russian language in my life essay

The Foreign Language That Changed My Teenage Son’s Life

I worried about his ability to fit in. But then he fell in love with Russian — and on a trip to Central Asia, he flourished.

The writer Paul Tough and his son Max. Credit... Gueorgui Pinkhassov for The New York Times

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By Paul Tough

• March 17, 2024

Even as a little kid, my son Max had a way of immersing himself in the subjects he cared about. The first one I can remember was Thomas the Tank Engine. Max had a hand-me-down wooden train track set up on a low platform in our living room, and at age 3, he would spend hours toddling around the outside, pushing trains and telling made-up stories, lost in the world of Thomas and Percy and Gordon. “Hamilton” came next, the soundtrack on repeat in the car for months, then a brief but intense dive into Mixels, a discontinued Lego collection, and then another into a Roblox game called Bee Swarm Simulator. With each one, Max would go deep, finding satisfaction not just in the playing but also in the experience of plunging himself into a new and unfamiliar world and mastering all of its contours.

Listen to this article, read by Robert Petkoff

When he wanted company on these journeys, I was often the one who went along. I logged serious hours by his side, shunting wooden trains onto sidings and leading my digital bees on a search for pollen. I hunted down old Lego packs for him on eBay and took him to Washington to see the Jefferson Memorial. I occasionally would try to steer him away from the video games and toward the history books, but mostly it didn’t matter what I thought. His interests were his interests, and he explored them the way he wanted, not the way I did.

There was a part of me that felt proud of his deep dives, but if I’m being honest, they often made me uneasy. When you’re a kid, knowing a ton about obscure subjects can be an early sign of intellectual curiosity, but just as often, it can be a symptom of misfiring neurons, an omen of future mental struggles. Sometimes the child who can tell you everything there is to know about dinosaurs or baseball statistics or the solar system grows up to be a groundbreaking scientist or a brilliant entrepreneur. Sometimes he just grows up to be a guy who never moves out of his parents’ basement.

As Max got older, his explorations grew more solitary, which led me to a new worry: that his interests were pulling him away from his fellow humans rather than toward them. (To protect his future privacy, I’m calling him by his middle name in this article.) Max was always a shy kid, slow to warm up to new people and content to spend long stretches on his own. The pandemic, which hit when he was 10, didn’t help. Academically, remote school worked out fine for Max, but socially, it added to his isolation. When in-person classes began again, he kept to himself more than ever, quiet behind his mask. At home, with his family, he was thoughtful and funny and quick, telling stories and asking endless questions. But when he got to school in the morning, it was like a curtain came down between him and the world.

A new subject came along in those pandemic years to once again capture his imagination: birds. Who knows why? Maybe creatures that could fly and soar were an appealing notion during endless lockdowns, or maybe birds were just another vast universe for him to map. In Texas, where we live, there are 47 species of warblers alone, each with its own markings and songs and migration patterns to analyze and commit to memory. Max borrowed bird books from the library and lay in bed reading them, absorbing facts and patterns, gathering arcane knowledge. He hung out on nature websites, posting photos and trading IDs with birders many times his age. He walked through fields at dawn, binoculars in hand. Once again he descended (or maybe ascended, this time), and once again I followed him. We spent many weekend mornings together walking beside the lagoons at our local sewage-treatment plant, looking for ruby-crowned kinglets and crested caracaras.

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Why I Find Russian Literature Irresistible

Reading the Russians is not just tantamount to broadening your literary horizons; it also means creating a space in your life for the fact and the act of writing. Like all good writers, they will make you think about why we write at all. Russian literature – works like Anna Karenina in particular – will prove unexpectedly addictive, leaving you hungering after truths you may already know, looking for reiterations, confusions, and the bad dreams we all share; all of it will be new and ageless –  and it will please and trouble you like never before. You will wonder how fur-cloaked noblemen from Tolstoy’s society can remind you of characters you just saw yesterday in your own hallway; how the mores of a cold, dated regime can seem identical to the struggles against which we are fortifying ourselves for today. And it will bring you back to the violent and astute nature of the desire to write, and – as Francine Prose wrote :

Sayali was born in Bombay and is a student of English and German. Her chief interest lies in finding out if words are ever enough. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Russian literature is simply awesome, and Crime and Punishment is a good example of all that. Some Russian books are a prime example or communist propaganda while other expose the communist ideology for what it really is: corrupt, murderess and doom to fail.

Hi Sayali I found this post while searching for Russian literature, and I’m not disappointed. This post is very well written. My first Russian was also ‘The Idiot’ and I couldn’t finish it either. I think I left at the first half. Subsequently I would also leave War and Peace, Crime and Punishment unfinished. We live in the age of distraction, and finding the time to read these books has been a challenge for me. Hopefully I will be able to get through them at some point in the future.

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75 Russian Phrases Every Language Learner Should Know

• English as a Second Language
• M.F.A., Creative Writing, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Diploma in Translation (IoLet Level 7, Russian), Chartered Institute of Linguists

Consider the following 75 Russian phrases a survival guide for your time in Russia. Our lists include everything you need to know to greet people, ask for directions, order at a restaurant, shop, and get around.

What to Read in Russian: 13 Great Free Resources

Reading articles, stories, and news in Russian is one of the best ways to improve your language skills. It builds vocabulary , improves comprehension, and exposes you to real-world grammar and expressions .

In this post, I have compiled a list of great websites and blogs that publish free articles in Russian. They cover a wide range of topics from news and politics to science, technology, and literature. Whether you are a beginner looking for simple texts or an advanced learner seeking more complex reading, you will find something helpful on this list.

Table of Contents

Link: https://lifehacker.ru

The name says it all – this site is a collection of tips and life hacks spanning different spheres. In addition to articles, Lifehacker has its own podcast.

Link: https://knife.media

An online magazine writing on a wide variety of topics. Their brief description: ‘Daily reading for an intelligent person.’ Topics include psychology, science, medicine, culture, and news. There is also a section for reading the latest news.

Link: https://arzamas.academy/mag

A project dedicated to cultural history. It covers literature, art, history, and other humanities in an accessible way despite the complexity. In addition to articles, it also offers audio lectures.

Link: https://snob.ru

‘Snob’ is a discussion, news, and social space for intellectual people who live in different countries, speak different languages, but think in Russian.

The magazine also has a print version, but the website offers more opportunities – for example, visitors can publish their own stories.

The Village

Link: https://www.the-village.ru

A magazine about cities and life that was blocked in Russia. It openly writes about topics that currently cannot be discussed in the country.

Link: https://meduza.io

Another opposition publication. The news published on this site is noticeably different from state propaganda, with journalism that is closer to reality.

Link: https://www.sports.ru

The largest Russian media dedicated to sports and everything related. If you are interested in this topic, be sure to bookmark this page.

Immersing yourself in these Russian language websites and blogs will help build up your vocabulary and comprehension. You will learn new words and expressions within meaningful contexts. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t understand everything at first – just take it bit by bit.

Try choosing simpler texts at the start and work your way up as your skills improve. The key is regular practice. Use these quality free resources to supplement your language studies. In no time, you’ll find reading Russian becoming easier and more enjoyable. Pick an article of interest and start reading today!

A native Russian speaker who loves explaining things to foreigners.

