The article considers variants of paronyms compatibility and some mistakes of Turkmen students in the use of paronyms – words closed in pronunciation but not identical, and sometimes different in meaning. The vocabulary of foreign students entering the university does not always correspond to the needs of their language practice, often there is no knowledge of the paronyms necessary for it. The study of various paronyms combining variants with other words, semantic connections are as necessary as knowledge of grammatical rules and spelling norms. The correct using of the word in speech suggests, firstly, knowledge of the word structure and the lexical-semantic variants of the polysemy; secondly, analysis of the word-building composition with the individual morphemes meaning identification; thirdly, the ability to choose the word needed for a given context, for which it is necessary to determine its place in the lexical-semantic system, i.e. to find its connection with other words, to identify general and differential features in a given lexical group making up a certain semantic unity. As a result of observations of Turkmen students“ oral and written speech, the main reasons for the erroneous paronyms substitution are revealed, involving roots consonance. The same root paronyms are also confused because of inaccurate understanding of the prefixes, suffixes meaning and difference they bring to the word meaning. Considering the same root-words, there are many problems due to the fact that they are heterogeneous in the semantic and word-formation aspect. Paronyms like the same-root words, similar to synonyms. They have a number of common features which leads to the similarity of these two language units, and finally to the error occurrence while using paronyms in speech. The article also contains examples of training exercises for speech skills developing in the paronyms using at Russian language classes in the Turkmen audience.