Visited 8 hours ago
Dr. Max
Russian
Native
English
Portuguese
German
Japanese
Other
From Russian Federation
Living in Setubal, Portugal
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Interests
Tech
Science
Travel
Business & Finance
Russian
Based on your timezone (UTC)
Not your language nanny. Russian (B1+) for self-motivated, curious minds who bring their own ideas. Hello, I'm Max.
I speak and teach literary Russian with the Moscow pronunciation, and I’m a bit of a stickler for proper language: phonetics, grammar, lexicon and register. (And no, "proper" does not mean stiff and textbookish, it means "appropriate for the situation". I can teach you to curse properly, too.)
After five years studying Germanic linguistics and language teaching at a Russian university, I traded a promise of a career in academia for two decades of translation and interpretation that saw me go from a broke and happy freelancer to a highly paid and overworked cog in the global corporate machine. Eventually, I had enough of that, quit the grind, and set off to travel the world (4 years, dozens of countries, no rush), until the pandemic grounded me in Portugal, where I’ve been living since 2020.
Because I've spent decades bridging Russian and English, plus years studying Portuguese, German and Japanese, I know firsthand how native habits shape the way we construct thoughts and produce sounds. I can spot where familiar patterns of your native tongue will trip you up, and help you rewire them.
My approach is for self-driven learners (B1+) who view language as a gateway to a wider world and richer human connections, not a textbook exercise. If you are curious, motivated, and bring your own ideas, interests and questions to the table, we're going to do great work together.
Drop me a message with your goals, or book a trial lesson to see if we're a good fit.