Conversation topics include meeting families, dealing with officials, sport and drinking. It also includes sign and a menu decoder. Small and compact size.

The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners (Penguin Handbooks)
This is a good CD set to get started jumping in and pronouncing Russian words and assembling sentances. Unfortunately for us, we damaged the CD and can't get past track 6 of the 1st disk. :o(
Other than that it is good for picking up some conversational Russian. Next we need to get the "Beginners" Set then learn to read basic signs.

Rating: (4 / 5)

Why are there 5 stars next to nearly all the reviews? Because this text is most deserving of them. I'd give 6 stars if I could. Russian, like any inflectional language, is an especially difficult one to grasp but this book dosn't miss a beat and is most excellent for the novice and self-taught types. It is exceedingly well organized and all inclusive and you notice a rapid progression into advanced reading. There are parts that are skippable (is that a word?) if you are only interested in reading but so much detail is in the footnotes, etc. that it is worth reading every little thing. Tons of material of interest is also included as well as the many nuances of the language. I absolutely recommend this as a first text. The first obstacle will be the alphabet. Having learned ancient Greek, I had less difficulty than some others might have but you will soon grow used to the oddities of Cyrillic. You won't be dissapointed, I promise !

Rating: (5 / 5)

If one is going to learn Russian--by which I mean learn it well enough to actually carry on an intelligent conversation--one must start with the grammar. Current products that promise easy, quick, learning of a language as difficult as Russian are simply marketing (expensive!)fantasy through huge advertising campaigns. I set about to learn Russian seriously, and this book was a good first step. I also got Kenneth Katzner's Dictionary, which is the absolute best in the world, and something I use daily. After a year's work, I bought an inexpensive Pimsleur audio disk, so I could hear what these words actually sounded like, and this package is doing the job for me. This book intelligently starts at the beginning, with the alphabet. It shows how letters are both printed and written in cursive, and then, from the 1st lesson, it begins to introduce the important grammatical principles underlying this extraordinarily difficult language. One quickly comes to appreciate how useless the exhorbitantly priced "interactive" programs are, which rely on the learning of many phrases. All they are is an electronic version of a phrase book. The person who has invested their hard earned money in such courses will realize, the first time they try to talk to a Russian, that they have squandered their money. In the first place, the words they have so carefully learned are virtually guaranteed to come back at them in a declined form, which, if they cannot recognize it, will sound like another word. How could they possibly commincate without knowing the accusative, genitive, dative, nominative, prepositional or instrumental case endings? A language like this is a serious undertaking (similar to classical Latin) and has to be approached with respect. Brown's "Russian Course" is a sensible, down-to-earth, traditional grammar, with exercises, readings, self-tests, vocabularies, and a really concise declension chart at the end which is ABSOLUTELY useful and necessary! Well worth the modest cost. Five star. No way to go wrong if you have a serious desire to learn this language.

Rating: (5 / 5)

I've been using this along the side with rosetta stone and both have helped me learna great deal of russian in the last three months.

Rating: (5 / 5)

very helpful to learn how to:
- pronounce the words
- read and write
- use grammar
- and for the vocabulary

Rating: (5 / 5)

I chose to use this book as the textbook for my Russian class because it was cheaper than Golosa or Nachalo. That was a mistake. The book includes all the grammatical information that you need to speak Russian, but a beginning Russian student needs more than just grammar. I don't know the author of this book, but I'm guessing that he doesn't place much importance on teaching. It seems he still adheres to the grammar-translation approach to teaching Russian. The organization of the book is confusing, neither thematic nor grammatical. The exercises are brief, and could have easily been lifted from a Russian textbook that was printed in the 50's or 60's. Frankly, I don't know why this book has gotten such rave reviews, unless it's being compared to not having any book at all. It's a lot cheaper than a real textbook, but there's a reason why it's cheaper. If you want a cheap way to learn Russian, check out the Berlitz Self-Teacher from the library.

Rating: (2 / 5)

This is a great book to learn russian from the ground up. Every lesson is comprehensive in its theme and there are exercises at the end of each chapter and solutions in the back. There are also consolidated grammar tables in the appendix for quick lookup and a 1500 word vocabulary. I bought 6 russian language course books on Amazon and this one is by far the best.