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Reading in Translation

• Contributors
• Elena Ferrante’s “The Lying Life of Adults”
• Essays on Translation
• Reading Domenico Starnone
• READING NATALIA GINZBURG
• Translators on Books that Should be Translated
• Write for US

Always to Seek: On Reading Russian Literature in Translation

By Brandy Harrison

It all began with youthful audacity. When someone asked me one day, “What are you reading? , ” the answer was War and Peace. There was a pause, a faint flicker of confusion in the face hovering above my own, and then a slower, more tentative second question: “Why . . . are you reading that? ”

I, at seventeen, sitting propped up against my locker in the hallway, didn’t really have an answer. The plain grey hardcover teetering against my knees looked as thick and heavy as a brick (he said), and why would anyone want to read some novel about the . . . Russians . . . during the – what was it, again? The Napoleonic Wars? What was the point?

I shrugged with adolescent nonchalance.

“I don’t know. It’s interesting.”

Perhaps a more honest answer was that I was a show-off. At some point during my senior high school year I discovered a taste for seeking out the sort of books that well-meaning adults liked to brand “difficult , ” as though it were impossible for a mere teenager to understand such works, let alone enjoy them. I started to raid the library in search of challenges. My premise was that just about any book that looked lengthy and imposing enough would do to inspire astonishment in others, and War and Peace , as one of the most famously lengthy of all, fit the bill nicely. I knew nothing about Russia when I was first introduced to Tolstoy, nothing about Tsars or patronymics or orthodoxy or Siberia – nothing at all. And at first, none of it seemed to matter much anyway.

Of course, my vanity was disappointed. Apart from teachers, most people had better things to do than take note of what I read or care much about it. I persevered anyway, soon forgetting all about vanity and sinking deeper and deeper into Tolstoy’s world, fascinated.

Meanwhile, the few who did notice usually reacted to my choice of reading more with puzzlement than with admiration or interest. After all, what was the point?

It was a valid question. Fifteen years later, I’m still trying to come up with a proper answer.

A Soul, Or Something Like It

There are plenty of reasons for me not to read Russian literature. I’m not Russian. I don’t know the Russian language; my active vocabulary consists of such impressive words as da , nyet , and – strangely enough – banya. At the time of writing this, I still haven’t even travelled within Russia itself. With all this geographical and emotional distance dividing me from the country and its culture, in theory I should have been able to fall in love just as easily with, say, Japanese literature, or French, or Hindi. But I didn’t. It is Russian literature that has evolved from vainglorious teenaged dabbling to enduring obsession in my life. But why?

Is it something intrinsic to Russian literature itself, as a literary phenomenon? Russian literature stands apart from the literatures of many of its European counterparts, or at least seems to. The story of its remarkable emergence is often told like this: Russia, the eternal enigma, drifts about in ignorance and darkness, cut off from the great epochs of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, which are so pivotal in shaping the West through several long centuries. During these eras, the Europeans tend to ignore Russia, or think of it only as a caricature: it’s despotic, it’s feudal, it’s freezing cold, it’s full of onion domes and bears. While Russia’s military strength is occasionally felt on the continent, its cultural influence is not. Italian has its Petrarch and Dante, English its Shakespeare, French its Montaigne and Molière – and Russia? Nothing. Silence. Still buried in a quasi-medieval world of folktales and religious meditations. Even the Russian aristocracy seems to shrug in embarrassment at this state of affairs, idolizing foreign tongues and foreign literatures amongst themselves, and reserving their mother tongue for giving orders to their serfs.

And then in the nineteenth century, an earthquake – an explosion of brilliance, a miraculous century. Suddenly this supposedly backwards, sprawling country has a Pushkin and a Lermontov in poetry, a Gogol in satire, a Chekhov in drama and stories, a Tolstoy and a Dostoevsky in novels . . . and Europe gapes in astonishment. The vision of the Russian writers is so bold, their style so robust and colourful, that other contemporary European literatures risk looking a little insipid in comparison. The old caricature doesn’t disappear entirely, but it does undergo some grudging modifications: the land formerly dismissed as merely brutish and dark is now credited with a philosophical bent and supreme depth of feeling – the myth of the Russian soul is born.

In all of my years spent reading Russian literature in translation, a precise definition of what exactly constitutes this supposed Russian soul has eluded me. It could be argued that this myth is just as limiting a caricature as the old brutish one, albeit more flattering. And there is some truth to that criticism. The popular stereotype of Russian literature – often repeated to me with unnerving confidence by those who have read little or none of it – is that it is deep but depressing, scribbled by dreamers agonizing over the life and nature of man while getting crushed under the boot of one authoritarian regime after another. Such a stereotype readily acknowledges the philosophical or spiritual quality of many of Russia’s best literary works, but it all but ignores the humour, the humanity, the richness, and the sheer range found within the canon.

Nevertheless, this Russian soul myth remains tenacious, and has some truth to it as well. There is indeed often something deeply soulful about Russian literature, and if I had to describe it in one word, I would choose restless.

Perhaps the Russian writers themselves would understand what I mean in invoking restlessness as a defining trait. An apocryphal story about Leo Tolstoy on his deathbed claims his famous last words were, “To seek, always to seek . . .” One of Anton Chekhov’s dictums was that the task of the writer is not to give the reader the right answers, but to ask the reader the right questions . By the late 1970’s, the great dissident writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was stating, with pride, in his address at Harvard University: “we [in the East] have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life’s complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally produced by standardized Western well-being.” It could be argued that it has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting literature as well.  

It is the restless aspect of Russian literature that intrigues me, that keeps me coming back again and again through the years. My own academic background is in English literature. To turn from the more orderly, regimented world of English literature to that of Russian literature always represents a visceral shift, like trading a garden for the wilds of nature. And I have sometimes joked that a prophet complex is one of the occupational hazards Russian writers have traditionally faced: their moral influence within their own societies has been so marked and outsized that it’s little wonder figures as diverse as Tolstoy and Mayakovsky were convinced of their work’s importance, and its power to change their world. They were not afraid of creating works on a grand scale, driven by grand ambitions, long after many of their Western counterparts had begun to doubt art’s role in the wider world. Perhaps the essence of their Russian soul is their stubborn belief that art can be – and is – an essential part of man’s search for purpose and meaning. Such a belief can seem almost quaint in a modern, heavily commercialized Western culture, but in returning to Russian literature, I find it all but impossible to resist the seeker’s call, and I begin believing all over again.  

In Other Words

But what is the point of reading Russian literature in translation ? The purist will claim that no one who reads a translation has really read the work in question at all. To replicate a writer’s style, wordplay, meaning, and form all at once in a completely different language seems impossible, especially if the second language is by nature very different from the original. And Russian and English are quite far apart in many ways. Can I really say that I have read Russian literature itself, or just a poor, shadowy replica of it?  

I would argue that it is the ambivalent, imperfect nature of translation that makes it an art form in its own right, and which helps to make foreign literature – Russian or otherwise – come alive for English readers in a way that gives it a parallel authenticity to the original. No translator would ever dare to assert that his translation is entirely successful in every respect, or that her translation is the definitive and final one, rendering all future attempts at translation useless. In fact, one of the great charms of translators’ notes or introductions is how frequently they appear to be written in a spirit of nervous modesty, with the translator openly acknowledging the inherent challenges of the process and the shortcomings of the result.

I try to bring something of the same modesty into my reading experience. No, I can’t claim that I have had direct contact with Bulgakov or Mandelstam, although I do believe that a truly great translation provides us with a reasonable approximation, however flawed it may be. There is still much that I miss. But part of the fun of reading – part of that restless seeking – is trying to catch glimpses of the author in spite of the barriers. That’s why it is especially rewarding to read a much-loved book in multiple translations, when they are available: different translators often capture different aspects of the author’s style and form. It’s a bit like trying to piece together the image of a puzzle with some of the pieces missing, and there is something about that process that makes me even more alert to the nature of language and literature, deepening my connection to what I read.

