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I lived in Russia for a year and often had people tell me: "you speak fine, but you need more words." These CDs are doing the trick:

* clear pronunciation in both languages
* well-paced pauses, just long enough to repeat once
* soft classical music that keeps things interesting
* four tracks per CD, so repeating a section is easy
* useful printed booklet of all vocabulary
* nice carrying case

My only minor criticism is that the overall volume is lower than my music CDs or radio, so I need to be careful when switching sources. Otherwise, for simply adding vocabulary and improving pronunciation, VocabuLearn's a winner. I just wish learning a language took less time, but don't we all?

TIP: Try focusing on just one track at a time, rather than on an entire disk. I set my car's CD player on 'track repeat' after finding that one short segment is much easier to absorb.

Rating: (5 / 5)

I did take A. Khan's advice and borrowed the series from the local library on cassette tapes. I could do without the music as well - it really suits no particular purpose. However, as an intermediate Russian student, all I really need at this point is to hear 4,500 words and phrases repeated randomly. With most publications catering to the beginner, this was a refreshing discovery. I find that the series promises long-term usefulness as the vocabulary progresses from the pedestrian to a more sopisticated, advanced level. The buyer should already have a solid foundation in basic Russian grammar and vocabulary as this is exactly what it claims to be: words upon words spoken at random in Russian and English covering just about everything from soup to nuts. By just letting the audio play in the background a few hours at a time while I go about daily household tasks, I have greatly increased my comprehension of movies and books in Russian with little effort. With other programs like Rosetta charging the horrendous prices they do, this is a LOT of bang for your buck!

Rating: (5 / 5)

I have just listened to the CD and the music is EXTREMELY distracting to me. Russian prononciation is hard enough to learn let alone trying to decipher it among totally unnecessary background music. I do not know whose brilliant idea it was, but it made me extremely uncomfortable and distraught to have wasted a good deal of money to listen to shopping mall music instead of clean clear prononciatiation that I expected. Some words that I have already learned were barely decipherable in the crescendo of the musical notes. At least in my (XP-Multi-media edition) MS Windows media player machine the music is VERY LOUD and not at all very subtle background as their ad claims. In any case, please listen to it somewhere, somehow before you plunk down your hard earned money...it just may work out for you, but I won't bet a rusted penny on it.

Rating: (1 / 5)

I used Pimsleur to learn how to speak Russian. I am using Modern Russian 1 and 2 with the cds to learn to read, write and the formal rules. I was using Rosetta Stone for learning words. Yes "was". I found it was fun but not as fast or good for my memory as this Vocabulearn set.

I can put on these cds as I drive, or do things around the house or as I read along. It is not as exciting as other tools, but it works and is quickly adding words to my Russian knowledge. Once I finish all three levels, I will have a very respectable vocabulary of 3000+ words and 1000s of phrases.

You might not care for the music. I personally did not find it hard to hear the words with the music.

It is designed to give you words to use and expand on what you learn in Pimsleur or what ever text you use to learn the formal rules of the Russian language.

I very please with the series. I am learning words much faster than with any other aid.

Rating: (5 / 5)