for just Russian (your Russian will be badass by that time;))

Reading Russian books (and especially Harry Potter) is a great investment of your time. Your Russian will improve quickly, you learn new vocabulary and the best thing is that it doesn’t even feel like work. You don’t need to motivate yourself to get going, as the book itself will take care of that.

In short, reading is one of the few shortcuts there is to learning Russian. It’s not a shortcut in the exact sense of the word, but the feeling of ‘level up’ after you’ve read a book sure feels like that!

One last thing about Harry Potter: the books also become more difficult and deep as you go through the series. Where the first book is very much more childlike (and short!) than the 5th one.

One post on the Master Russian forum summed it up very well:

“IMHO, any HP book is worth getting from a learner’s point of view. The first two-three books are pretty easy to read and would be very useful for learners at an intermediate level. The rest of the HP books – that is, 3rd-6th, are, imo, a lot more difficult to read. I have read the first five books in Russian and have enjoyed them all. Especially the 5th one since it’s not as childish as the rest. I have read it in English as well. I haven’t yet read the 6th HP book but hopefully I will manage to get it in English. I recommend you to read any HP book that is translated into English (if it is your first language) if you like HP. I would say that Dan Brown’s books are translated into Russian much worse that the HP series.”

Since the books are already a bit older, I tried my best to see if there were free versions available on the web. But unfortunately, I couldn’t find any…

The great thing is that since the books (and audiobooks) aren’t that expensive since you’re buying them in Russian. At most it will cost you 500 to a 1000 rubles, which is around 6 to 12 dollars.

EDIT: I’ve found a link to a free audio version of the first book. You can’t download it unfortunately, but it’s great for listening. Listen to it here.

EDIT 2: I also found a free online version of the book! Check it out here.

P.S. Have a friend who’s doing the boring way of learning Russian with just textbooks? Share this article to show that learning Russian can be fun and engaging too!