I also rather shamelessly enjoy playing favourites along the way. I remember how Pushkin’s verse never quite lived for me until I discovered them in Walter Arndt’s graceful renderings, which seemed to bring Pushkin so close to the English Romantics he had admired. Although it has become somewhat fashionable to malign the efforts of Constance Garnett – one of the first great translators of Russian literature into English – I’m not sure if there is any version of War and Peace I prize more than hers, both out of sentimentality and a conviction that there is something about its old-fashioned elegance that transports me back to the Napoleonic Wars more effortlessly than any other I have read. Likewise, I feel such a deep loyalty to Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita that when I came across a different translation on a friend’s bookshelf, I was almost offended by the way some of the characters’ names had been translated into English, and complained aloud that the choice of vocabulary in some of the novel’s crucial motifs was not just inferior but wrong somehow.

But of course, there is no true right or wrong when it comes to translation, only varying degrees of accuracy or stylistic liberties. Best of all, reading a book you’ve already read in a new translation is the closest you can get to experiencing that novel or poem for the first time all over again – it’s familiar, but not quite. And no matter how excellent or satisfying a particular translation may be, there is always the lingering sense that perhaps a different one might come along that will be revelatory in some way, which leaves us with an open-ended longing. In this way, the same work is reborn again and again, and we find ourselves undertaking not just one, but two adventures simultaneously: the adventure of trying to catch whatever tantalizing glimpses we can of what lies behind the translator’s veil, and the adventure of experiencing the beauty, pathos, and wisdom of the literary work itself.

All the Right Questions

I momentarily transport myself back to that hallway, back to that crucial question. Have I succeeded in finding my way towards some sort of answer? Can I now say, with confidence, what the point of reading Russian literature is?

Yes, and no. For in some ways, trying to pin down a definitive “point” is a bit like trying to craft a perfect translation: slippery, elusive, and futile. There are many answers that can be given in response to the question, and each answer will illuminate a different aspect of reading, of the art of translation, and of Russian literature itself. But no answer is complete or definitive, just another piece of the puzzle. And it seems to me that everyone is reading with their own set of pieces, which are determined by the context of their lives, their connection to the literature at hand, and their ever-changing motivations and moods. The point of reading Russian literature – or any literature – varies and metamorphoses from person to person, sometimes even from moment to moment.

Perhaps that was what Chekhov knew all along. He couldn’t give his readers the right answers because he knew there aren’t any. And maybe that is why I remain close to Russian literature after all these years – because it keeps asking me questions. And I keep seeking the answers, invigorated in the conviction that the answer will be different every time I read.      

Brandy Harrison received her PhD in English Language and Literature from Queen’s University, Canada, in 2019. Her doctoral dissertation, No Man is an Island: Interdependent Conceptions of Selfhood in Wyatt, Donne, and Milton is now freely accessible to the public online. A long-time devotee of Russian history and culture, she blogs about Russian literature at Russophile Reads . She divides her heart and her time between her two countries, Canada and Portugal.

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Translating “The Americans,” and Seeing a Mirror of My Own American Experience

This piece contains spoilers for the series finale of “The Americans.”

My life prepared me to do one job, and this job was translating for “The Americans,” the FX show that wrapped up on Wednesday after six seasons. Most of the episodes contained at least a few scenes in Russian, and “The Americans” was the first show I’d encountered whose creators cared to insure that the dialogue was scripted and spoken in actual, idiomatic, living Russian. For the last three seasons, it was my job to translate these scenes, scripted in English, into Russian.

It wasn’t just any Russian, either. The show begins in 1981 and ends in 1987, just before the language began to follow, and to facilitate, the country’s transformation by absorbing hundreds of words from foreign languages— office , bucks , management , and so many others that capitalism brought with it, but also electoral’niy , exit poll , and more to describe the mechanics of democracy—and by creating brand-new slang. When I went back to the Soviet Union, in 1991, after a ten-year absence, I had to learn a slate of slang terms, get comfortable with the use of newly absorbed foreign terms, and, more subtly, note that cognates had migrated to include meanings that they had in other languages. (For example, the Russian detali now meant not only small parts of a physical structure but also details of an event, or of anything else.)

This experience meant I was perfectly situated to translate into a Russian of the early nineteen-eighties. My language wasn’t exactly frozen in time—I ended up living and working in Moscow for more than twenty years after my 1991 return—but I did remember the words and expressions I had to learn anew. I tried to make the Russian dialogue free of such anachronisms. Beautifully and strangely, the creators of “The Americans” indulged and even encouraged this quest for quality in a near-vacuum: only a tiny fraction of viewers could understand Russian at all, and a disappearingly small portion of this fraction would notice the Soviet-era purity of the Russian-language dialogue.

The circumstances that gave me my peculiar expertise in the Russian language bound me to the show in another way, too: I immigrated to the United States with my parents in 1981, the year the show begins. Its central couple, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, are Russian spies who have spent fifteen years in the United States blending in, and are faced with a series of choices that test their loyalty to the cause and to each other. Philip has weaknesses: he has grown to love America and the wife who is his partner in spying and part of his cover. He is tempted to defect and live the life he has been living, but for real—to become an American. By the end of the first season, the Jenningses do trade in their fake, arranged, cynical Soviet marriage for a real American one. They become the roles they’ve been playing. It’s not just that they adopt a psychotherapy-infused, stylistically American way of conducting a relationship; it’s that they opt to create an island of truth, and true love, in the midst of a world in which nothing is true—except their two children, who don’t know that their parents are Soviet spies.

The underlying assumption of the Jenningses’ arrangement—of their very lives—is that nothing is true except that the U.S.S.R. will last forever. My parents, who were the same age as the Jenningses when they emigrated, based their decisions on the same premise. My mother told me as much when we prepared to leave Moscow: the Soviet regime was there for eternity, and my parents were opting to live their finite human lives elsewhere, even if that meant never seeing their mothers again. They hardly looked back, but in 1987, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, they decided to travel there. They had never imagined that they would be able to visit so soon. The trip was both exhilarating and heartbreaking. My mother fantasized about what would have happened if she had stayed: she, a translator, would be working on classic, brilliant texts that censorship had kept out of the Soviet Union. My father, on the other hand, seemed immune to this wistfulness. He embraced his American life the way Philip Jennings longed to. He loved his car, his split-level house in a Boston suburb, and even, I suspect, the suit he had to wear to work.

Like my parents, the Jenningses return to the Soviet Union in 1987 as Americans. Caught up in a power struggle that will ultimately bring down the Soviet Union—though no one can conceive of this yet—they have been cornered and forced to go back. “We’ll get used to it,” Elizabeth says. She has no idea what she is talking about. Eternity has already cracked and is raining chunks of plaster on an unsuspecting world. Elizabeth and Philip—Nadezhda and Mikhail—are about to have to learn a slew of new words, and this is the least of their problems.

The first quasi-private businesses are about to open in Russia. In two years, the Eastern Bloc will disintegrate in a quick succession of velvet and not-so-velvet revolutions. In another two years, the Soviet Union itself will collapse following a failed and fumbling hard-line coup. In the year in between the collapses, thousands of people will line up to eat at the first McDonald’s in Moscow.

Philip and Elizabeth will be in demand. As K.G.B. agents with excellent knowledge of English, they can get jobs at any number of new companies that are trying both to do business with foreigners and to stay out of the way of the secret police. They might become heads of security for one of the companies that will grow very large in the coming years; their experience in assassinations may also come in handy. They could also become biznesmeny and launch an enterprise of their own—their connections and their English will be a great asset. Hell, they could build a travel empire. (Back in Washington, they ran a small travel agency.)

