🇷🇺 Russian
Russian graded readers: what to read at each level
Russian has a respectable tradition of adapted readers, many published in Russia for foreign students (Zlatoust is a well-known publisher), plus learner collections in English. The challenge is that Russian vocabulary has few English cognates, so each level takes more reading than in Romance languages. Plan for volume.
ReadNative's Russian book is Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, retold as one graded story from A1 to B1 over 44 chapters, in Cyrillic, with transliteration on tap. It is free, and you can read the first chapters free in your browser, tapping any word for its English meaning or any sentence for a translation.
Russian graded readers on ReadNative
What to read at each level
A1
Simple present-tense sentences and the nominative and accusative cases. The early chapters of The Captain's Daughter — the Grinyov house, the lessons, the father's decision — keep to that.
A2
Past tense, more cases, verbs of motion. The blizzard, the journey to Orenburg and life in the fortress fit this stage.
B1
Verbal aspect in narrative, participles appearing, longer sentences. The later chapters — the siege of the fortress, Pugachev, Masha's journey to the Empress — reach B1.
B2
Native prose: Chekhov's short stories, then contemporary fiction. Pushkin's original Captain's Daughter is a natural milestone.
Not sure where you are? Take the Russian vocabulary test or check a text with the difficulty checker.
Questions
What is a graded reader?
A book written or retold with controlled vocabulary and grammar for a specific level, so a learner can read a whole story in Russian with little dictionary use. The aim is lots of comfortable reading, not decoding.
How do I know if a book is the right level?
If you understand the story and need to look up only a few words per page, it is right. If every sentence needs help, drop down a level; if you never tap anything, move up. In Russian the step from graded books to native texts is steep, so do not rush it.
Are stress marks used in Russian graded readers?
Many Russian-published learner books mark stress. ReadNative shows text as it is normally written; tap a word for its meaning and transliteration.