. The article considers the problems of studying errors, connected with the use of degree adverbs in Russian speech of foreign students: the causes of this group of errors are defined, the mechanisms of influence of students’ native language on norms of word usage in Russian are revealed, the significance of systematic work to introduce adverbs in the speech practice is stipulated. The authors justify the importance of changing the general approach to the study of adverbs in the Russian as a second language practice. The authors believe that adverbs should be seen not only as the simplest structural elements of a Russian sentence (which is the case today), but also as a meaningfully and expressively rich layer of Russian vocabulary, a necessary tool for solving many communicative problems. This becomes possible only in the case of restructuring the entire system of lexical work, the implementation in pedagogical practice of the latest methods of teaching foreign languages. Extremely relevant, according to the authors, is the teacher’s activity to prevent erroneous use of adverbs of measure and degree in speech, which involves ensuring greater involvement of students in the process of working on errors, the formation of students’ understanding of the peculiarities of ethnic errors. Based on the analysis of the negative linguistic material the article makes a conclusion that the prevention of mistakes, connected with the use of adverbs of measure and degree in the Russian speech of foreigners, will be more effective, if, firstly, the links between the character of the mistake and peculiarities (lexical, structural) of the native language of the student are found and taken into account, and secondly, the mechanism of stage-by-stage introduction of the newest methods of the language material presentation to the educational practice is realized.