They cannot imagine it now, but they will probably succeed. They will succeed on Russia’s emergent new terms, by emulating the lives of the Americans they once were: by calling their place of work office , wearing American clothes, and driving everywhere, through traffic that will soon become gridlock. Like my mother, they will wonder about the people they might have been and the things they might have done if they had chosen differently. What was the point of risking their lives, taking the lives of others, and sacrificing their children’s trust for a cause that Mikhail Gorbachev and the whole Soviet empire seemed to give up so easily? In its quest for uncanny accuracy, “The Americans” was full of lessons about Russia, spies, the Cold War, and life. The most important of these, surely, is that eternity will come crashing down when you least expect it to.

The journey is the reward

Essential Guide to Learning Russian: From Newbie to Advanced

Table of Contents

Learning Russian: Common Beginner Questions

Like many great ideas, the thought of learning Russian usually takes people by surprise. Perhaps you are inspired by tragic, high-brow Russian literature or interested in Russia’s turbulent past; perhaps you are yearning to try Russian cuisine and drink a toast with your new best friends on a long-distance train; it could be that your homeland has historical ties to Russia, and even if it doesn’t, you are well within your right to dream of coming here to travel, study, or work. 

No matter your reasons for taking up Russian, you may be struggling with some big questions at the beginning of your language learning journey.

Is It Difficult to Learn Russian? 

Yes. No. Maybe? Ultimately, the answer to this question comes down to three points:

• your native language;
• your experience with second language acquisition;
• your motivation.

The number of shared traits your mother tongue has with Russian will reflect on your learning process , but don’t get discouraged if your first language doesn’t belong to the same regional subgroup as Russian, Belarusian, and Ukranian. Even coming from one language family can go a long way (evidenced by German speakers, who grasp the Russian noun case system with relative ease), and barring that, there are some similarities that occur randomly, but help learners in huge ways. An example that comes to mind is Chinese r, which sounds similar to Russian ж. Lucky coincidence? Maybe. Useful in overcoming one of the bigger hurdles of Russian phonetics? Yes .

Your experience with second language acquisition can be a double-edged sword:

• on the one hand, people who only ever learned their own language may lack the humility and discipline necessary for building another language identity from the ground up;
• this being said, polyglots, for all their experience and time-tried learning habits, are prone to mixing their languages up.

so don’t dwell on the things you never learned in the past, focus on the present and future instead.

Finally, the most important part is motivation , the driving force behind your studies. It doesn’t have to be grand, but it absolutely must get you all fired up. Learning a new language is a daunting, lengthy process, so you should find something that will help you keep going forward.

How Long Does It Take to Learn Russian? 

An old (like, Soviet Union-old) Russian joke comes to mind: 

How long does it take to learn Chinese?

A renowned professor will say, “Oh, it is an impossible task; even if you dedicate your whole life to it, there will always be something new for you to puzzle over.”

A research assistant will say, “About ten years.”

A lecturer will say, “Five years.”

A college student will say, “When do we need to take this exam?”

Questionable comical value aside, this joke does contain a kernel of truth:

it is mostly your goals that determine the length of your study process .

A tourist doesn’t need to be as fluent as a businessman, and an engineer will be forgiven for lacking the knowledge deemed crucial among Liberal Arts majors. 

Find your desired “field of expertise” , be it simple small talk or discussing classical music, and stick to it without trying to compare yourself to others. “We all have the same 24 hours” is a myth designed to shame people for doing things at their own pace; don’t fall for it. 

However, if you belong to the type of people who thrive within competitive and/or meticulously organized environments, you might want to take a look at the official TORFL (Test of Russian as a Foreign Language) standards. If we consider taking a full-time language class as the norm, then Level A1 takes 60 to 80 hours of training to complete, while A2 takes 160 to 200 hours, B1 – 400 to 480 hours, B2 – 560 to 680 hours, C1 – 960 to 1,200 hours and so on. Adjust these numbers according to your schedule and you’re good to go! 

How to Successfully Learn Russian: Intention, Goals and Motivation 

The key to success lies within clearly defined goals. Many learners fail because their goals are too abstract : no one can track their progress and celebrate small victories when their goalposts are constantly shifting. 

This is exactly why gamified learning apps, LingoDeer included, are so popular – they provide external motivation in the form of pre-made lessons, learning stats, leader boards, small prizes and other exciting features. But no app and no games can replace your internal motivation and the goals you set for yourself, so take some time brainstorm:

• Your motivation : What makes you want to learn Russian? What will keep you going even when it gets really tough? Will your life change for the better if you learn well? Will your life change for the worse if you don’t?
• Your goals : What do you want to achieve by mastering Russian? Be specific and pragmatic. Saying “I want to pass TORFL-I and study in Russia” or “I want to surprise my MMORPG party by keeping a simple conversation going in their native language” is better than “I want to really understand this country and its people” (which is a great answer too, if you’re prepared to fail many times before you succeed).
• Intentions : What are the small stepping stones that will lead you to your goal? How do you plan to hold yourself accountable on this journey? Create a suitable schedule and stick to it. If you find yourself overworked, adjust it as you go.

This soul-searching will get you ready to learn and succeed. But first, let’s look at some common mistakes that hinder other learners’ progress.  

DON’Ts in Learning Russian as a Beginner

Don’t rely on romanization.

One of the easiest aspects of learning Russian is the so-called mechanical reading , or reading focused on identifying and pronouncing different letters with little attention to the meaning – in a word, just what the doctor ordered for beginners. 

Mechanical reading in Russian is a lot more straightforward than in English or French, so mastering it won’t be a huge investment of time, but it will pay off in the long run. 

Romanization, on the other hand, promotes unnatural accents, stunts sound acquisition, and, last but not least, doesn’t look nearly as cool as a full-on Cyrillic script. If you feel intimidated by Russian letters, don’t be! This very article includes a step by step guide to learning the Russian alphabet , which is a nice addition to the “Alphabet” unit of the Russian language course on our app. 

DON’T Overthink It

We’ve all had this happen to us (and by we, I mean native speakers of Russian who dabble into teaching Russian as a Second Language, of course): a learner approaches with a theoretical question, the answer to which is way too complex for their understanding yet, and yet they persist in asking for clarification. You give one, to the best of your ability. The learner doesn’t get it. The language acquisition process is stalled, and everyone feels bad about it.

Some Russian grammar is tricky. Some (seems) incomprehensible. Don’t let this stop you. Learn as much as you can and come back to the difficult stuff later , having amassed more background knowledge about the inner workings of the language. Remember, sooner or later, quantity will turn to quality, so don’t chase perfection too early.

Getting Started as An Absolute Beginner in Learning Russian

Russian is a language that requires time and patience, but it doesn’t mean you can’t learn some simple stuff first. With that thought in mind, let’s take a look at the Russian azbuka and some common Russian phrases.

Beware of the Challenges in Learning Russian

Russian is a notoriously difficult language to learn, but no one can tackle a problem they aren’t aware of. As such, future learners of Russian should be prepared to deal with :

Russian Word Stress

In terms of word stress, Russian is a lawless land: there is very little rhyme and reason as to how certain syllables are emphasized while others are not. In addition to this, every word (except some particles) must have a stressed syllable, but no authentic Russian texts feature stress marks ! Many learners decried the Russian word stress – to no avail: it still goes strong in the year 2020 and we have no choice but to memorize the correct pronunciation of words one at a time. 

Fortunately, every word featured in LingoDeer comes with an audio attached, so knowledge of correct pronunciation will come to you as easy as breathing (or close to that, anyway) soon enough!

