Beginner-friendly Tales on Russian for Free

Like Duotales, the collections on the Russian for Free website are meant to be used by learners. This resource is by far the most beginner-friendly—and learner-friendly—on this list.

These short stories and nonfiction segments are presented in both English and Russian, side-by-side for ease of use. The translations are literal, providing word-for-word language comparisons, while potentially difficult words are highlighted in both languages so you can see the word and its meaning at a glance.

Until now!

Russian audiobooks are excellent for immersing yourself in the language and honing your listening skills.

Written text is crucial for learning the Cyrillic writing system and focusing on grammar and spelling.

In this post, we bring you the best of both worlds, thanks to six amazing resources that present both audio and text—all entirely for free!

The audio is played right in the browser and the readings for all the levels are incredibly slow and drawn out, focusing on clear enunciation, so any level of the learner should be able to keep up without a problem. This is true even for the advanced-level readings, like the short piece about the Russian “Pancake Day” festival (and now we’re suddenly hungry).

If you like this content, the website offers actual books for sale that follow a similar format as the stories on the website, featuring short stories, dialogues and more with audio recordings.

The Bible in Russian

Whether you’re religious or not, the Bible is a text that many people are at least a little familiar with. Each part of this Russian audio version can be downloaded separately, and the accompanying text can be freely searched and scrolled through online.

Of course, not every part of this book uses modern or relevant language, but it’s mostly a surprisingly good source of everyday vocabulary. It’s also a good way to get the hang of complex sentence structure and grammar if you do a close reading.

We recommend giving this recording a shot regardless of your religious affiliation, as the audio is beautifully done, with professional-level recording quality, extremely clear pronunciation and even accompanying music and ambient sound effects.

Thus, the tale of our intrepid Russian learner comes to an end. Equipped with these resources for free audio and text works, the Russian learner went on to become fluent and rode off into the sunset.

Конец (The End).