People spend quite a lot of their free time watching movies and TV shows. Therefore, it might be a good idea to use movies as one of the ways of learning the Russian language as well. There are a number of reasons why movies are a wonderful tool for doing it.

First, a movie is a source of an authentic language, a language that is used in real life situations. If you do not live in a Russian-speaking environment, movies are probably your only chance to get acquainted with the real language spoken by real people.

Second, movies provide a visual introduction to the life, traditions, and linguistic realities of Russia/former Soviet Union and make you immerse into cultural environment of native speakers.

Third, learning through movies is motivating and enjoyable at the same time. Everybody knows that motivation and self-motivation is definitely the most important factor for learning a foreign language.

Learning any language is hard work which takes quite a long time until you see the result. At the same time, learning a language is not only reading textbooks or doing grammar exercises. To master your language, you should make use of all opportunities offered by modern life. For example, “Learn Russian in the EU” teachers and students use the service “Soviet & Russian Movies” as a source of authentic movies with Russian narration and subtitles.

Before you start using movies to learn or improve your Russian, you should consider the following things:

1. Think before you choose a movie:

What kind of movie you would like to watch – action, drama, comedy, etc. Learning and understanding the plot is important but the process of watching should definitely be enjoyable. Enjoy the process of learning the language while watching your favorite genre of movie!

2. Assess you level of language:

If you are a beginner, you’d better watch a movie with subtitles in your native language. You’ll understand better what the movie is about and listen to some authentic Russian at the same time. You can also re-watch the episodes you especially like with Russian subtitles. Gradually, you can start watching some short episodes with Russian subtitles.

If you are an intermediate or advanced student, you can try to learn Russian while watching movies with Russian subtitles. It is definitely an extremely challenging although a really rewarding task. You can stop the movie any time to take notes of some interesting words, phrases, or grammatical/conversational structures.

3. Consider how much time you can devote to watching movies:

It is true that the more time you spend on it, the better results you achieve. However, we should stay realistic. We’d recommend allowing yourself 20 minutes a day but try to do it every day.

Watching movies in Russian is a fantastic way of learning the language. We hope you’ll take advantages of this opportunity.