Russian Learning Lifehacks

Learn the practical words first.

Busy as you are, try to stick to the words that are most likely to come up in a real life conversation between you, a foreigner dabbling in language learning, and a native speaker. Start out with pronouns and nationalities, then move on to job titles, then daily items… If this list sounds similar to our Russian course plan at LingoDeer, don’t worry, it’s intentional! Our lessons and wordlists are prepared with practicality in mind, so you won’t have to wait years till that knowledge comes in handy.

Improve All Four Areas in Learning Russian As You Advance 

Getting better at speaking russian.

• Imitating native speakers : don’t just concentrate on the sounds, go for the intonations, emphasis, and mood; play with your voice and have fun!
• Don’t forget to record yourself : not only will those recordings serve as proof of your progress in the future, they can also provide immediate help in correcting mispronunciation. Our app offers a playback function that will let you listen to your recordings against the backdrop of recordings made by native speakers, so if something sounds off, you will be the first to know!
• Broaden your range : parrot store owners and news anchors, teachers and vendors, YouTube MUAs and pop-singers (singing is especially useful for building the self-confidence necessary to speak Russian with your whole chest). 
• Make sure to use a text that carries word stress marks , if you decide to practice some mechanical reading . When in doubt, use word stress marking tools available online, such as RussianGram or StressFinder .

Getting Better At Listening to Russian

Learning to listen is not something that can be done within one day.

• Start with clear and slow recordings before gradually moving onto more natural-sounding stuff. Our app offers the speed adjustment function that will leave you in charge of your progress.
• Make sure to always have something Russian sounding in the background. You don’t have to force yourself to pick out words and phrases – just get used to the speech flow as you go about your day.
• Start building up vocabulary to talk about the stuff that interests you early on. As your skill develops, you may find yourself gravitating to some particular topics – this is good! Russians don’t really like small talk, but we do appreciate passionate people.
• Other than that, don’t forget about the abundance of movies, TV shows and cartoons in Russian , both new and old, available online with English subtitles. Usually, a cursory search on YouTube will get you the “[movie title] eng sub” in a matter of seconds, but if you are in a browsing mood, go to SovietMoviesOnline and take your pick.

Getting Better At Reading in Russian

What do you do when azbuka and mechanical reading are no longer an issue? Use reading to expand your vocabulary and strengthen your understanding of grammar , of course! Just don’t try to translate every unfamiliar word you see; the tediousness will turn you away from reading in Russian forever. Instead, let the written word wash over you, and something will inevitably stick. 

Lower your expectations: even if you are a Yale graduate, don’t start your reading practice with “War and Peace”. Pick up a graded reader , some pulp fiction or a flashy magazine and build up your skill slowly. Be wary of children’s books though – many of them contain vocabulary that will only clog your memory and offer no use in real life.

Getting Better At Writing in Russian 

The only way to get better at writing is… to write, write, write! Write down new words and phrases, grammar notes, famous quotes, song lyrics and the like; some beginners are even brave enough to write diaries in Russian, so you can try that too. If you need to check your writing, you can ask a native speaker for help on Italki and similar platforms.

Writing by hand is great for reinforcing literacy and spelling accuracy , but, living in the modern world, we cannot ignore the necessity to type stuff out. Get a Russian keyboard extension if you haven’t! If nothing else, you can always use it to do writing exercises in our app – we do offer a “Let me type” option for those users who don’t really like the ol’ drag and drop.

Published by galya k.

A native speaker of Russian, translator and passionate learner of English and Chinese. Always ready to extend a helping hand to those in need of language learning advice. View all posts by galya k.

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Why Study in Russia? 9 Captivating Reasons to Try Russian Study Abroad

Looking for reasons to study in russia learn how a study abroad russia program can change your life through its food, culture, people & more.

When you think of Russia, you probably think of cold and snow. Maybe images of glittering Moscow or charming Saint Petersburg pop into your mind. But have you ever thought of going to Russia for college?

Why study in Russia? While it’s not the most typical study abroad destination, it’s an incredible opportunity! Russia is a large country filled with historic cities, stunning landscapes, and friendly people. It’s also home to famous universities and many great scholars.

So dust off your parka and grab your mittens. Let’s explore 9 amazing reasons to study in Russia!

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1. Get a World-Class Education

Did you know that Russia boasts a  99.7 literacy rate ? It actually surpasses many Western countries in this aspect. The Russian education system is the perfect place to get outstanding post-secondary training!

You’ll find over 900 universities and colleges scattered throughout this expansive land. Even though many of them rank high, Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University are the best schools in Russia. Be prepared for tough entrance exams and specific requirements if these are on your list!

Last year, over  300,000 international students  chose Russia as their study abroad destination. They make up about 8% of the entire student population. The most popular areas of study were engineering, medicine, and business.

2. Explore Culinary Delights

Pelmeni, borscht, and caviar! Living in Russia means discovering a whole new world of gastronomy.

Russian food tends to be warm and hearty, perfect for the freezing winters. Meals are usually served in courses with a soup as a starter, followed by a meat dish. A nice, hot cup of tea rounds out the meal and sends you on your way to class toasty and satisfied.

But life in Russia doesn’t have to mean eating the same type of cuisine every day. Medium and large-sized cities have a range of food options available from every country. So whether you’re craving samosas or Pad Thai, you’ll be able to find it in your new community.

Related Read : 10+ Best Writing Websites, Forums & Writing Groups for Aspiring Authors

3. Discover the Masters of Literature

100 great works of literature every college student should read.

Read these essential books before starting university.

You’ve probably seen  these lists  many times before. One thing they all have in common is that a number of the authors are always Russian.

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Nabokov are some of the great masters of literature you’ll discover if you study abroad in Russia. If your major is related to writing, literature, or poetry, this will be especially exciting!

Even if Russian literature isn’t your thing, walking around the same campus that Tolstoy frequented in his time is still exciting. That connection with greatness can be a real motivation when it comes to your studies!

4. Learn a Useful Language

Did you know that over  300 million people speak Russian  around the world? It puts the language in 8th place as the most widely spoken globally.

Learning Russian can be incredibly difficult but very rewarding. It also makes for easy travel in other ex-Soviet countries that still speak Russian. Beyond travel and making new friends, Russian is becoming an in-demand language worldwide.

If you plan on working in business, science, or tech in Europe, Russian is an  important language  to know. Many European career opportunities are influenced by Russia’s economy and an enormous amount of web content.

Related Read : List of 100+ Best Icebreaker Questions & Conversation Starters

5. Traverse a Giant Nation

Russia spans across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. If you choose to study at Russian universities, the  travel opportunities  are enormous!

These are some of the most famous locations you’ll want to hit during your summer and winter breaks.

As Russia’s capital, Moscow is a must-see. The city is an exciting mix of green spaces, historic alleys, and modern architecture. Filled with art galleries, theaters, and shopping, you’ll be going non-stop all day.

Don’t forget to stop by the infamous Red Square, the Kremlin, and St.Basil’s Cathedral!

Saint Petersburg

For art and culture, head to this gorgeous city in Russia’s northwest. Bordering Finland and Estonia, this small city has a more European feel. With architecture, design, and beauty around every corner, it’s worth the trip.

Spend a day at the Hermitage and discover the world’s second-largest collection of art.

Lake Baikal

If you’re a nature-lover, Lake Baikal should be at the top of your travel list. As the world’s oldest, largest, and clearest lake, it’s a sight to behold. In the summer, you might even be able to take a quick dip!

Located in the Russian Tundra, near the Arctic Circle, this tiny town is the perfect place for viewing the Northern Lights. You’ll also be able to spot polar bears, seals, and wolves throughout the tundra. A friendly warning, this part of Russia experiences permafrost, so you’ll need to bundle up!

