LANGUAGE APPS REVIEWS

Babbel’s beginners’ course promises to provide an easy introduction to Russian in which you can quickly learn the Russian alphabet and gain an understanding of the most important ideas. The beginners’ course teaches the Cyrillic alphabet, covers greetings and introductions, and reviews other basic and useful phrases.

The course functions as a series of multiple-choice questions using images where the words are spoken by native speakers. The images chosen are culturally relevant and there are plenty of detailed linguistic explanations which clarify new material as it’s introduced. The course is designed to help you reach A1 CEFRL (the most basic level of Russian) and it will certainly get you there if you follow through with it. However, there is some disconnect between this basic goal and the vocabulary that is taught in the app, which is much more complicated and more suitable for advanced learners. Still, Babbel Russian is a solid choice for newbies.