I listened to the audio lessons from Russianpod101 from the beginning of 2016 to the later half of 2017. That’s a long time ago, and my Russian got a lot better. Still, as core lessons of the program have remained the same, I’d like to write a Russianpod101 review.
If you’re on the verge of getting the program, I hope this review will help you get more clarity.
So I started listening to Russianpod101 when I was a beginner. I’d just followed the Michel Thomas beginner course, and was looking for a new course to listen to.
Then, my Russian girlfriend invited me to fly to Moscow for 2 weeks. But since noone really speaks English well there, I felt I had to step up my Russian skills.
I googled around and found Russianpod101.
Here are the 2 best parts:
- Audio lessons: the audio lessons are around 15 minutes and cover every important part you need to learn: listening to a conversation, vocabulary, grammar and Russian culture and traditions.
- List of 2000 most common words: a list of the most common words with their pronunciation and indication of the stress. Since Russian is so different from English you must emphasize learning new words.
The program had a lot of other extras, such as video lessons, audio lesson quizzes and PDFs, but I didn’t pay much attention to those.
Just listening to 1 audio lesson per day and adding the 2000 most common words to an Ankidroid deck was all I needed.
The audio lessons have a nice structure:
- a 30 second conversation in Russian
- a repetition of the conversation, but now slowly
- translations of each sentence
- new vocabulary
- explanation of grammar
- cultural remarks
- repetition of the dialogue
I especially like that the structure of the lesson teaches you everything you need to learn Russian. Except for speaking, you have to do practice that with a native speaker.
There are some bad sides to Russianpod 101 though:
- Upsells: even if you’ve signed up, you still get the upsells in each lesson to sign up for their program (it’s hardcoded), or to sign up for a higher plan. It’s a bit annoying, but okay.
- Eddy: one teacher is called Eddy, and he’s a bit annoying. The other teachers (native and non-native) are good.
Is Russianpod101 free?
Yes and no. There is a 7 day free trial. But in general it’s a paid podcast, that starts from $4 per month for the basic plan if you get it for 2 years. I recommend signing up for the free trial and checking out the program before you make a final decision.
Conclusion Russianpod101 review
If there’s one program that helped me a lot to speak Russian, it’s Russianpod101. It’s not free, but it’s way cheaper and effective than following classes in your neighbourhood.
I recommend you sign up for the free trial and see how it works for you.
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