Need to warm your bones in the sunshine? Sochi is Russia’s summer resort town on the Black Sea. Head there on your summer break and enjoy the warm waters and pebble-filled beaches.

6. Save Your Hard Earned Money

Post-secondary education costs in Russia can be much cheaper than in Western Europe or North America. Most courses range from  $1,880 to $13,540  per year. So if your heart is set on colleges in Moscow, Russia, they’re more affordable than you think!

Cost of living is another factor to consider, and it varies widely based on location. Living in Moscow, for example, will be much more expensive than living in Vladivostok. To show how wide this scope is,  university dormitories  can cost as little as $7 a month to as much as $780 a month!

Many students choose homestays to save money and get a crash course in Russian culture. Others rent private apartments and houses. Regardless of your choice, your average monthly expenses will be much lower than in western countries.

Related Read : How to Save Money in College: 15+ Easy Ways w/ Tips & Advice for 2022

7. Study in High-Tech Classrooms

The Russian government pours a lot of money into producing highly-qualified university grads. Because of this, technology and research are emphasized in the university curriculum. Internships, research projects, and personal development are also encouraged.

No musty, boring classrooms here! Depending on your area of study, classrooms are well-equipped and campuses are welcoming. Students studying in areas of science, engineering, tech, and medicine will find their programs to be very fulfilling.

8. Experience Cultural Diversity

While Russian is the native language of the country, over  100 other languages  are spoken amongst 200 ethnic groups. At the same time, most students learn English throughout their school career. You’ll find a large number of polyglots in this country!

A stereotypical Russian person is often described as Caucasian with blonde hair and blue eyes. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Russia is actually  much more multi-cultural  than people realize. And a new generation of creatives is trying to show the world!

Related Read : How to Make Money in College (25 Ways to Earn Money as a Student)

9. Score a Scholarship

While Russian colleges and universities aren’t free, scholarships are plentiful. Last year, approximately 18,000 students received  free education  through government quotas.

If your country is very friendly with Russia or has a joint project in the works, you’ll have a better chance of getting funds. In the past, intergovernmental agreements with China, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan have benefitted students.

Universities and colleges in Russia don’t usually offer direct scholarships to international students. If you need help funding your education, these government quotas are your best bet!

Is Studying Abroad Right For You?

International experience is an important addition to any new grad’s resume. It shows that you’re culturally sensitive and aware of worldwide trends. You’ll also meet new friends, build global connections, and find once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

International education could be perfect for you if you:

• Love a challenge
• Want to learn a new language
• Have international career goals
• Need to expand your social network
• Want a unique study experience
• Love travel

Even if you don’t identify with every trait on this list,  studying abroad  might still be right for you. It’s important to explore all your options when looking for post-secondary opportunities. Once you’ve narrowed down your major and have a general career goal, you might find that international education is an advantage!

Related Read : Why is Travel Important? Here Are 7 Important Benefits of Traveling

So Why Study in Russia?

There are hundreds of reasons for participating in a study abroad program.

So why study in Russia? The food, the culture, the world-class universities, and exciting research projects! And so many other reasons, really.

Want to discover more reasons to head to Russia? Then it’s time to get started. To reach your full potential, you need access to a supportive community and exciting possibilities.

At Goodwall, we specialize in connecting young talent to opportunities. To learn more about the ins and outs of college life, check out the rest of the education section of the Goodwall Blog !

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Essay in Russian

Argumentative Essays

Narrative Essays

Comparative Essays

Student Partnership

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our class blog for Essay in Russian !

Here you will find examples of some of the essays written by UCL SSEES undergraduate students studying Russian as part of their degree.

The Essay in Russian module is an elective module of the Russian degree programme and aims to develop general transferable writing skills as well as essay writing in Russian. The content of the course is developed using both Process and Result oriented approaches to teaching writing. The module sets out to allow students to become independent and competent writers and give them the skills needed to produce coherent and cohesive written content in Russian.

Over the course of the 2018/19 academic year we covered four different types of essays: argumentative, narrative, reasoning, and comparative, plus a “review writing” – to all of which you can find sample essays in this blog.

Within the framework of the module, students were asked to create an individual online writer’s blog using the WordPress blogging platform where they published some of their work (essays or other posts). This was done as part of formative assessment and on an entirely voluntary basis.

Four different types of digital technologies were used to deliver this module and blogs were one part of them. The use of blogs was suggested to students in order to facilitate the idea of writing for audiences and to build their skills and confidence when writing. Using blogs also aimed to teach students to be accountable for the content they upload publicly and to serve as a tool of reflection on students’ writing process and progress. It also functioned as a motivational booster letting students see how they have improved over the course of the year. Moreover, in the future students can also use the blogs as Language Portfolios as evidence of their language proficiency to others, such as potential employers or other academic institutions.

I am very grateful to all my students who have contributed essay samples for this blog and who have provided continual valuable feedback on how to improve the module for future students. As a result of this successful pilot module and the feedback given by students this module has been refined, amended and improved and next academic year will run under the title Writing, Editing and Blogging in Russian. Thank you to all who helped to shape this module. Your responsive and positive attitude and collaboration is very much appreciated.

I hope you will enjoy the samples you read and will celebrate the achievements of our students!

With fondest regards,

Maria Sibiryakova ([email protected])

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Russian Speech Cliches

Good structure is one of the significant pillars of essay writing, and speech cliches are tools to layout your thoughts in the most compelling way. Thus, for your convenience, the expressions are listed according to essay parts: introduction, main body, and conclusion. Beginning with helpful Russian expressions for when you don't know how to start your text:

Russian Essay Writing Tips

Do longer eloquent sentences work.

Academic writing, for instance, in English, is all about clarity and brevity. The Russian language also commends the two but favors some more embellishments, even epithets, and metaphors for the diverse scientific topics one can imagine. But what is the limit, and how long is too long? There is no uniform example to give. However, some Russian teachers advise reading the sentence out loud. If you are getting out of breath - time to edit out ruthlessly.

To comma or not to comma?

Typically sentence connectors are separated by commas in the Russian language. But there is a catch: a list of 30+ terms that look like opening words but are, in fact, not. With experience, one develops a gut feeling as to when there is a need for a comma. Before that, use the following test: remove the connector from the sentence. If the meaning does not change, commas are required.

(source: adme )

Handwriting wire

Unless typing is involved, essays in Russian are written in calligraphy. The example above illustrates why it can become an issue, primarily if you are used to writing in block letters. So checking your essay, imagine yourself in the teachers' shoes and question if they can understand not only the arguments but also your handwriting.

Olya Amburg

Olya is a globetrotter, a Russian native inspired by people, cultures, and interactions. A love for the Russian language and literature led her to become a journalist. Olya shares her knowledge and passion for language learning, traveling, and communication as a freelance writer. In her spare time, she studies psychology and neuroscience, teaches yoga, and plans international adventures with friends.

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What We Lose When We ‘Cancel’ Russian

After the ukraine invasion, enrollment in the language hit historic lows. but turning away isolates the entire post-soviet world.

“The A,A” by artist Jim Sanborn, installed in front of M.D. Anderson’s library at the University of Houston, incorporates snippets of languages from all over the world. Courtesy of meltedplastic/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

by Caroline Tracey | January 19, 2023

Feeling decisive one morning during my sophomore year of college, I picked my major: Russian. I had been studying the language and was excited for the opportunity to read literature, learn about another part of the world, and become bilingual. I updated my student profile on the university’s website and marched triumphantly to the cafeteria for lunch.

