If you're a Facebook user, you can use Facebook's language feature for some casual Russian practice.

It helps if you're already an experienced Facebook user, so you can still find your way around the site.

To set Facebook's display language to Russian, to the following:

1. Go to your account's Options page
2. Choose Language
3. Choose Russian
4. Click OK

Now all Facebook menus, system messages, automated emails, buttons etc. will be displayed in Russian. Messages posted by other users will still appear in the language they were posted in (probably English for most people.)

Here's an example:

http://www.mcarlock.n...

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Speaking of social networking in Russian, there is a Facebook-lookalike site in Russia called VKontakte.ru.

If you know anyone in Russia (who's not already on Facebook), you may be able to find them here. As with Facebook (for now), setting up a profile is free. And you can choose English as your display language, if you wish

http://vkontakte.ru...