History of the USSR

I have been very impressed with Dana and can fully recommend her as a tutor. She takes the time to carefully tailor each class to my needs, even producing her own home tasks based on what we cover in each class. Dana takes the time to find relevant articles based on my interests and has the patience and knowledge to explain why things work the way they do. Dana is perfect if you really want to understand grammar, in particular why and how Russian works the way it does. She combines an academic, professional approach with a warm and friendly delivery making each class a pleasure to take part in.

Six months ago I had been studying Russian at University for 2 years. My level was already fairly good, but I had several shortcomings, especially with regard to speaking. Even if I knew I had a relatively good understanding of grammar and good pronunciation, until then I had had very few opportunities to speak Russian. I also have always had difficulty learning new words, and the fact of having very few opportunities to practice the language certainly did not help. Although the university had given me a good base, I realized that was not enough, so I turned to Russificate.

Six months ago I met my new Russificate teacher, Julia Sutuginiene . Since then, thanks to her, I have made tremendous progress. The first results were already visible after the first few lessons.

I do not know where to begin to list the qualities that I liked about Julia and her method. Probably my words will be few and won't do justice to the great experience I have had. Julia's lessons are never predictable or monotonous and all the time is exploited in full. Everything seems natural and sometimes even easy, yet it is clear that behind all this there is the teaching method, a thorough preparation of each part of the lesson, and last but not least, passion.

Julia uses films as part of her lectures: each lesson was built on a movie episode of 5-10 minutes. In my opinion, it is a revolutionary method because, in this way, the student has a point of reference that goes beyond simple notions of grammar and vocabulary found in books. This way, you have the chance to hear and practice the authentic, real language that Russians use in their everyday life.

Thanks to our work with the films and the continuous conversation practice I had with Julia - always and only in Russian - my active mastery of the language has improved a lot. I felt as if every week I did a "full immersion " into the Russian language and culture, and even if the lesson lasted only 90 minutes, I preserved my knowledge for another week until the next lesson.

Julia always tries to meet your needs in any possible way and you will not ever be disappointed . She is able to quickly understand what your limitations are and to organize her work in order to try to overcome them. With a difficult language like Russian the risk of being bored is very high, but in 6 months of lessons, I have never been bored! On the contrary, Julia has maintains her enthusiasm and now my passion for the Russian language and culture is more alive than ever.

Even though I still have much to learn, with Julia Sutuginiene I achieved the results that 6 months ago were unthinkable: no other teacher has ever managed to make me learn so much in so little time!

The best Russian teacher I've ever had.
VOTE: A+.

In summer 2012, I took private Russian lessons from Vika. I was impressed with her method of teaching and the quality of the materials she provided. I studied with the book she wrote, which is comprehensive and modern. I strongly recommend her as a teacher of Russian.