The Surprising Things Russian Does Better Than English

I've spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of learning Russian, but in this episode I'm doing something different. I'm talking about the things my analytical brain genuinely appreciates about the Russian language.

From its phonetic alphabet to the way word endings reveal whether you're looking at a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb, I share why learning Russian has actually made me realize just how strange English can be.

If you've ever been frustrated by Russian, this episode is a reminder that every language has its strengths—and sometimes the things that seem difficult at first become the things you appreciate the most.

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Why do so many Russian phrases seem confusing when translated into English? In this episode of Russian One Mistake at a Time, I explore how my biggest breakthroughs came not from memorizing vocabulary, but from understanding the literal logic behind common Russian expressions.

From у меня есть (“by me there is”) to мне нравится (“is pleasing to me”) and как вас зовут (“how are you called?”), I share how looking beyond the standard textbook translations helped me stop fighting the language and start understanding it.

If you're an analytical learner who constantly asks “But why would they say it that way?”, this episode is for you. Sometimes the key to learning Russian isn't thinking harder in English—it's learning to think like a Russian speaker.

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Why does Russian feel so strange to English speakers? In this episode, I explore one of the biggest mistakes I made while learning Russian: trying to translate words instead of concepts. From почему vs. зачем to the surprising ways Russian and English organize information differently, I share the realization that changed how I think about language and made Russian feel much more logical.

Because sometimes the hardest part of learning Russian isn't understanding Russian—it's learning to stop thinking like an English speaker.

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Russian cases can feel impossible when you first start learning Russian — especially if you try to memorize all the endings at once. In this episode, I talk about why memorizing Russian case endings didn’t work for me, how I finally started understanding what cases actually do, and why connecting grammar to meaning made such a big difference.

I also share why the genitive case was the first case that started to make sense to me, how English speakers can think about cases more clearly, and why I now believe learners should focus on one case at a time instead of trying to learn everything all at once.

If Russian cases feel overwhelming, confusing, or completely random, this episode is for you.

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Learning Russian as an English speaker can feel confusing, humbling, and occasionally ridiculous. In the first episode of Russian One Mistake at a Time, I talk about why I started learning Russian, how the language completely humbled me despite my background in math and physics, and why learning a language is about much more than memorizing vocabulary.

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