Get Started in Russian with Two Audio CDs: A Teach Yourself Guide

by Rachel Farmer

Teach Yourself takes the pain out of picking up a new language Get Started in Russian requires no prior experience in the language and gives you the opportunity to study at a reasonable, steady pace. This course makes the process nearly painless--it is written in a friendly and supportive tone, and the structure offers you plenty of opportunities for self-practice. You are in control of your learning experience, so you never feel overwhelmed or rushed. This practical course introduces the new language without inundating you and includes dialogues and exercises, a helpful pronunciation section, manageable lists of practical vocabulary, a glossary of grammar terms, and more. The accompanying audio CD features recordings by native speakers and contains dialogues from the book as well as exercises in listening and speaking.

Genres: Russia

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2010

About the author

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Reviews

[Mila Mikhail · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a Russian speaker, so this book was of no educational value to me but a classmate of mine interested in learning the language asked me for some recommendations so I decided to read this book and try to put myself in the shoes of an absolute beginner before recommending anything.

Overall this was a pretty good book that I did end up recommending to my classmate, but it wasn’t my first choice. First off, this book isn’t sold anywhere with the recording (unless there’s a new edition or something) and although you don’t absolutely need it to learn with this book, many exercises require it and sometimes the translitérations aren’t the greatest so I would definitely point an absolute beginner in another direction because if you’ve never heard Russian before your pronunciation might be way off.

Another problem I had was that some things were badly explained. Right in the beginning the word ‘мы’ was transliterated as being pronounced ‘my’ when it fact it’s ‘me’ so that irked me, and that wasn’t the only instance of something like this or similar.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad book and I did give my copy to my classmate, but don’t let your language learning depend on this. It is a helpful tool but only in the bigger picture of learning Russian.

[Jess Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. I already knew a little russia. It would probably be better with the CD which I didn't have. Good refresher.

[Julia Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to learn Russian. My kids loved it.