FAQ
General
If you haven’t done so already, please take our Level Test and define your current level. The level test will guide you to a good starting point based on your result. You can take the level test without signing in, but please sign up to save your test results and see our recommendations for you! If you have never learned the Slavic language, we highly recommend starting with our Alphabet courses, where you will learn to read, write, and sound correctly. For further recommendations and information, please contact us.
This question is very common in our practice. And our honest answer is: «We have no idea» because it really depends on the person. Extremely important is the actual time you devote to learning and practicing the language. But if you dedicate your time to active learning and practicing while saying things out loud and producing your own sentences, you will find yourself comfortably having conversations in Ukrainian/Russian in a year or so.
You will need to know Alphabet eventually (while using the same Cyrillic writing system, the Ukrainian and Russian alphabets, including pronunciation features, have multiple differences). Besides, it’s easy to learn. As you will spend only a few hours learning it, we recommend learning Alphabet first. It will make your learning journey easier!
Our team speaks English and our teachers also speak at least one other foreign language. As to our curriculum, the comparative and communicative methods combined in the courses will help you to understand rules easier, enlarge your vocabulary, and to start communicating in Ukrainian/Russian with confidence and efficiency.
Website
1. You can edit your profile here.
2. It shows your membership status.
3. You can always check all of your progress on the courses here.
4. To take any course, available with your subscription level, don’t forget to press Enroll button.
Our learning method divides all the courses into essential (SPIN 1–5: cover the core language knowledge and competencies) and courses for specific purposes (cover the background knowledge). Each level of Subscription unlocks a specific set of courses on our website. You can retake any of the courses anytime you want on any device of your choice.
Our Bronze ticket membership opens free access to 2 courses “Survival Russian” (18 lessons) and “Russian Alphabet” (13 lessons).
We are also planning the release of a “Survival Ukrainian” free course in the nearest future.
From the 1st to the 5th dates of each month every user with Silver and Gold ticket Membership receives an email with current month releases. It shows the newly added content and includes direct clickable links to each new lesson.
All audio tracks are available at the bottom of each lesson of our website. You can listen to it on the website directly or choose to be redirected to CARUSEL.ME SoundCloud. If you purchase any materials here in our shop, which include audio, then the accompanying files will be available through QR codes, linked to CARUSEL.ME SoundCloud.
Purchase and Payment
The majority of our Russian courses are subscription-based because new lessons appear every month. That is why they are not available for separate purchases. In the section Courses RU – Marathons you can see the courses available for separate purchases. All our Ukrainian courses (Courses UA) will be available for separate purchases only at this moment.
Click on the cart button to add products to your shopping cart. You can pay for all the added materials at once. If you want to find a book that fits your level, goal, or preferred theme, please use our filter feature at the top. Based on what you choose, you can see all the related products at once.
We don’t sell physical products. And there are a few reasons why: first of all, we believe, that sustainability is the future. Second, the distribution of e-products allows to keep the prices relatively low. You don’t have to worry about extra expenses caused by shipment and different country customs duties.
The prices of our products are all based on USD. If you are paying by card, the conversion will be done by your bank automatically. If you are paying by PayPal, you can choose your preferred currency on the checkout page there.
You are not required to have a PayPal account when you purchase our membership or materials. Just click on the ‘Pay with a Card’ button on the PayPal checkout page, and you can make the payment without using your PayPal account. If you have trouble making payments for some reason, please contact us at info@carusel.me.
If your payment failed, please contact us here with the following information.
- Payment company you used
- Method of payment (credit/debit card, PayPal balance, etc.)
- Country of residence
- Browser you used
A screenshot that shows the issue would also be very helpful to determine the cause.
Please make sure that your card allows international payments. In case it was caused by a technical error, please delete your browser cookies or clear your browser cache and try again. If none of these methods works for you, please contact us.
Duplicate transactions can happen if there are some hiccups in the connection, the page is refreshed in the middle of the transaction, or the back button is accidentally pressed during the payment process. If there’s a duplicate payment, please contact us with your order number and sign-in email address. We’ll look it up and get back to you as soon as we can.
Membership
You can check your membership status in your user’s account. Your subscription will be renewed on the recurring payment date, and you will receive the invoice with your order information.
Our team is always ready to help you with any issues. Please contact us at info@carusel.me. We will contact you back as soon as we can (within 24 hours).
You can cancel your subscription by following the instructions on this page: How to stop automatic payments. If you stop the automatic payments, your membership will stay active until the next renewal date. Please contact us if you have any difficulty canceling your membership.
Even if you cancel your subscription, your membership will stay active for the remaining period. If your membership expires sooner than that, please contact us and we will reactivate it for you.
Once your subscription period expires, access to the courses on the platform will be no longer available. But you can always renew your subscription to continue to take the courses from the point you left off at.
Currently, our system does not allow a direct switch from a monthly subscription to a half-yearly or yearly subscription. Instead, you can cancel your current subscription on a due date, and start a new subscription with a half-yearly or yearly membership plan.
Sounds too complicated? Contact us and we will guide you through the process.
Sometimes PayPal is not able to process the payment. In such a case you will receive the email notification from CARUSEL.ME. If the payment still wasn’t received and the user didn’t give any response, then the membership will be canceled manually on our end.
Such payment issues make impossible the reactivation of the subscription that’s already been canceled. So, we would appreciate it if you could start a new one on our Subscription page.
To find out the reason for the payment failure, please contact PayPal or your card issuer directly whether you made payment as a guest or not. Thank you for your understanding.
For your information: if you purchased as a guest, a card problem could be the most likely cause because non-members can’t change the card information used for payment and they can’t have a PayPal balance.
If you purchased with your PayPal account, card expiration or insufficient balance may be the reason. Since it is an overseas transaction, rejection by the card issuer due to being recognized as fraud could also be a reason.
We do not provide refunds or credits for any partial subscription periods. Therefore, please cancel or upgrade your membership before the next recurring payment date.
We are sorry but the coupons can’t be applied after the sale period ends. We place importance on keeping our promises to our customers, so we will have to stick to the original sale period that we’ve publicly announced.
The good news is, though, that we offer sales throughout the year! As soon as the next sale period starts, we’ll let you know on our social media.
