Russian holidays

My name is Alexandra Lyle and my mother tongue is English. I have been taking online Russian classes with Yulia Amlinskaya for over a year via Skype.

I thoroughly recommend Yulia as a teacher. She provides all relevant study materials on an ongoing basis, and she gives clear and thorough explanations of all my questions, whether they be grammar questions or questions about any aspect of Russian culture. I love that the lessons are conducted in Russian, and also that Yulia’s fluency in English means that I can ask for the Russian translation of certain English expressions or items of vocabulary.

As well, Yulia is consistent, reliable, patient, and fun – all qualities that go towards making her classes an enjoyable and stimulating experience. I am happy to recommend her online Russian language school, “Russificate”.

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+.

Yulia is a great teacher and I would highly recommend her. Her lessons combine a good balance of the key skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking, so you cover and develop all the fundamental aspects of language learning with every lesson. The lessons are almost entirely in Russian, which was challenging initially; however, I have found that this immersion in the language prompts faster development as you have to rely on your Russian all the time, rather than switching to your native language for comfort which is all too easy to do. Yulia has a lot of patience and has the ability to explain things in a very clear and methodical way. You do not feel afraid to make mistakes or ask questions. I hope to use Russian for work in a legal context in the future and I was particularly impressed by the effort which Yulia went to, to find legal resources for me. It really shows that she is willing to go out of her way to help her students and she will listen to you and meet your objectives.