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Rating: 
Summary: No Easier Way to Read Russian
Review: The drawings in this easy-to-read, short book made learning to read Russian very easy.By glancing at them you can guess what is happening most of the time. Although initially a page does not appear to provide much in the way of vocabulary, studying the drawings greatly increases the scopy of learning and builds vocabulary rapidly. Repetition through the frequent questions and answers re-enforces learning. You think what you see, and say what you think. Easy only begins to describe the benefits flowing from this great reader. The process seemed so natural by the third page. Hope that author puts out a series.
Rating: 
Summary: not too bad
Review: This book is definately a 'first reader', as it is quite simple. All the text is in present tense. I do not mind this, but the thing that I find most wrong with the book is that it has a dictionary in back that ostensibly contains all words necessary for reading the passages, but in reality contains about 50% of them. This only means that one must look the words up in another dictionary. But at the same time, there are some words that have multiple meanings, and you look them up in a seperate dictionary, and will not be able to glean any meaning from a sentence. But overall, I have found this book to be very helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for early study
Review: This book will help early students (mid first semester) students develop reading confidence and to get a feel for how the language is used in very elementary texts, such as journals, etc.
It does have a couple of drawbacks though. The dictionary at the end is rather incomplete, perhaps covering as little as 75 percent of all the words encountered in the text. Granted that most of these words are not necessary to understand the storyline, and may only appear once in the book.
The other drawback is far more serious. It claims to give some insight into the cultural lifestyle of the Russian family. The storylines and character development are far too limitted to give any substance to this claim. The Westerner reading this book will only interpret the events of the story within the context of his own cultural experience. I can easily imagine an American and a English reader getting two completely different notions of Russian life from this book.
Instead of jumping helter-skelter from event to event with no logical flow, it could have been worked through with a little more depth. For example, in an early part of the story, it could have mentioned that one of the character's dad worked as a produce vendor, and then later have the story about that character helping his father at the market. Threading the stories together like this will enhance word retention because the word for fruit vendor would appear in different contexts.
As it is now, it is mainly a collection of very simple, unrelated anecdotes with modest punchlines at the end. Almost like reading "Life in America" from Reader's Digest, only not as rich in texture as even that.
Rating:
Summary: Good for early study
Review: This book will help early students (mid first semester) students develop reading confidence and to get a feel for how the language is used in very elementary texts, such as journals, etc.
It does have a couple of drawbacks though. The dictionary at the end is rather incomplete, perhaps covering as little as 75 percent of all the words encountered in the text. Granted that most of these words are not necessary to understand the storyline, and may only appear once in the book.
The other drawback is far more serious. It claims to give some insight into the cultural lifestyle of the Russian family. The storylines and character development are far too limitted to give any substance to this claim. The Westerner reading this book will only interpret the events of the story within the context of his own cultural experience. I can easily imagine an American and a English reader getting two completely different notions of Russian life from this book.
Instead of jumping helter-skelter from event to event with no logical flow, it could have been worked through with a little more depth. For example, in an early part of the story, it could have mentioned that one of the character's dad worked as a produce vendor, and then later have the story about that character helping his father at the market. Threading the stories together like this will enhance word retention because the word for fruit vendor would appear in different contexts.
As it is now, it is mainly a collection of very simple, unrelated anecdotes with modest punchlines at the end. Almost like reading "Life in America" from Reader's Digest, only not as rich in texture as even that.
Rating:
Summary: An easy introductory reader to Russian, but it's quite short
Review: Useful for building up your reading confidence for very beginners. The first couple of texts are extremely simple, and all of them only use the present tense. I found the end-dictionary comprehensive enough for my use, although it didn't include some words from the Exercises that follow the texts, which is an unfortunate oversight. You will go through this book quite quickly though. I much preferred the slightly more difficult "Beginner's Russian Reader" by Lila Pargment since it is useful much longer, but is more difficult when you are first beginning. Its also unfortunately a bit difficult to find in the US for some reason although very easy to get in the UK where I purchased it.
Rating:
Summary: An easy introductory reader to Russian, but it's quite short
Review: Useful for building up your reading confidence for very beginners. The first couple of texts are extremely simple, and all of them only use the present tense. I found the end-dictionary comprehensive enough for my use, although it didn't include some words from the Exercises that follow the texts, which is an unfortunate oversight. You will go through this book quite quickly though. I much preferred the slightly more difficult "Beginner's Russian Reader" by Lila Pargment since it is useful much longer, but is more difficult when you are first beginning. Its also unfortunately a bit difficult to find in the US for some reason although very easy to get in the UK where I purchased it.
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