There, I ran into an acquaintance and told him the news. He looked at me quizzically, then scornfully. “You realize it’s not the Cold War anymore, right?” he said.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago and with divisions over democracy, authoritarianism, and control of resources resurfacing, many have warned of a “new” Cold War. But ironically, as Russia once again dominates headlines as a geopolitical foe of the United States, Russian language enrollments have hit historic lows.

Americans are responding to conflict by closing themselves off from an adversary, rather than trying to learn about it. But by “canceling” Russian, the U.S. isolates itself from a world that extends far beyond Moscow—a vast geography that isn’t Russia, but where Russian remains the lingua franca. Learning to speak Russian isn’t just about negotiating with one large country ruled by a stubborn dictator. It’s about understanding that swath of the world where Russian is a common first or second language, about getting to know the diverse life experiences, desires, and philosophies of people who once lived under a socialist empire, and about better understanding both other cultures and our own in the process .

Foreign language study in the U.S. as we know it grew out of the Cold War. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957, leaders in Washington worried that the U.S. lagged in scientific advancement and that it lacked expertise about the rest of the world. To close the knowledge gap, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958.

Among other initiatives, the law created Title VI “Language Development” programs that provided grants for institutional study centers, and scholarships for individual students, recognizing that mastering a language requires resources beyond what traditional college courses can offer. Though the act’s wording prioritized national defense, in practice it has funneled resources to undergraduate and graduate students conducting all kinds of study, from literature to musicology.

Language study got a further boost after a 1979 presidential commission reported that foreign language education in U.S. schools was falling behind once again. In 1976, only 17% of 7th through 12th graders were studying a foreign language ; Russian had suffered the most precipitous decline, dropping by 33% from 1968.

It makes sense—Russian’s alphabet is strange, its grammar intricate, and its vocabulary hard to memorize. The payoff is far slower than that of the Romance languages. In response, in 1983, Congress created another set of appropriations, known as Title VIII , to fund language training and research specifically in what is now the former Soviet Union.

Since 2002, the annual Survey of Enrollments in Russian Language Classes—which was created by Congress and is now administered by the private School of Russian and Area Studies—has tracked Russian enrollments. In general, they have fluctuated along with university enrollments, peaking in 2011 and declining during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But in 2022, things took a turn. Enrollment numbers had never been so low and had never dropped by more than 20% in so many programs. The average university Russian program now counted 37 students. (In 2013, when I graduated, that number was 50.)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be the key factor in this decline. “Many students have reportedly sought to distance themselves from anything Russia related,” wrote the authors of the survey’s 2022 report . Instead of approaching conflict by learning as much as possible about Russia, this time around Americans wanted nothing to do with it.

The problem is symptomatic of an increasing narrowness in the U.S.’s approach to the world, visible in declining support for the humanities, social sciences, and education at large, and in blinkered “America First” politics. And while the most immediate consequences of this solipsism will show up in diplomacy between Washington and Moscow, its impact extends far beyond those cities—and beyond politics.

My experience speaks to this. Since graduating from college, I’ve almost exclusively used my Russian outside the metropole, communicating with people educated under the Soviet Union who are not ethnically Russian. In 2014, I spent a year in Kyrgyzstan on a Fulbright fellowship, and honed my skills drinking tea late into the night with my roommate . When I moved to Mexico in 2019, one of the first people I befriended was from Belarus; we, too, communicated in Russian. Later that year, a friend who works as an attorney called on me to translate for pro-bono clients of hers—Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik families seeking asylum in Mexico.

Today, I maintain my Russian in weekly Skype sessions with a tutor in Kyiv. When Putin first invaded Ukraine, we “canceled” Russian in our own private way, switching to a beginner Ukrainian textbook. I welcomed the opportunity to diversify my knowledge of Slavic languages. I thought often of Russian poet Polina Barskova, who has said she considers translating from Ukrainian into English—and thus sharing Ukrainian culture with a broader audience—her anti-colonial duty. But it was draining repeating basic dialogues without having the time to commit to thorough study of a new language. The spark fell out of our weekly sessions; we missed being able to chat with each other and read literature. We switched back to Russian, but with a commitment to read books that were geographically marginal, feminist, anti-war.

In my solitary time, it’s those writers at the geographic and political fringes of the former Soviet Union that keep me attached to Russian. Though my college classes favored Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky, the writers that I pore over slowly in bed in the morning, battling to remember verb prefixes, turning to my phone’s Google translate app for help, are those who capture life in the provinces—Andrei Platonov, Chingiz Aitmatov—and women: Nadezhda Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva. Some, like Svetlana Alexievich and Oksana Vasyakina, occupy the center of the Venn diagram. They’re important to me because, more than any Anglophone writers I know, they speak to the way that humans nourish their spiritual and interpersonal needs under repressive political regimes—a question I find myself considering more frequently as the U.S. increasingly undermines the democratic processes it once invested so much in creating.

In Voices from Chernobyl , Alexievich’s polyphonic novel about the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, one character narrates (in Keith Gessen’s translation):

Picture us, with a three-liter bottle of moonshine…having these endless conversations. There were teachers and engineers among us, and then the full international brigade: Russians, Belarussians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians…I remember discussions about the fate of Russian culture, its pull toward the tragic…only on the basis of Russian culture could you begin to make sense of the catastrophe. Only Russian culture was prepared for it.

When Alexievich’s narrator refers to Russian culture, he’s referring to something far more expansive than Putin and his supporters. Those who are making sense of the catastrophe are working people from all corners of a crumbling empire, using a shared tongue to philosophize together. Those perspectives enrich the world and help us understand it. We lose access to them when we can’t understand their language.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Language — Essay On The Importance Of Language

Essay on The Importance of Language

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How to Write a Life Story Essay

Last Updated: April 14, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alicia Cook . Alicia Cook is a Professional Writer based in Newark, New Jersey. With over 12 years of experience, Alicia specializes in poetry and uses her platform to advocate for families affected by addiction and to fight for breaking the stigma against addiction and mental illness. She holds a BA in English and Journalism from Georgian Court University and an MBA from Saint Peter’s University. Alicia is a bestselling poet with Andrews McMeel Publishing and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the NY Post, CNN, USA Today, the HuffPost, the LA Times, American Songwriter Magazine, and Bustle. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of the 10 social media poets to know and her poetry mixtape, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 104,162 times.

A life story essay involves telling the story of your life in a short, nonfiction format. It can also be called an autobiographical essay. In this essay, you will tell a factual story about some element of your life, perhaps for a college application or for a school assignment.

Preparing to Write Your Essay

• If you are writing a personal essay for a college application, it should serve to give the admissions committee a sense of who you are, beyond the basics of your application file. Your transcript, your letters of recommendation, and your resume will provide an overview of your work experience, interests, and academic record. Your essay allows you to make your application unique and individual to you, through your personal story. [2] X Research source
• The essay will also show the admissions committee how well you can write and structure an essay. Your essay should show you can create a meaningful piece of writing that interests your reader, conveys a unique message, and flows well.
• If you are writing a life story for a specific school assignment, such as in a composition course, ask your teacher about the assignment requirements.

• Include important events, such as your birth, your childhood and upbringing, and your adolescence. If family member births, deaths, marriages, and other life moments are important to your story, write those down as well.
• Focus on experiences that made a big impact on you and remain a strong memory. This may be a time where you learned an important life lesson, such as failing a test or watching someone else struggle and succeed, or where you felt an intense feeling or emotion, such as grief over someone’s death or joy over someone’s triumph.

