"Total dictation" in 2025 — date, author, how long it will last

Every April in Russia and other countries of the world there is a public action "Total dictation", in which everyone can check their literacy. People of all ages and with any level of education are allowed to participate in the event, the main thing is to be able to write in Russian. Read about when the dictation will take place in 2025 and who will write the text for it in the Izvestia article.

Total dictation in 2025 — what date

"Total dictation" takes place annually on a single day for all cities and countries. In 2025, the promotion will take place on April 5.

"Total dictation" – 2025: the essence and history of the action

Total Dictation was created by the members of the Glum Club creative association of Novosibirsk State University in 2004. Initially, it was conceived as a kind of challenge for students, especially of technical specialties, and was included in the program of the days of the humanities faculty of the university. The texts — excerpts from classical works — were read by university professors.

In the first few years, the campaign did not go beyond the university. During this period, the organizers tried different event formats to make dictation not just another boring test, but an exciting and rewarding experience. So, in 2006, Ilya Staheev, one of the founders of the campaign, wrote a text in the "Albanian" language for dictation. This is a style that was common online in the 2000s. His characteristic feature is the deliberately incorrect spelling of words.

In 2009, famous people began to be involved as "dictators": actors, writers, and journalists. The first bright personality of the action was musician Psoy Korolenko.

In 2010, one of the distinctive features of Total Dictation was born — an original text written specifically for the campaign. This decision is related to the development of the mobile Internet and the increased frequency of cheating. The first author to create a dictation text was science fiction writer Boris Strugatsky.

Over time, other cities began to join the campaign, including abroad, and philological experts joined the verification of the "Total Dictation". The participants wrote it in a variety of locations: on the International Space Station, in Antarctica, in the Kungur cave, underwater, on public transport.

Novosibirsk remained the permanent capital of the action for a long time. However, since 2018, other cities have had the right to compete for this title. Vladivostok became the first successor of the dictation, in 2022 the title of the capital passed to Yaroslavl, in 2023 — to Nizhny Tagil, and in 2024 — to Tomsk. In 2025, the federal territory of Sirius became the capital of dictation.

In 2024, more than 1.29 million people participated in Total Dictation. People from 55 countries joined the campaign face—to-face, and from 117 countries online. Among the star dictators were actor Viktor Dobronravov, actress Elizaveta Arzamasova, singer Yulia Savicheva, television journalist Yana Churikova and others.

The purpose of the "Total Dictation" campaign

"Total dictation" is conducted to promote literacy and increase interest in the Russian language. All participants can not only test their knowledge, but also get advice from philologists who analyze complex passages in texts in detail. At the same time, one of the main principles of the campaign is the encouragement of good results and the absence of condemnation for mistakes. This increases the motivation of participants to improve their literacy.

In addition, participation in the "Total Dictation" is exclusively voluntary, since interest in the native language cannot be imposed from the outside. You can only let a person know how important and exciting it is.

How is the "Total Dictation" going and how long does it last in 2025?

"Total dictation" takes place in two formats — face-to-face and online. In the first case, participants must come to specially prepared venues, where invited speakers will read out the text to them. In the capital of the action, this role will go to the author of the dictation, in other cities — to philologists, teachers, actors, singers, journalists and athletes. Pre-registration is required a few days before the start of the promotion, as the number of seats at the in-person venues is limited.

To participate in the online promotion, there are two writing options: in a special window with automatic verification or on paper with self-verification by parsing, which will be published after dictation. Text-reading broadcasts will take place several times, you can join any of them. In addition, a read record will be available on the Network.

It should be borne in mind that dictation takes only one day, it will not be possible to write it at another time.

"Total dictation" in 2025 — registration and results

Registration for face—to-face and online dictation sites will begin 10 days before the promotion - on April 26. You can complete it on the official portal of the project. Those who want to write dictation in person will need to select a site from the list offered on the website.

The verification results will be posted on the event's website in two weeks. To find his own, the participant must enter the code word indicated on his dictation form.

"Total dictation" 2025 — author

In 2025, Marina Moskvina, a writer, journalist, and finalist of the Yasnaya Polyana Prize, will become the author of Total Dictation.

She was born in Moscow in 1954 in the family of a doctor of historical sciences and a writer. After school, she entered the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. For 10 years, she hosted the program "In the Company of Marina Moskvina" on Radio of Russia, created documentaries for television, collaborated with the newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets, Moskovskaya Pravda, Murzilka magazine and other publications.

Moskvina made her literary debut in the late 1970s as a children's writer. She published her first ones in the Kolobok magazine. In 1998, she received an international Andersen Diploma for her book of short stories "My Dog Loves Jazz", and in 2001 her novel "The Genius of Unrequited Love" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The writer has several dozen works for adults and children, some of which have been adapted into cartoons and animated series.

Funny mistakes and difficult words of "Total dictation"

One of the traditions of "Total Dictation" is the search for mistakes made by a certain Eva Dalaskina. This character appeared in 2015, when the author of the dictation was the writer Evgeny Vodolazkin. One of the participants of the action incorrectly heard the phrase "text E. Vodolazkina" and wrote "Eva Dalaskina." Since then, all the funny mistakes found during the check have been attributed to this mysterious woman.

In 2024, the adverbs "sideways" and "in a flash" became the most difficult words for dictation participants. There were also frequent mistakes in spelling "not" with participles. The inspectors also encountered such unusual words as "one-luck" instead of "overnight" and "empty provincial score" instead of "even a provincial ball."

Among Eva Dalaskina's pranks, there were more unusual expressions. So, "holidays at the manor" turned into "Caligula in the entrance", "listing grades in the report card" became "listing prices of a spatula", and "blogs and publics" transformed into "blocks and factories".

Also in 2024, artificial intelligence (AI) wrote dictation for the first time. The Scribe system, created by specialists from Novosibirsk State University, passed the literacy test. The organizers rated the AI's work at a solid "three": the machine missed some words and prepositions, put incorrect endings in several places or distorted the meaning. Instead of "the highest," she wrote "the one who appeared," and the expression "Read — I don't want to" turned into "Think you don't want to." at the same time, according to the developers, the result was higher than predicted.

Earlier, Izvestia reported on the history and traditions of celebrating the Day of the Russian Language.