Learn the Cyrillic alphabet. This is especially important if you do not have a teacher or tutor available. Because Russian is always written in the Cyrillic alphabet, it is necessary to have a basic grasp of Cyrillic to write your own transcriptions. For the Russian alphabet and transcriptions of the letters' sounds, see Resources.
Use James E. Rivard's service (see Resources) to learn basic words. The website allows learners to input a word in English. The output is a phonetic spelling of the word as well as a recording of someone pronouncing the word in Russian.
Work with a tutor experienced in Russian, create a transcription system that reflects Russian orthography and that you feel comfortable using. This is important because Russian has a number of sounds and letters (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?) that are difficult to express in the Latin alphabet and are difficult for English speakers to learn.
Write out and practice saying transcribed words. It is very important to repeat Russian words out loud several times because of Russian's unique sound system. Work with a tutor especially to learn difficult minimal pairs like ? and ? (??? vs. ??? - \"he was beating\" vs. \"he was') and palatalized and unpalatalized letters (??? vs. ???? - \"profanity\" vs. \"mother\"). These pairs might sound almost the same to a speaker of English, but the difference is very noticeable to the Russian ear.
Use phonetic spellings as a beginning tool but work toward assimilating the Russian alphabet. Transcription adds a step to the language-learning process, and Russian is most easily spoken and read when using its native alphabet.