• Have you faced a challenge in your life that you overcame, such as family struggles, health issues, a learning disability, or demanding academics?
• Do you have a story to tell about your cultural or ethnic background, or your family traditions?
• Have you dealt with failure or life obstacles?
• Do you have a unique passion or hobby?
• Have you traveled outside of your community, to another country, city, or area? What did you take away from the experience and how will you carry what you learned into a college setting?

• Remind yourself of your accomplishments by going through your resume. Think about any awards or experiences you would like spotlight in your essay. For example, explaining the story behind your Honor Roll status in high school, or how you worked hard to receive an internship in a prestigious program.
• Remember that your resume or C.V. is there to list off your accomplishments and awards, so your life story shouldn't just rehash them. Instead, use them as a jumping-off place to explain the process behind them, or what they reflect (or do not reflect) about you as a person.

• The New York Times publishes stellar examples of high school life story essays each year. You can read some of them on the NYT website. [8] X Research source

Writing Your Essay

• For example, you may look back at your time in foster care as a child or when you scored your first paying job. Consider how you handled these situations and any life lessons you learned from these lessons. Try to connect past experiences to who you are now, or who you aspire to be in the future.
• Your time in foster care, for example, may have taught you resilience, perseverance and a sense of curiosity around how other families function and live. This could then tie into your application to a Journalism program, as the experience shows you have a persistent nature and a desire to investigate other people’s stories or experiences.

• Certain life story essays have become cliche and familiar to admission committees. Avoid sports injuries stories, such as the time you injured your ankle in a game and had to find a way to persevere. You should also avoid using an overseas trip to a poor, foreign country as the basis for your self transformation. This is a familiar theme that many admission committees will consider cliche and not unique or authentic. [11] X Research source
• Other common, cliche topics to avoid include vacations, "adversity" as an undeveloped theme, or the "journey". [12] X Research source

• Try to phrase your thesis in terms of a lesson learned. For example, “Although growing up in foster care in a troubled neighborhood was challenging and difficult, it taught me that I can be more than my upbringing or my background through hard work, perseverance, and education.”
• You can also phrase your thesis in terms of lessons you have yet to learn, or seek to learn through the program you are applying for. For example, “Growing up surrounded by my mother’s traditional cooking and cultural habits that have been passed down through the generations of my family, I realized I wanted to discover and honor the traditions of other, ancient cultures with a career in archaeology.”
• Both of these thesis statements are good because they tell your readers exactly what to expect in clear detail.

• An anecdote is a very short story that carries moral or symbolic weight. It can be a poetic or powerful way to start your essay and engage your reader right away. You may want to start directly with a retelling of a key past experience or the moment you realized a life lesson.
• For example, you could start with a vivid memory, such as this from an essay that got its author into Harvard Business School: "I first considered applying to Berry College while dangling from a fifty-food Georgia pine tree, encouraging a high school classmate, literally, to make a leap of faith." [15] X Research source This opening line gives a vivid mental picture of what the author was doing at a specific, crucial moment in time and starts off the theme of "leaps of faith" that is carried through the rest of the essay.
• Another great example clearly communicates the author's emotional state from the opening moments: "Through seven-year-old eyes I watched in terror as my mother grimaced in pain." This essay, by a prospective medical school student, goes on to tell about her experience being at her brother's birth and how it shaped her desire to become an OB/GYN. The opening line sets the scene and lets you know immediately what the author was feeling during this important experience. It also resists reader expectations, since it begins with pain but ends in the joy of her brother's birth.
• Avoid using a quotation. This is an extremely cliche way to begin an essay and could put your reader off immediately. If you simply must use a quotation, avoid generic quotes like “Spread your wings and fly” or “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’”. Choose a quotation that relates directly to your experience or the theme of your essay. This could be a quotation from a poem or piece of writing that speaks to you, moves you, or helped you during a rough time.

• Always use the first person in a personal essay. The essay should be coming from you and should tell the reader directly about your life experiences, with “I” statements.
• For example, avoid something such as “I had a hard time growing up. I was in a bad situation.” You can expand this to be more distinct, but still carry a similar tone and voice. “When I was growing up in foster care, I had difficulties connecting with my foster parents and with my new neighborhood. At the time, I thought I was in a bad situation I would never be able to be free from.”

• For example, consider this statement: "I am a good debater. I am highly motivated and have been a strong leader all through high school." This gives only the barest detail, and does not allow your reader any personal or unique information that will set you apart from the ten billion other essays she has to sift through.
• In contrast, consider this one: "My mother says I'm loud. I say you have to speak up to be heard. As president of my high school's debate team for the past three years, I have learned to show courage even when my heart is pounding in my throat. I have learned to consider the views of people different than myself, and even to argue for them when I passionately disagree. I have learned to lead teams in approaching complicated issues. And, most importantly for a formerly shy young girl, I have found my voice." This example shows personality, uses parallel structure for impact, and gives concrete detail about what the author has learned from her life experience as a debater.

• An example of a passive sentence is: “The cake was eaten by the dog.” The subject (the dog) is not in the expected subject position (first) and is not "doing" the expected action. This is confusing and can often be unclear.
• An example of an active sentence is: “The dog ate the cake.” The subject (the dog) is in the subject position (first), and is doing the expected action. This is much more clear for the reader and is a stronger sentence.

• Lead the reader INTO your story with a powerful beginning, such as an anecdote or a quote.
• Take the reader THROUGH your story with the context and key parts of your experience.
• End with the BEYOND message about how the experience has affected who you are now and who you want to be in college and after college.

Editing Your Essay

• For example, a sentence like “I struggled during my first year of college, feeling overwhelmed by new experiences and new people” is not very strong because it states the obvious and does not distinguish you are unique or singular. Most people struggle and feel overwhelmed during their first year of college. Adjust sentences like this so they appear unique to you.
• For example, consider this: “During my first year of college, I struggled with meeting deadlines and assignments. My previous home life was not very structured or strict, so I had to teach myself discipline and the value of deadlines.” This relates your struggle to something personal and explains how you learned from it.

• It can be difficult to proofread your own work, so reach out to a teacher, a mentor, a family member, or a friend and ask them to read over your essay. They can act as first readers and respond to any proofreading errors, as well as the essay as a whole.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/write-thesis-statement-autobiographical-essay-1686.html
• ↑ https://study.com/learn/lesson/autobiography-essay-examples-steps.html
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201101/writing-compelling-life-story-in-500-words-or-less
• ↑ Alicia Cook. Professional Writer. Expert Interview. 11 December 2020.
• ↑ https://mycustomessay.com/blog/how-to-write-an-autobiography-essay.html
• ↑ https://www.ahwatukee.com/community_focus/article_c79b33da-09a5-11e3-95a8-001a4bcf887a.html
• ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/your-money/four-stand-out-college-essays-about-money.html
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY9AdFx0L4s
• ↑ https://www.medina-esc.org/Downloads/Practical%20Advice%20Writing%20College%20App%20Essay.pdf
• ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-harvard-business-school-essays-2012-11?op=1
• ↑ http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/passive_sentences.htm

About This Article

A life story essay is an essay that tells the story of your life in a short, nonfiction format. Start by coming up with a thesis statement, which will help you structure your essay. For example, your thesis could be about the influence of your family's culture on your life or how you've grown from overcoming challenging circumstances. You can include important life events that link to your thesis, like jobs you’ve worked, friendships that have influenced you, or sports competitions you’ve won. Consider starting your essay with an anecdote that introduces your thesis. For instance, if you're writing about your family's culture, you could start by talking about the first festival you went to and how it inspired you. Finish by writing about how the experiences have affected you and who you want to be in the future. For more tips from our Education co-author, including how to edit your essay effectively, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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