Real Life in Russia is a series of interactive lessons to prepare you for living abroad in Russia. Each lesson presents the necessary language, cultural knowledge, and practical information to successfully accomplish daily tasks while in Russia: from making a proper cup of tea and buying a train ticket to adding money to your cell phone and creating a social media profile on Вконтакте.
Don’t Forget Your Russian is an easy-to-navigate collection of Russian language learning resources. Use the navigation bar at the top of the page to access resources for listening, reading, grammar, learning strategies, and more.
3ears is a database of Russian-language songs, TV show excerpts, and other video clips. A transcript appears below each video, and each word in the transcript is highlighted when it is spoken or sang in the video. You can also go to the exact point in the video where a word appears by clicking it. To see the definition, declension or conjugation, and other example usages of a word, drag it to the side of the screen. 3ears is particularly useful for catching all the words in a sitcom (there are many included on the site), film, or any other video with lots of quickly spoken conversational dialogue.
UPDATE: After a lengthy absence, Conradish is now back online. Conradish is a tool for Russian language learners to read Russian literature in the original, with English glosses. The site contains works by Достоевский, Набоков, Пастернак, Булгаков, Чехов, Толстой, Гоголь, Пушкин, and many others. When reading a text, hold your cursor over a word to get a definition; click on the word to get a fuller dictionary entry. Because this tool relies on literal translations of individual words, the definitions are not always accurate. Use Conradish in conjunction with a more detailed dictionary to get the best translation of idiomatic expressions and collocations.
Chef-daw creates cute illustrated recipe cards for all sorts of dishes and cocktails. Use them to practice cooking and food vocabulary, and to learn how to make Russian and international menu items.
The Russian Language Stack Exchange is a forum where learners and translators of Russian can seek advice from language experts. A useful tool for getting linguistic help at all levels.
RuNet Echo is a project from Global Voices that features blog posts on current events and politics from the Russian Internet. Although the posts are in English, they include quotes in both the original Russian and in translation, as well as links to the RuNet sources. This site is an excellent portal for digging deeper into the Russian blogosphere.
The Russian Language Program at Cornell University has produced several excellent online resources for learners of Russian. Mini-Videos for Learners of Intermediate Russian consists of 91 excerpts from the comedy show “6 кадров”, accompanied by vocabulary help and transcripts. The Anthrax Diaries is a 30-minute documentary about the Soviet biological weapons program, with transcripts and English translations. Lora’s Dialogs is a beginner’s course with short dialogs (audio recordings), transcripts, grammar notes, and substitution exercises. A Collocational Russian-English Dictionary of the Human Body is an interactive on-line dictionary that lists thousands of phrases for describing the appearance, movements, moods, injuries, etc. of human beings. Additionally, there are several pages that accompany Russian films with transcripts, key vocabulary, and summaries: Папа, Благословите женщину, Водитель для Веры, and Олигарх.
Say it in Russian is a video podcast site for learners of Russian at all levels. Links to videos (organized by ACTFL proficiency level) are given with accompanying exercises, cultural and linguistic commentary, and occasionally transcriptions. The videos include video podcasts developed by the creator of the site, as well as authentic videos available on YouTube (songs, cartoons, news and TV clips, and others). Say it in Russian is an excellent resource for learners looking to improve their listening skills with authentic, culturally relevant videos.
Humans of Moscow, which has Tumblr site and a Facebook page you can subscribe to, provides quotes from real people found on the streets of Moscow, complete with English translations. This is a great way to expose yourself daily to conversational Russian, and to learn more about everyday people in Russia.
Russian Portal 