The New Penguin Russian Course

Notes are nice after reading few chapters you can make conversation with anyone book is good for English speaking students

Absolutely essential to have a copy if you wish to start learning Russian. Don't think twice; buy it.

Good

Good book. Takes step by step approach. Also covers pronounciation. Can't blame book that the russian language itself is difficult to learn.

This book is an absolute delight to read and go through, the lessons are quick and easy and well-paced. I would recommend doing other coursework other than the book, while following this book as a refrence. The print quality is lovely.

Best book for learning Russian. Nobody explains the Cyrillic alphabet as this author.

I really liked the book, its step by step lessons and really good for beginners. I was able to learn reading russian and some words to speak. Obviously i need to work hard to learn more, book can only help you.

The book could have been planned better. For a beginner, this book is not an easy book to learn. The difficult words / grammar / sentences comes quite fast and is difficult to logically understand

Tenía mis dudas pues como dice el título es para principiantes. Yo ya tenía conocimiento del alfabeto, ya podía leer y entender algunas palabras, también cantar algunas canciones que me gustan. Sin embargo, a pesar de todo, mi conocimiento del idioma Ruso es bastante precario. Me llamó la atención por los comentarios de los compradores que mencionan que a pesar de ser muy básico abarca todo lo necesario para poder comunicarse y darse a entender aunque sea con un vocabulario limitado respecto a un hablante nativo en la vida diaria PERO suficiente para tener una conversción básica. Lo primero que revisé fue el índice de contenido y cubre varias de las cosas que yo no podía entender y nadie te explica, como el uso de las conjugaciones, los casos y los aspectos ya que el idioma Ruso no maneja artículos y preposiciones como en el Español, Inglés, Alemán, sino prefijos y sufijos (análogo al Latín). Vamos, no te quiero preocupar haciendo parecer algo imposible el idioma sino más bien animar a comprar este libro pues cubre muchos temas concentrados en un solo lugar. He tomado cursos en línea que solo son memorizar palabras y frases que no sirven para conversación fluída. He visto tutoriales y libros (pdf) que si bien te animan a aprender, estos solo cubren algunos pocos temas específicos y tienes que ampliar la información buscando en diferentes medios. Lo que me gustó de este libro es que contempla un poco de todo y cubre lo necesario para entender el mecanismo del idioma. Yo soy programador de computadoras, manejo varios lenguajes y veo a los idiomas de una manera sistematizada. Es decir, me parece más importante aprender cómo funciona que solo memorizar palabras, frases, etc. pues una vez que entiendes y aprendes las reglas, el vocabulario adicional lo puedes ir aprendiendo sobre la marcha y solo aplicas las reglas que ya conoces para utilizarlo y agregarlo al uso diario. Hay que memorizar vocabulario, eso es indudable, pero es más importante aprender las reglas de cómo usarlo. Reitero, asi a simple vista y ya conociendo algo del idioma es un libro PARA PRINCIPIANTES, vas a requerir más fuentes y continuar aprendiendo pero te va a ayudar a iniciar el camino en el idioma Ruso de la manera correcta. Ya para terminar, he tenido el pasatiempo de aprender varios idiomas aunque sea de forma simple pero ayuda mucho a comprender algunas cosas, por ejemplo, si algo no lo entiendes traducido al Español, seguro lo entiendes traducido al Inglés u otro idioma, ayuda mucho a entender la mecánica de los idiomas y tener comparativos o equivalencias que hacen más clara la comprensión. Algo más, el autor escribe de forma muy amena y agradable, no va a ser pesado leer y ponerse a estudiar. Apenas voy comenzando el primer capítulo pero en base a lo poco que ya conocía sobre el idioma Ruso les puedo decir que es un gran libro. Vean los comentarios de más compradores, no se van a arrepentir...

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I've been learning Russian independently for about a year now, and I bought this book along with a college textbook being used at a local university. Amazingly, even though this book is far less expensive, I consider it superior to that textbook as well as other Russian textbooks I've seen. This book is great for the self-learner because it has many exercises and examples throughout, and everything is explained in a logical manner. Also, unlike most college textbooks, all of the solutions are in the back, so you can check and correct your answers (presumably you are buying this book to learn Russian and not to pass the class, so I'm sure there's little motivation to simply copy the answers to complete an assignment). The exercises directly relate to the associated lesson, and you'll be amazed at how much you'll learn after completing a lesson, as you'll be able to understand passages that were once unreadable to you. Be warned that the book is deceptively thin. You might look at the book, which is smaller than most textbooks, and figure that it's light on information. Trust me, it's not. Although on the outside it looks like a beach-read paperback novel that you'll be able to get through in a day or even a week, each page is packed with information, and you'll have to spend a lot of time on many lessons before these concepts sink in. Russian of course is a difficult language for a native English speaker, so don't expect to fly through this book. You shouldn't use this as your only resource if you are learning Russian. The biggest downside to this book is that it won't help your listening or your speaking (understandably, since it has no audio). You'll need to find another resource to work on these areas. Do not neglect this! I made the mistake of ignoring listening and speaking for the first few months, and I ran into an odd situation with a native speaker where I was able to read and write a few simply things in Russian but found it almost impossible to understand a single word or pronounce anything correctly (very embarrassing). In addition, you'll need to do a fair amount of studying and memorizing outside of the lessons. I found that I would learn words and grammar rules but then "forget" them after a few days or a few weeks. A lot of the grammar and declensions simply have to be drilled and memorized by brute force. Hey, nobody said Russian was easy. In short, this is an absolutely fantastic resource for a beginner who wants to learn to read and write in Russian. It is well worth the price. Get it, and you will not be disappointed. Udachi Vam!

