Rating: 
Summary: Great book...great method...
Review: As far as learning a new language goes, I think that starting with being able to read it is equally important to being able to speak it. They go hand in hand with adult education. I was sick of discovering that most of the russian books out there are devoted almost entirely to teaching you catch phrases to "get you going". This book starts with the alphabet. It is detailed and actually does "get you going." Russian is a tough language to learn, but this book will help you through it without condescending you. I would highly recommend it for people who are serious about learning the russian language.
Rating:
Summary: This is the book.
Review: Forty years ago I studied Russian in college and used the unwieldy British- and Harvard-oriented texts of that time. After a few years I forgot it all. I recently decided to relearn the langauage and bought all the good texts I could find. This is the one I keep going back to. It's straightforward, easy to use, and well organized. It's made virtually every commuter rail trip with me in the past year while I work my way through at my own pace. I've amply annotated it and filled it with 3x5 post-it notes for the exercises. I still use it for the easy-to-find tables in the back. And throughout the appendices, vocabulary lists, and glossaries, lesson numbers are noted for most words and concepts. It's short on subordinating and adverbial conjunctions. The letter-writing section is short and a bit formal for casual writing. It gives good conversational information but it would be better with accompanying tapes. This is the book I took to Russia with me.
Rating:
Summary: The best book on Russian grammar
Review: I have used several books and courses with tapes to learn Russian, and this book is one of the best. It clearly explains Russian grammar and makes a great supplement to a conversational Russian course. Growing up in Europe, I used to speak Russian as a kid. This book helped me get back into the Russian language. Russian, German and Latin are grammatically very difficult languages. It is impossible to read and write these languages without studying the grammar in depth.
If you want to really learn Russian, buy this book!!
Rating:
Summary: Great Course for the Self-Taught Russian Student
Review: I picked up this book at the library on a whim, and was so quickly drawn in that I decided to purchase the living language course with CDs to be able to continue learning Russian on my own when the book was due. I found, though, that while the CDs are helpful for pronunciation and aural comprehension, the Penguin course has been most helpful overall. I plan to purchase it now, and highly recommend it for any beginning (self-taught) Russian student.
Rating:
Summary: well Organized
Review: I think that this book, when accompanied by talking and consulting prople who speak Russian, can really get a serious student to speak and understand the language.
True, some of the words and grammer are in old fashioned Russian, but other than that -it is very easy to learn from, very deductive and well organized.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thorough introduction for the serious student
Review: I used this book in the second term of an accelarated version of First Year Russian at the University level. Brown's introduction to the language is really incredible. Unlike many more expensive and flashier products, Brown covers ALL the main grammatical topics in the Russian language with a minimum of jargon. Other books either gloss over or over-complicate concepts like verbal aspect or participles -- discouraging students from continuing their study of the language. At the same time, the shopper should be ware that this is not a phrasebook, or business travel course. It is oriented around teaching the reader Russian at a first year University level (or British A-level, as Brown himself notes). While I have no doubt that this text can be used on its own without tapes (Russian is, after all a phonetic langauge) or perhaps even an instructor, to self-study with this book, the student must be absolutely serious and disciplined. The book has a number of exercises and examples, which are very helpful. The maximum benefit will be realized from this book by the reader who already has a good understanding of the Cyrillic script (not a very difficult one), and who will use Brown's book as the main text in a program supplemented by other vocabulary-building and grammar-practice texts, and preferrably an instructor. After four years of serious study, I am now fluent in Russian thanks to the foundation that Brown's book provided. If you are serious about the language, and have the discipline to seriously study Russian through an instructional text, Brown's Russian Course is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and thorough introduction for the serious student
Review: I used this book in the second term of an accelarated version of First Year Russian at the University level. Brown's introduction to the language is really incredible. Unlike many more expensive and flashier products, Brown covers ALL the main grammatical topics in the Russian language with a minimum of jargon. Other books either gloss over or over-complicate concepts like verbal aspect or participles -- discouraging students from continuing their study of the language. At the same time, the shopper should be ware that this is not a phrasebook, or business travel course. It is oriented around teaching the reader Russian at a first year University level (or British A-level, as Brown himself notes). While I have no doubt that this text can be used on its own without tapes (Russian is, after all a phonetic langauge) or perhaps even an instructor, to self-study with this book, the student must be absolutely serious and disciplined. The book has a number of exercises and examples, which are very helpful. The maximum benefit will be realized from this book by the reader who already has a good understanding of the Cyrillic script (not a very difficult one), and who will use Brown's book as the main text in a program supplemented by other vocabulary-building and grammar-practice texts, and preferrably an instructor. After four years of serious study, I am now fluent in Russian thanks to the foundation that Brown's book provided. If you are serious about the language, and have the discipline to seriously study Russian through an instructional text, Brown's Russian Course is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've found for learning Russian.
