Thread: Beginner Books?

First of all, I think is on only US vice presidents that uses the word potatoe rather than potato. It has nothing to do with any toes.

I am just back from russia, and for around 380 rubles which is under $13, I just bought a hardbound 2004 edition of

New Comprehensive Russian-English Dictionary
By: D.I. Ermolovich & T.T. Krasavina
Russky Yazek Media
ISBN: 5-9576-0036-9

It stresses

In British English it is "aluMINium" but in American it is "aLUMinum" wiothout the second "i." In the original spelling there was no second "i," as in the American spelling but in British English it was added to fit into the pattern of helium, lithium, beryllium etc. etc. etc. Fancy the British changing to fit the pattern! I thought that was the American's job when it comes to English.

Somone posted This Link on another thread has a couple of short reviews of different books.

I like the penguin book best. (as with most other people).

The Penguin book seem to be the best, it's on my Xmas list this year. I got "RUSSIAN in 10 minutes a day"(Bilingual Books Inc) a few years back, basically a tourist's book, only book I could find on Cape, and was given "Learn Russian the fast and fun way"(Barron's Educational Series Inc) a couple years ago, another tourist book. Both were heartily panned in Amazon reviews. Both helped me learn Cyrillic and some rudimentary words. They help, but having Russians / Eastern Europeans around for the last 5 summers helped with pronunciation and 'real-world' phases and speech. They are alot cuter (the females, anyway) and more fun to learn with too.

I bought almost every beginner Russian book available to me at Books-a-million and Barnes & Noble over the past 5 years.

Probably the only book I have either not bought, or read for free, by 'browsing' it in-store, is that darn New Penguin book.

Here is what I recommend for the absolute beginner, Learn Russian: The Fast Fun way.

That book will help you with your cyrillic hand writing, in addition to being easy to complete. Most beginners think they will learn a language quickly but then soon discover its a large, challenging task. Then they make the mistake of deciding, but they will cut out learning everything they don't need to know, to make the task less daunting.

Only one problem, you cannot cut anything out, you need to know all of it.

So, while I have to say the book I just recommended isn't going to make anyone fluent....when you finish it, you can say you completed your first book, and you will know how to handwrite and recognize handwriting, in addition to block characters, this is a good foundation for further learning.

The important thing, I think is to build the foundation.

Now, I have a habit of either not doing the exercises in the book, or not finishing it in some way...at the same time there must be some way to distinguish a rank beginner from 'intermediate', so I say, its someone who has completed, and fully completed and understands an entire beginners book (their choice).

My claim to distinction then, comes from Berlitz 'Essential Russian'
I'm not sure I recommend it, not a lot special about it, but the approach of Essential Russian, is you learn the vocabulary, and then read the sentences, and this will then, make you familiar with grammar, not in a formal way, but over time you should recognize sentence patterns.

It has a just shy of 1,000 word vocabulary list in the back, and I do know all the words (plus many more picked up over the past 5 years).

Well, I'm ashamed to say, I cannot say that I have progressed such that I could compare my 5 years of study to a 5 year university student (such a person would nearly be fluent by now).

I can say that if you have a 2,000 word vocabulary, you still cannot pick up a newspaper and read it, you still cannot watch a movie and understand it... but I can pick up most any beginners book on Russian with its specialized simple phrases, and understand them quite handily.

I'm branching out now, to watching movies constantly, and if I sit and read the text of the subtitles, I pick up a lot....so now I'm doing similar to the Berlitz style, only on my own... memorizing the vocabulary for a movie first, then watching the movie, to improve my listening skills.

Children's cartoons are not, as many people think, a good idea for beginners. The constant rhyming is not going to help anyone learn to build real sentences...a movie with the usual inane chatter and banter between characters is simple enough for the learner.

Well, shoot I rambled on....