Alles in allem ist das Buch sehr gut, da es Wortschatz und Grammatik in sinnvolle Blöcke unterteilt und von Kapitel zu Kapitel auf diesen Kenntnissen aufbaut. In jedem Kapitel befindet sich dabei eine Vokabelliste, eine Liste mit Sätzen als Anwendungsbeispiele dieser Vokabeln, sowie ein Block Grammatik. Am Ende jedes Kapitels sind Übungsaufgaben zu finden, die die Lerninhalte des Kapitels abfragen und mit dem am Ende des Buchs zu findenden Schlüssel selbst korrigiert werden können. Es sei anzumerken, dass jedoch mehr als nur diese Übungen angebracht sind um den Stoff auch auf Dauer zu behalten - hierzu sind weitere Lernangebote zu empfehlen. In manchen Bereichen merkt man dem Buch sein Alter an, so findet man ab und an nicht mehr ganz aktuelle Wörter oder auch Sätze in den Beispielen/Übungen zu denen meine russische Freundin etwas verdutzt meinte 'Das klingt aber komisch, das würde eher ein alter Mann sagen'. Das ist jedoch nicht überzubewerten - es muss erwähnt werden, erreicht jedoch kein Ausmaß in dem es der Qualität des Buchs für das Selbststudium einen Abbruch tut. Alles in allem ein sehr gutes Buch.

One of the best smelling books I have ! And it teaches you good Russian too.

I've tried a few Russian Courses (including the BBC Talk Russian), but they didn't seem quite right. These courses were more aimed at learning to speak some basic Russian (holiday) phrases, rather than a good understanding of the language itself. In learning this way, though, I think you actually make it harder for yourself (even to learn the holiday basics). If you're thinking of choosing between the BBC course and this one, I'd suggest this. The BBC course gives you a very basic understanding of the Russian alphabet (one page!) and then focuses on teaching holiday phrases. This may seem ideal (if you're just going to St Petersburg for a week), but it isn't very easy this way. To learn the alphabet simply from a list of letters and then expecting you to read words through listening to them isn't the best way. In this (Penguin) course, there is a very good opening chapter (see the "Look Inside") that teaches you the alphabet properly. This is critical! (And it doesn't take long to learn). You need to understand how to pronounce the letters, and understand them in context, before you can move on to learning phrases. True, you do get to "hear" the words in BBC Talk Russian, but learning how they sound is no substitute for being able to remember Russian words accurately from their spelling. Whereas there is light emphasis in the BBC book on both learning through spelling and listening, there is strong emphasis here on learning through spelling. The good thing is that Russian (unlike English -- think: "thorough") is a very literal language, and most words sound exactly like they are spelled. You don't really need to learn them by ear (it helps to fine-tune your understanding, but you're far better (given how quickly this book teaches it) learning how to read Russian properly first). It's like learning to read a map and navigate: would you prefer to be presented with a key to the map and road systems and then simply learn the routes you needed, or would you be better being talked through the symbols and roads in logical sections and given a good grounding in the basics to navigate any route? This is a fairly comprehensive course, that aims to take you to "A-Level" standard. It's something you can constantly pick away at, but if you're simply looking to learn some holiday Russian, you would still be better (in my eyes) using this book to get a good basic understanding of the alphabet and grammar -- and then learning a few lists of holiday phrases (or then using BBC Talk Russian) after. The way the book is laid out is perfect, and has clearly been written by somebody who knows how to teach languages. For example: as you are learning the alphabet, you are also given lists of useful words to spell (in Russian), so not only are you learning the alphabet, but you are growing a vocabulary as you go). The book is perfectly structured, and moves from the alphabet to handwriting to learning phrases to grammar in a logical and easy to digest way. Throughout, you are also given useful titbits that help you to see the language in action. If you put in the work, then this book will reward you well. It is ideal for beginners; if you just want to learn holiday Russian, then use this book to understand the basics for a couple of weeks and then move onto holiday phrases. You will learn how to form basic sentences (rather than just learning phrases). You will develop a ground-level understanding of the language, whereas if you put your efforts into the BBC book, you will simply learn a list of automated phrases. The bottom line is that Russian isn't the simplest language to get by in, but if you put the time in this book will make it easy to learn. Use this book daily (and revise constantly), and you will soon be confident in basic Russian. It will also take you far further if you work through the whole book, to the point where you can comfortably type, write and speak Russian to conversational level. One last thing: there is an excellent site for practising the Russian alphabet (and other aspects of Russian), and if you search "practice russian" you should find it. Best of luck, and I hope this review was helpful if you're wondering where to start.