5 Best Writing Activities for Beginners in Russian

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5 Best Writing Activities For Russian Language Learning

Russian is one of the most challenging languages to learn. So, if you want to become fluent in Russian, use this handy guide on the best writing activities for beginners in Russian to help you reach your goals.

How to start writing in Russian?

The difficulty of writing in Russian is partially due to the Cyrillic alphabet which is unfamiliar to many people outside of post-Soviet and southern Slavic countries.

We have already spoken about the Russian alphabet and on how to type in Russian.

Today, we will discuss the best writing activities for beginners in Russian. Add them to your study routine to learn new Russian words and grammar in a fun way. Practice writing as often as possible, even if it’s just 1 line a day.

Are you ready to take your Russian to the next level? Here are five writing activities for beginners in Russian that will help you advance.

Find a pen pal

Do you want to motivate yourself to practice writing daily? Find a pen pal who shares the same interests as you do. Preferably, this person should be a Russian native speaker who wants to learn English (or any other language you are fluent in). You can find such a pal on specialized websites or social media.

If you make it a habit to chat with your new friend daily, you will learn lots of new words very fast. On top of that, your pal will help you to correct your spelling and grammar mistakes and improve your writing.

Tip: Improve your English writing skills

If you want to improve your Russian, you should uplevel your English writing skills first. Let me explain why this is important.

If a person writes with mistakes in the mother tongue, he or she will face great difficulties in learning a foreign language. For instance, if you don’t know how to use commas in complex sentences in English, you will not understand how to use commas in Russian.

Are your English writing skills far from perfect? Try to improve them. Revise grammar rules, read books, newspapers, and professionally written essays (check top-rated sites that offer writing help). It will make a huge difference in your progress in foreign language learning.

Write comments in Russian

How many hours a day do you spend browsing social media websites? An hour, two, or maybe even more? You can use this time more wisely to improve your Russian.

If you follow Russian influencers on Instagram or listen to Russian songs on YouTube, try to comment on posts and videos in Russian. Well, it might sound like a challenging task for a beginner, but you can start small.

You can write short comments using the words you already know. For instance, you can use simple phrases like “great video” (отличное видео) and “I like this song” (Мне нравится эта песня), and that will be enough. The more new words you will learn, the longer comments you will be able to write. This simple activity will help you memorize the spelling of the words and understand the structure of the simple sentences.

Write tweets and Instagram captions in Russian

Another way to leverage social media for language learning is to write captions and tweets in Russian. If you are a true beginner, you can write a caption in your native language and then translate its key message into Russian.

Let’s consider an example. Imagine your sister has a birthday today. You want to publish her picture on Instagram and write a long caption about how much you love her.

Naturally, if you’ve started learning Russian just a month ago, you have a limited vocabulary. You can’t translate long text without outside help. But, you can translate the key message of your post and add “Happy birthday, my dear sister!” – “C днём рождения, моя дорогая сестра!” at the end of your post.

If you add this writing activity to your study routine, you will improve your foreign language skills. You will expand your vocabulary and become more fluent in Russian over time.

Pro tip: When you are writing social media posts, you can use Russian words as hashtags. For instance, you can substitute English hashtags #winter and #vacation with Russian words #зима and #отпуск. It’s another fun way to learn new words.

Collaborate with Russian native speakers

Russian differs from English in so many ways. And one of the biggest differences is that word order patterns in Russian don’t always match the basic word order in English. If you translate English sentences into Russian word by word, the text will not lose its sense, but it will sound a little bit weird to native speakers.

In HiNative, for example, you can ask questions about the Russian language or submit your writing in Russian for review from Russian native speakers and get valuable feedback in return.

What is the best way to become fluent in a foreign language?

These were the best writing activities for beginners in Russian, however, we can recommend them to everyone who wants to become fluent in any desired language. What else can you do?

Collaborate and practice!

You can start working as an editor for websites like PapersOwl and help non-English native speakers to improve their writing.

Another way is to read and comment on blogs in the language you want to learn.

Related: How to Learn Russian

In conclusion

Practice makes perfect, so keep working on improving your Russian day by day. Leverage these writing activities for beginners in Russian in your practice, and you will boost your language learning efforts.

Can you recommend other writing activities for beginners in Russian? Comment below!

youtube channel to learn russian online — Enjoy learning Russian with fun!

Author’s bio. Daniela McVicker is an editor for TopWritersReview. She has a master’s degree in English Literature, and she is truly passionate about learning foreign languages and teaching. Daniela works with the students helping them to reveal their writing talent and find one true calling.