Russian pronunciation (see Russian Pronunciation) is shaped by three interacting features — stress, vowel reduction, and palatalization — that are worth practicing individually before combining them in real speech.
Since standard text doesn't mark stress, get in the habit of looking up and marking stress in your own notes for every new word, rather than guessing — this single habit prevents a huge share of pronunciation errors down the line.
Say a word once with the stress correctly placed, then imagine (or find) a related form where the same vowel is unstressed, and notice how it shifts toward a reduced sound like "a" (akanye) — practicing this shift directly builds the ear for it faster than passive listening alone.
Practice a consonant followed by a hard vowel, then the same consonant followed by a soft (palatalizing) vowel or the soft sign, back-to-back — this minimal-pair approach trains the hard/soft distinction directly.
Once each feature feels manageable alone, practice short phrases that combine correct stress, vowel reduction, and palatalization together — real speech requires all three simultaneously, so isolated drilling should eventually merge into combined practice.
See also the reference page: Russian Pronunciation.
Because standard Russian text doesn't mark stress, and guessing incorrectly changes pronunciation significantly through vowel reduction — building the habit of marking it yourself prevents many downstream errors.
The tendency for unstressed vowels to shift toward a reduced sound (like unstressed "o" sounding like "a") — practicing the same word in stressed and unstressed contexts back-to-back builds the ear for this shift.
Drill minimal pairs — the same consonant followed by a hard vowel, then by a soft vowel or the soft sign — to train the palatalization distinction directly.
Both, in sequence — practice each individually first, then combine them in short phrases, since real speech requires producing all three simultaneously.