Rating: (5 / 5)

This book is EXCELLENT in my opinion. When I don't fully grasp grammar points from my russian textbook, I refer to this. It would be nice if it came as a cd course though.

Rating: (5 / 5)

I have studied on my own at various levels of seriousness 6 languages in my life, (some to the extent of becoming fully fluent, some becoming basically conversational, and some starting and giving up out of disinterest or dislike for the language in general) and amid the many books I've used for all the languages, I found this book to be the best book for any independent foreign language learner (i.e. not in a university or other language class). Not just for Russian - which this book happens to cover - but any book. The reasons, below:

- reasonbly compact chapters with specific points to be learned in a logical order
- starts with basic grammar, and expands very methodically upon the fundamentals, gradually progressing to A-level Russian
- no "travel talk" - all texts and exercises are normal, everyday (and progressively harder and "bookish") rather than "hotel/airport/taxi" topics
- very clear explanations of all grammar, at basic as well as obscure levels (and the author tells which points are not so crucial and may be skipped if one wishes to do so - he even does this for an entire chapter on the vagaries of Russian numbers, counting and mathematics)
- compact in size - can be taken anywhere, and densely packed with vocabulary and grammar - this is no amateur book
- grammar terms are explained very well, and examples given very clearly
- good texture of pages and very readable print; no clutter; fonts used are very soft on the eyes and bold (mainly Russian words) are well-highlighted against the slightly tan-tinged, off-white pages - not overly-contrasty as with pure-white linen-colored pages
- texts vary from being short and to the point, to longer and more literary, providing variety and a chance to move at a good pace
- again, a very logical progression from basic nouns, verbs, then cases, endings, etc. through tenses, "bookish" style, etc. to cover nearly all the points one might encounter in Russian grammar
- an unbelievable price for all this - $20 retail, $12 or so on Amazon - worth many times that in terms of content

The downsides?

- no audio tapes - as others have noted, there is no way to know the correct pronunciation unless you supplement it with another series (Teach Yourself, Routledge, etc.) which have dialogues recorded and transcribed
- there are plenty of exercises for each grammar point but most are pretty brief; need to supplement with Teach Yourself's "Russian Grammar" or Terence Wade's grammar workbook
- later chapters have rather long vocabulary lists - probably difficult to master all of the vocabulary at once for one chapter, unless one works on a chapter a week or so; takes time to master this moreso than the grammar itself
- not much use of the often difficult-to-read italic Russian font (found in some other college-related texts) or handwriting (again, not much to say on this but one or two examples would be a nice addition, perhaps the text of a handwritten letter as one chapter addition)
- I always think the cover photo is so odd - hardly a good shot of St. Basil's on Red Square, taken wide-angle and appearing far off, with the inexplicable marching soldiers and an old Coke billboard (long gone now, I hear) in the forefront - the attempt to juxtapose the various elements of modern and old Russia are negated by the poor photo angle and distracting elements (lamppost, old-ish cars, large boring sidewalk dominating the foreground, etc.) - I know this is hardly a reason to complain about the book, but this mundane shot doesn't get one excited about a Russia visit each time one picks up the book to study; perhaps a snow-covered Orthodox church in the countryside or a nightscape of St. Petersburg, as cliched as those scenes are, would be more attractive and sell the book (also - can't translate what's on that billboard, even after studying the book! Something about "Coca Cola - always better with... [something]..." - can anyone help??)

Otherwise, the best language textbook that I have ever used. Highly recommended above all others.

Rating: (5 / 5)

This is just a really fantastic resource for a beginning student. Other Russian-learning products I've tried mostly attempt to have you memorize a series of useful phrases and words. That's fine if all you are going to do is spend a short amount of time traveling and only need to ask where the bathroom is. However, if you're wanting to truly learn the language, it's important to get started with the grammar. This book does that. Right away it provides grammar tables and exercises to help you learn the structure of the language. The only downside I've found that it appears to be focused toward British students because it refers to a lot of locations in the UK. Not a big deal, though. You still are able to learn the grammar.

Rating: (5 / 5)