Daria Accot-Kuntsevich

If you understand how to work with authentic video, your Russian really can change. Here's how I'd have you do it.

Subtitles in your own language won't get you speaking

Do you watch Russian films with subtitles in your own language? Congratulations: that's how you risk never speaking Russian.

First, you're reading text, not listening to the soundtrack. Nobody can focus equally well on two sources of information at once. If the temptation is too strong, put on a film you've already seen in your own language — in Russian, with no subtitles at all.

Second, to speak Russian you have to speak. That doesn't mean stop watching video or listening to podcasts. It means do it properly.

First decide what you're watching for

If you want to get used to the sound of Russian, train your ear and develop a feel for stress, listen to anything at all in the background — while you cook, while you shower, while you walk.

If your goal is to speak better, try the techniques below instead.

While you watch

• Don't ask too much of yourself. You're not required to understand everything first time. Your own language has accents, speeds and words you don't know too. Better to watch a short video several times than a long one once.
• Don't try to catch every word. Go for the overall meaning first: who's talking to whom, what's happening, what the characters are feeling. Then listen for the words and phrases you already know. Only after that go hunting for new ones.
• Slow the video down if they're speaking very fast. They'll start sounding drunk — believe me, the effect is glorious.

The real magic starts after you watch

• Talk back for sixty seconds. Watching a lot of video about women's place in society? Write yourself a deliberately provocative line on the topic — "A woman's place is in the kitchen." Set a timer for sixty seconds, hit record on your phone and say everything you think. Don't stop to find words or fix mistakes. Listen back a month later and you'll hear your own progress.
• Sing karaoke. Got a favourite song in Russian? Find the karaoke version and go. Let the neighbours know you speak Russian.
• Shadow. My favourite. You repeat the characters' lines almost at the same time as they say them, copying not just the words but the intonation, the rhythm and the emotion.

How to shadow, step by step

1. Pick a video on a topic you care about and take two to four lines from it. Build up to a minute; longer than that gets hard.
2. Listen to the passage all the way through without pausing, to catch its rhythm and sound.
3. Watch again, translate the words you don't know and work out the constructions. By the end of this step you should understand what the line means.
4. Listen once more, pause the video, and say the line out loud several times on your own.
5. Play it again and speak along with the character, aiming for the intonation and rhythm as much as the pronunciation.
6. Record yourself on video or audio, this time without the original playing.
7. Play your recording and the original together, and compare.

And then keep doing it

Pick the technique that suits you, or combine them. What matters is doing it regularly.

And remember: listening and watching are good for your ear. If you want to speak, you have to train your jaw — and olivier salad doesn't count.