# Forum Learning Russian Language Resources for Studying Russian Book Reviews  Beginner Books?

## volavimus66

What is the absolute best book for beginners? Does it come with audio? And how much is it?

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## povlhp

Is supposedly the Penguin New russian course, no audio. 
Primsleur is audio approach only, and works for some. Not too well for me. 
There is also russian courseware available from Princeton university, including audio.

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## volavimus66

Thank you povlhp!

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## Duck_Waters

http://www.princeton.edu/russian/SLA101/ 
Here's the link to a (the?) Princeton course. 
I hated the grammar explanations. The only thing I use this for is the different vocab and the audio. 
~dUcK!

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## Nova

this "Penguin" something course...what does it consist of?  I have heard great reviews of it, and am thinking of purchasing it.  I have a beginner's book, but it doesn't show me anything about how words are stressed, and since it's different in all russian words, i need it marked as i read it to better pronounce it.  Thanks if you have any info.

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## Duck_Waters

Yeah everyone here seems to think it's a super great book. I for one can't find it anywhere. I wish one of the many local libraries had a copy so I wouldn't have to buy it. >_< Anyhow if you go on amazon and search for The New Penguin Russian Course you'll find it and they have sample pages...not many...but they give you the contents and the first couple pages of the alphabet chapter. It seems like a worthwhile book to me... 
~dUcK! 
--It's also really cheap o_o

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## RainDancer

I haven't heard of the book your talking about, but I am trying to learn with the "Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian".  Unfortuneatly it does not come with 
audio tapes & am in BIG need to hear how it is suppose to sound & if i'm anywhere near sounding right. HHEELLPP MEEEEEE  Please someone

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## Nova

hm...raindancer, i have the same ty book and mine does come with audio.  ?hm

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## Duck_Waters

Yeah, they sell them just as books AND as whole sets with CDs. It's kinda fishy haha. My first ty book was for Japanese and I was so distressed to see that it had cues for audio tapes I didn't have. o_o  
~dUcK!

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## Nova

speaking of books, eh there's a GREAT dictionary if you're really into studying...it gives a great pronunciation guide and info on tenses, verbs and adjectives...and it's 1085 pages of material.
Be warned, tho, it's expensive. But nonetheless, it's helped a lot! Can be found at Borders, B&N, etc...i got this one at a discount BooksAMillion store.   *English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary, Kenneth Katzner*.  The ISBN is 0-471-01707-8 if that helps any.
With almost every word, there's a sentence explaining how it is used in writing or speech, some idioms, etc... 
Highly recommended (by me).

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## Duck_Waters

yay  ::  
That's the dictionary I have! I also LOVE it!! ^_^  
That makes two ^_~ 
~dUcK!

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## Nova

yes, i love it...one thing, tho... i can't turn a page and ask the dictionary how to pronounce it!! lol, but if you know of anything online that you can hear and read at the same time, let me know..thnxamllion   ::  
~sUpernova!

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## Duck_Waters

Dictionaries generally have the stress accented. That makes it pretty easy to know how to pronounce it if you know the rules... 
~dUcK!

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## Nova

true, true..btw, do you happen to know if it would be a good idea for me to learn greek to help me learn russian? 
Η ελληνική γλώσσα (Αγαπώ BABELFISH!)
Греческий язык (я обожаю BABELFISH!) 
oh, how i would love a greek-russian-english dictionary!!! but it would confuse me terribly  ::   
spasibo!

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## Duck_Waters

I don't know much about Greek, but if you really want to be learning Russian, you should study Russian right? heh. Learning Greek to help you learn Russian would be something like learning Latin to help you learn French...ne? 
~dUcK!

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## Pravit

Learning Greek to help you learn Russian would be akin to learning Russian to help you learn English. They are both Indo-European languages, but are otherwise unrelated. 
As for the Penguin Russian Course, it is not that amazing of a book. You will still need to sit down, memorize grammar rules and vocabulary, and work through exercises, like with any other book. It offers grammar with vocabulary, dialogues, exercises, and reading selections. The TY books differ in their more tourist-oriented approach - they seem to be broken up into units that deal with getting around the airport, reserving a hotel room, and so on. Besides that, they seem not to be as comprehensive or give as good explanations as the PRC. I would also recommend Introductory Russian Grammar by Stilman & Harkins, you might be able to find it somewhere that sells old college textbooks. Another common one seen at stores is Russian for Beginners by Duff and Makaroff, which is rather boring and quick-paced, although in my opinion it's better than the TY books.  
Kenneth Katzner's dictionary is a great choice, but to add to your list, you may want to pick up Nicholas J. Brown's Learner's Dictionary, which has around 15,000 words arranged by frequency of use. I suppose it would be good if you like memorizing long lists of vocabulary(if not, then don't bother). If you use the computer a lot, I would recommend picking up Lingvo too - and unless you want to translate between German, French, Italian, and Spanish in addition to Russian and English, you can just stick to the standard Russian-English-Russian version that costs only around $30, I believe. 
The best way to go about things, of course, would be to get into a class or private tutor. I don't know how well the private tutors work, though, as some of them(from what I've heard, I've never had one) seem to move you along at an incredibly slow pace. Also, I'd imagine many of them don't actually have any teaching experience and are simply ordinary people looking to make some money on the side(how good of an English teacher would you be if you moved to Russia?). Of course, the same might be said of a class at your local university or community college, so try to learn something about the class first. One of the guys who took the Russian courses while we still had them said that after a semester the only thing taught to him was the alphabet(through the revolutionary method of holding up a sign with the letter on it and repeating the letter aloud).

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## Kvach_86

::  Hmmmm I too am looking for a Russian dictionary. This Ken Katzner dictionary looks good, however it is American/English based and not English/English therefore am a little standoffish about than as American is not true english.

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## Pravit

I assume you are concerned with the English portion of the dictionary because you are a Russian learning English. In that case, it would be a better idea to buy a Russian/English dictionary written for Russians. Although I might be wrong, the Kenneth Katzner dictionary is written for English-speakers trying to learn Russian. 
(Written) American English does not differ that much from British English anyway. And if you plan on using it with Americans or in the US, it's certainly "true" English.

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## Kvach_86

::    ::  
Yes I agree written American English is very similar with the odd spelling like Check/Cheque, Potato/Potatoe, Color/Colour (which doesn't often help with spell check on Microsoft Word.)  
Example: "Aluminium" Americans stress the 'LU' and the English stress the 'MIN'.  Why does every single English speaking country stress the 'MIN' part of this word except America?  
If Semi "i as in eye" is the proper way to pronounce the word then Why is Demi Moore's name pron "I as in Eve" 
My concerns being it an American made dictionary. What is the stress's in the Russian words like? Are they true?  
I could go on about it but I will leave it at that.

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## Pravit

Hold on, so you're an English-speaker trying to learn Russian? In that case, why do you care which English is in the dictionary? One of the dictionaries I use is the Oxford Russian Dictionary, which is filled with various "English" English words, yet it hasn't impeded my learning of Russian. Speaking as an American myself, I find it a little strange that you have concerns about the stress in Russian words because it's an American-made dictionary. What, did you think they'd publish a dictionary with incorrect stress as pronounced by Americans? Although I'm ashamed by other Americans sometimes, we're not such idiots that you can't trust our reference material. Should I begin nitpicking at the horrendous misuses of the English language I've found in your posts, written by a speaker of proper "English" English?

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## povlhp

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

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## Oddo

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.

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## atreides8080

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).

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## capecoddah

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.  ::

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## Superman

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....

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