Teach Yourself Instant Russian (Teach Yourself Instant Language Courses)

Rating:
Summary: delivers what it claims & nothing more
Review: I admit I found this kit initially attractive for its promise to teach conversational Russian minus the difficult grammar and other "messy bits", and was lured by the 45 minutes a day, six week claim. Such a program has its benefits, but after all was said and done, I was left wishing that I had taken the time to begin with the basics.
Apart from an unexplained alphabet chart in the introductory chapter and a very few flash cards, "Instant Russian" doesn't bother with Cyrillic letters, using instead a phonetically spelled equivalent of each word. The strategy is to allow a better mastery of tricky Russian pronunciations; I was left feeling ultimately hindered by the method. After completing the course, I was able to recite words and phrases but had absolutely no idea how to recognize the majority of my new vocabulary as it might appear on a store front sign or restaurant menu. I feel that I would have fared much better with at least a basic understanding of the Russian characters.
Also, I was unsure of the exact sounds of some of the letter groupings, as the female voice on the cassette has a British accent. Several of the english word examples given, especially those in the section pertaining to vowel sounds, contained words that are pronounced differently in Britain than in North America. This isn't a HUGE problem, but for those outside the UK, it's something to consider.
That said, I give "Instant Russian" three stars because it delivers what it claims - important words and phrases without the bother of difficult grammar. It is neither for those with a serious interest in studying the language nor for those that would prefer to learn Russian using the Cyrillic characters, something I highly recommend doing.
I understand how this program might be greatly appreciated by travellers wishing only to grasp the basics of conversational Russian, but wanting more, I have decided to invest the time and effort into exploring a more traditional approach to the language.