Links around the net to learn about Russian conjunctions

Item bought came promptly and in better condition than I could have bought at a retail store. I was very pleased.

Rating: (5 / 5)

This answers all of my questions about Russian. Having lived in Russia, but a native English speaker, I sometimes forget grammar exceptions/rules in writing or speaking, and this book leaves no stone unturned. This is great I think if you have gotten beyond the basics of Russian, i.e. past 2nd year in College.

Rating: (5 / 5)

This grammar is great for anyone in 2nd to 4th year Russian. It's very thorough, gives examples, and is arranged sensibly. Beyond this one, Isachenko's grammar is awesome. I recommend this one for 2nd to 4th year Russian and Isachenko's grammar after that. (You should also check out Jacobson's work on cases at some point).

Rating: (5 / 5)

I use the Oxford Concise Russian Grammar by Terrence Wade all the time.
This book attempts to cover a lot of ground and it's very commendable that he has assembled so much information from various Russian grammars that are totally written in Russian and presented it for English speakers. You can answer many questions from it and it has many interesting insights into the grammar of Russian.

That said...

He attempts to cover parts of spoken grammar and usage and I wish he hadn't because he is sometimes dead wrong and it mars an otherwise well thought out book. Supposedly it was reviewed by many top academics in Russia but they could not have read it carefully because the mistakes are not typos but gaps in his understanding of Russian, that despite a lifetime of study, are things that every child there understands.

For example, there is the imperative form of the word to eat which he claims is usually replaced by a more polite verb. He's dead wrong and this is something that people say to each other all the time. In the movies I rarely hear the ones he claims people use though it's definitely a word people use and I do sometimes too. This is a mistake that no child in Russia could make. By the age of 2 they know this word because it's what their mother tells them when she wants them to eat. I verified this with my Russian friends. There is a prefixed version of the verb too which is the verb "to finish eating" (yes, in Russian there is a verb for everything) that is very common too. It's what your parents say to you when you try to leave the table before you have finished eating.

I have been to Russia too for vacation and the same comments apply from my experience speaking and hearing people there.

He commendably mentions the alternative imperative verb form in Russian where the infinitive is used but fails to elaborate on this significant item. I have actually never seen this discussed in text books.

Russians often use the infinitive in place of the imperative. I first started to hear it in movies and it was always in a setting where police or military people where giving some kind of order. It's like "I order you to stop" but the just say "to stop". It's common in Russian spoken language to omit anything that can be omitted that would be obvious from the context.

But in real life there on the street, I hear it all the time too.
It's originally from the military but it has filtered into general life.
For example, a little kid was starting to go into the crosswalk and I heard his mother yell this at him.

In Russia as a result of the soviet union, there are three separate sub languages: normal spoken Russian, that spoken by police and military and that from prisons (there were a lot of people in prison) but now it has all filtered into the general spoken language.

Anyway, this is a very deep subject and it's not covered very well in this book.

Rating: (4 / 5)

I always have my eyes open for good reference books.

I took four semesters of Russian in a two-year college program, over ten years ago. I still have problems tackling even the basics of the this language's complex verbal system.

This is just what I needed -- a schematic look at the grammar of the Russian language. Its has a detailed index and a comprehensive scope; quick answers can be found easily to anyone who understands the basics of this language.

This is the best guide I've found so far, and I still haven't found anything else to replace it. Please remember, this is not a text book, it is a well-made reference guide to the Russian language.

Rating: (3 / 5)

A word of warning: this is a REFERENCE grammar. You certainly WILL need previous knowledge of Russian before this book will be useful to you.

Being linguistically inclined, I have a habit of learning from reference grammars rather than textbooks, since they usually present the material in a more concise and comprehensive way. A mark of an impressive reference grammar, to me, is one that is accessible to a beginner while still clearly functioning as a reference; for example a Spanish grammar that begins by introducing gender and definite/indefinite articles before progressing to more advanced topics.

This is NOT that kind of grammar. I found it absolutely impossible to wade through as a total novice to Russian, simply because of the order in which information is presented. The book could easily be improved and made accessible to beginners, as many grammars are, and so its use has been unnecessarily and obnoxiously limited. For that I subtract a star.

That said, once you have a reasonable command of Russian, this book is *absolutely* the best reference for Russian available anywhere. Its best feature is that, for every grammatical point, it cites multiple examples from Russian writers. Emulating the usage found in this book gives your Russian an advanced and native flow that learning from contrived examples found in other grammars simply cannot.

If you already know some Russian -- but only then -- you should definitely buy this book. It will be an invaluable resource to you. Otherwise, I would recommend "The New Penguin Russian Course" to get started.

Rating: (4 / 5)

As a third year student of university-level Russian, this book has been a valuable asset in understanding the minutiae of Russian grammar. CJ seems to have some issues with the vulgarization of the English language by Americans. By the way, Did you intend to use "illude" as in "deceive", or "elude" as in "escape the understanding of"? Your bantering tone ill-suits the highly educated perspective you claim to represent.

Rating: (4 / 5)

While this is definitly an informative book, it is more of a reference book as opposed to a book which will teach you the language with little or no Russian background. If you're already a student in Russian, this would make a good supplemtent to your studies. It is nice to have for a quick reference in the confusing or more subtle points of Russian grammar. However, if you have no background in Russian, I doubt that this book would be a good starting point.

Rating: (4 / 5)

What no one has mentioned here yet is that there is a grammar workbook by the same author that acts as a companion to this grammar book. This was a recommended work when I was doing a degree in Russian. It is a good and thourough work on the Russian language that you will, undoubtedly, find useful. However, I think that there are some sections that really need more detail. First of all the (painful!) verbs of motion need more clarification and explanation in relation to the variations used by Russian speakers. There have been whole books written on verbs of motion so the little that has been devoted to it here is not enough in my opinion. There have been times in my own interaction with Russians when I have been corrected in my use of a verb of motion even though what I said was grammatically correct. We need to know when and where to use them. Secondly, the section on perfectives and imperfectives and the way affixes are used is just not advanced and thourough enough. If you are going to spend your money on a grammar book you want the full story, don't you? Examples used tend to be from Soviet/Russian press, which is Ok, but also from authors such as Chekhov. I think it would be better to stick to modern sources as much as possible instead of gining readers the idea that what they may be learning might be older style Russian. I think that all the examples will be perfectly OK in modern Russian, but I think you should consider the impression you give readers as well as the actual information. Still, a good book and a good combination if used with the grammar book.

Rating: (4 / 5)

Wade's "Comprehensive Russian Grammar" is no doubt the best work of its type for English-speaking students of Russian. It deals exhaustively with virtually every aspect of the language and gives copious information which should satisfy the curiosity of both intermediate and advanced students of the language. Some American learners might have a bit of difficulty with "Britishisms" such as the use of the first-person future "shall" instead of "will" and a few other such things, but this is no significant barrier. Once in a great while there are a some very peculiar usages in the English translations of Russian utterances (such as "I'll give you argue!" and "I'll give you gallivanting around!" on page 301) which are incomprehensible to Americans (and perhaps also to British people), but such problems are rare. All in all, this work is the answer to the dreams of serious English-speaking learners of Russian.

Rating: (5 / 5)