Russian: Face to Face : Beginning

Rating:
Summary: Was very helpful for self study course
Review: I found both this book, and the Level Two edition (called Intermediate on amazon) to be very good. I lived in Russia for about 6 monthes, and before and after this I used these books to self-study Russian. I tried a number of other books, both easier and harder, and found this one worked the best for me. It is a good mix of vocubulary, grammer, and a holistic approach to Russian which I enjoyed. It is easier than the college textbooks I worked with, and provides more stand-alone exercises to drill in the material. With the more advanced textbooks I tried, they provided too many rules too quickly and not enough drills to force you to memorize them. In a classroom environment this might be ok, but for me this approach worked much better. The book is geared to a young audience, probably mostly high school students, but not annoyingly so. You can also get tapes with both books. These are a bit pricey, but useful for doing the listening and pronunciation drills.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but out-dated
Review: I use this book for an independent study course, and found it easy to use. However, it is somewhat out-dated. It lacks the ability to give you the knowledge to have a very nice conversation. Also, the book was published in 1995 and is slightly tacky. It is full badly drawn illustrations and lacks any real good pictures. One is left with the idea that Russians don't like photos taken of them, or that only rather odd looking people pose for photos. But, it is still a good book to learn the basics of the Russian language. In fact, the way the material is presented and learned is almost flawless. I would reccommend this book to beginners that want to learn the bascs at more than a travel level.

Rating:
Summary: Good book for beginners
Review: This is a good book for beginners. It seems to be aimed toward a younger audience, but it's still good for adults. The book focuses on the overall language itself, not just vocabulary or grammar.