Product Description

If you really want to learn Russian but are daunted by the prospect of complicated grammar, classes and coursebooks, this book starts right from the beginning and explains everything in simple English. There are hints throughout to make learning easy and you can learn at your own pace with plenty of practice of each new point. It should help you to understand and speak Russian sufficiently well to function effectively in basic everyday situations. The course also offers an insight into Russian culture. The text is divided into three main parts. Units 1-2 introduce you to the Russian alphabet. Units 3-10 cover the basic structures and grammatical points needed in everyday situations. Units 12-20 teach you how to cope with practical everyday situations such as eating out, travelling and making a phone call. This offers the opportunity to put into practice and consolidate the language you have learnt in the first ten units. Unit 11 is a special unit designed to give you the chance to find out something about the handwritten Russian script and to write it down if you choose. If you would rather miss this unit out and concentrate on reading, speaking and listening, you can do so without it affecting your understanding of the other units. By the end of the course you should be able to communicate in a variety of real-life situations and have all the practical information you need to enjoy your next trip to Russia. Two accompanying cassettes or CDs are available separately or in a pack with the book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #194340 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
Rachel Farmer is Lecturer in Russian at University of Nottingham.

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to the Russian language
This book assumes no prior knowledge of the Russian language. Russian looks very cryptic because of the Cyrillic alphabet it uses but the Cyrillic alphabet is actually rather simple to learn. The book starts off by teaching the reader the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet and using this book it only took me about two weeks before I was able to read most Russian words. One of the advantages with this is that you feel you have made substantial progress in learning Russian within the first few weeks of starting this book and it motivates you to keep on learning the language. After the alphabet, the book introduces the reader to basic conversations and then progresses onto more advanced conversations that cover a variety of situations (directions, introductions, eating, drinking, how to order things, etc) and the excellent tapes that accompany the book are essential in learning how to pronounce Russian words and phrases. Learning Russian is not a trivial pursuit for an English speaker and it’s taken me about 10 months to finish this book. Of course completing a book like this is not going to make you fluent in Russian but by the end of it you’ll have mastered some basic language skills that will be useful on a trip to Russia.

Fantastic, Simple and Easy!
I love languages and found this book to be very easy to use. It focuses on how you would need to communicate with Russians in Russia rather than the not-as-fun learn the grammar standard language teaching method. I got on to Unit Three in a couple of days, and I found it really interesting. You can progress at whatever speed is comfortable to you, but if you buy without the CD it does make references to the recording. It isn't, however, essential to have the CD. I don't, and it's still a great teach yourself book.

The best I've come across for learning Russian
Books and courses for teaching Russian tend to be quite poor - as a language teacher I've explored most of them. This is the best and the most enjoyable-to-use I've come across. The psychology is excellent - you feel you're making progress right from the start, and you are. Wonderful at breaking down a difficult language into easy, manageable chunks - but it's important to grasp one unit well before moving on to the next one. I envy the author her ability to teach!