Rating: 
Summary: New Penguin Russian Course
Review: This is the revised edition of an earlier Penguin Russian coursebook available many years ago. I haven't seen that text, but this book is the best self study stand alone text for any language that I have seen. I wish Penguin had the same type of book for German.The book progresses in a very sensible way, all of the things you learn are in an order that builds a very solid foundation before moving on to the next lesson. At times you will run into areas where the author offers "extras" that he says can be skipped. My advice is don't. In the first few chapters the "extras" are pages explaining the correct way to pronounce words. He claims that you'll be understood if you pronounce the words phonetically as they're written, but why not take the little extra time and get it right? There's also great information on Russian handwriting, some cultural info (very brief), but the book is all business. One thing that it lacks is a way to hear native speakers, of course. While it goes a long way trying to explain how Russian is spoken, you won't be able to avoid tapes or some other method of actually hearing the language properly spoken. One inexpensive way would be Barron's Pronounce it Perfectly in Russian. The best way would be to purchase the Pimsleur lessons, but they're prohibitively expensive for most people. This book is a great foundation for learning Russian. It's a bargain. I also recommend another book by the author, the "Russian Learners' Dictionary", especially along with the Vis-ed Russian flashcards.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent basic Russian course for self study.
Review: This is the revised edition of an earlier Penguin Russian coursebook available many years ago. I haven't seen that text, but this book is the best self study stand alone text for any language that I have seen. I wish Penguin had the same type of book for German. The book progresses in a very sensible way, all of the things you learn are in an order that builds a very solid foundation before moving on to the next lesson. At times you will run into areas where the author offers "extras" that he says can be skipped. My advice is don't. In the first few chapters the "extras" are pages explaining the correct way to pronounce words. He claims that you'll be understood if you pronounce the words phonetically as they're written, but why not take the little extra time and get it right? There's also great information on Russian handwriting, some cultural info (very brief), but the book is all business. One thing that it lacks is a way to hear native speakers, of course. While it goes a long way trying to explain how Russian is spoken, you won't be able to avoid tapes or some other method of actually hearing the language properly spoken. One inexpensive way would be Barron's Pronounce it Perfectly in Russian. The best way would be to purchase the Pimsleur lessons, but they're prohibitively expensive for most people. This book is a great foundation for learning Russian. It's a bargain. I also recommend another book by the author, the "Russian Learners' Dictionary", especially along with the Vis-ed Russian flashcards.
Rating:
Summary: It works,
Review: Unlike alot of the russian books, This one does not assume you already have a basic foundation in Russian. If you're just starting out and don't even know the cyrillic alphabet yet, this book will help you alot, at least it helped me.
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