Review: I've bought Golosa (including the tapes), New Penguin Russian Course, Living Language CD, Passport to Russian, and a couple of others. This book is the best. We moved to Russia 4 months ago, and this book was really helpful in getting us going on vocabulary, cases, tenses, etc. It is also the only book I've found with exercises. I'm now having our Russian tutor use this book in teaching me, as it seems better than having her create her own course from scratch. Do wish it came with a CD or tape, for helping with sounds.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book for Beginners Learning Russian from Scratch
Review: I've compared dozens of books about learning Russian from scratch, and this one is the best. There are advanced grammar texts out there which have more information, but they aren't geared toward beginners. The beauty of this book is that if you know absolutely nothing about Russian, you can start at the beginning and work your way through each lesson in the order presented, and by the time you're done, you will have a solid understanding of Russian grammar. Not only that, but you'll have a vocabulary of some of the most useful words in the Russian language. When I first started studying Russian, I had no teachers or classes or cassette tapes to help me. My eighth grade math teacher gave me a copy of the original version of The Penguin Russian Course, which was compiled by J.L.I. Fennell and published in 1961. The methodology was logical and straightforward with no spoonfeeding or watered-down grammar lessons accompanied by cutsy cartoon pictures. In each lesson, you would first memorize a list of new vocabulary words. Then you would study several concise grammar principles which were clearly explained. Third, you would examine a brief Russian text which incorporated the new vocabulary and applied the new grammar principles which you had just learned in the lesson. Finally, you would translate an English text into Russian to test yourself on the new vocabulary and grammar. At the end of the book was a key which showed the correct translation of the English text into Russian, so you could check yourself. This new version of the Penguin Russian Course is not as concise and straightforward as the first version, but it's actually better. Nicholas J. Brown has incorporated the original structure of J.L.I. Fennell's version enough that the effectiveness of the lessons is preserved, but Mr. Brown has added much more in this modern version. He has provided numerous additional Russian texts and conversations so that you can see how the vocabulary is used in context. And in this new version, the answer keys at the back of the book show the Russian-English translation as well as the English-Russian translation of the exercises. The best part of this book is the translation exercises at the end of each lesson and their corresponding answer keys at the back of the book. Translation is probably the best way to test whether or not you really understand the grammar and vocabulary taught in the lessons, and this book gives you plenty of opportunities to test yourself in this manner. Another advantage of this book is that it's small enough to carry anywhere, unlike those bulky Russian 101 textbooks used in college classes which use a slow, watered-down, almost infantile approach to teaching the language. If you want to learn Russian, buy this book and work through the lessons. The only major drawback is that you'll never really learn proper pronunciation without listening to native Russians speak the language, and this book doesn't have tapes to accompany it. Other than that, however, you won't find a better book for beginners who want to learn Russian.
Rating:
Summary: The best one
Review: If you want to follow your own pace studying russian this is the book for you. Russian is as difficult as any other language but this book gives you, slowly, all parts of grammar and you will get a good vocabulary by the end of it.
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