Frequently Asked Questions

Students who complete first-year Russian at UCLA can communicate in Russian with a basic aptitude in reading, writing, and speaking. After completing first-year Russian you will be able to have conversations with native speakers and understand basic Russian texts. In second-year Russian you will learn to communicate with increased fluency, read literary texts, and express your ideas on a wide range of topics. Many of our first-year students use Russian-language sites on the web!

After completing first-year Russian, you can also travel to Russia on UCLA’s Education Abroad Program (EAP) to study for a summer, a semester, or a year! For more information contact the EAP program.

Russian belongs to the family of Slavic languages (such as Ukrainian , Belorussian, Bulgarian, Czech, Serbian/Croatian, Polish, Slovak, Slovene).

The Slavic Department at UCLA regularly offers courses in Ukrainian, Czech, Polish, and Serbian/Croatian (basic and advanced levels). Romanian, a non-Slavic language, is also offered by the department.

You can work on improving your skills in Russian after your Russian class. Here are some of the things you may want to check out:

• The Russian Room is a place where students in Russian come to do their homework or simply chat in Russian. Nelya Dubrovich, who is a native speaker of Russian from Saint Petersburg, is available to work with students on class assignments and also to assist  as needed.
• The Russian Club organizes cultural outings to the theater performances and films, to Russian restaurants and other events in the Los Angeles area.
• Slavic Reading Room has a collection of books on various topics in Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian.

Yes, there is a class where you can learn to read and write in Russian and also learn about the Russian culture. The title of the course is Russian 100 A, B and C : Literacy in Russian.

If you speak Russian well and can read and write, there are other classes you can take: Russian 103 ABC, Russian 107 ABC, Russian 108

You can only start Russian in the Fall or in the Summer. Fall – Russian 1. Summer Session A: Russian 10 (Intensive Elementary Russian)is an equivalent of first year Russian (Russian 1,2,3).

You can take the following classes in the Slavic Department:

These classes stress speaking, reading and writing

• 102 — Advanced/Superior Russian
• 103 — Russian for Native, Near-Native and Advanced Speakers
• 107A —  Russian for Social and Cultural Studies
• 108 — Business Russian

Lecture Classes:

• 130 series– Russian Poetry
• 140 series– Russian Prose

All these classes are conducted in Russian.

You can take an intensive beginning course (Russian 10) and an intermediate course (Russian 20). Each course covers a full year of Russian in eight weeks. Classes meet five days a week four hours a day.