Igenlode Wordsmith’s Reviews > A First Russian Reader > Status Update
Igenlode Wordsmith
is on page 6 of 119
The vocabulary and idiom of this is ridiculously advanced for a "first reader"; in the initial few pages we have already got past passive participles, plus such words as 'flower stalk', 'streamlet', and 'cling', none of which were in my A-level course and all of which I'd expect to be far too obscure for the reader "at a very early stage in the study of the Russian language"...
— Oct 20, 2026 01:26PM
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Igenlode’s Previous Updates
Igenlode Wordsmith
is on page 29 of 119
"Рукавицы - gloves, like a child's, with all four fingers in one piece, and a thumb"... in other words, *mittens*?
— Oct 29, 2026 06:34PM
Igenlode Wordsmith
is on page 26 of 119
I don't know if this material is arranged thematically/chronologically, or if Russian children's fiction is just obsessed with winter...
(Glancing ahead, it looks as if the stories are simply grouped according to the seasons!)
— Oct 27, 2026 11:33AM
(Glancing ahead, it looks as if the stories are simply grouped according to the seasons!)
Igenlode Wordsmith
is on page 20 of 119
This is extremely colloquial - and probably unusably dated colloquial, at that...!
But worth acquiring a passive understanding of.
— Oct 25, 2026 06:08AM
But worth acquiring a passive understanding of.
Igenlode Wordsmith
is on page 9 of 119
The vocabulary and grammar in this is just ridiculously beyond beginner learner level - these are stories for young native-speaking Russian children, with suitable moral messages, but also stylised fairy-tale/colloquial constructions and obscure verbs and nouns ("moisten", "barge", "buds", "splash", "flowerbed", "groan", "nests" - these are not the terms most people acquire in their first few lessons...)
— Oct 22, 2026 07:13PM