The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners

This is the revised edition of an earlier Penguin Russian coursebook available many years ago. I haven't seen that text, but this book is the best self study stand alone text for any language that I have seen. I wish Penguin had the same type of book for German.The book progresses in a very sensible way, all of the things you learn are in an order that builds a very solid foundation before moving on to the next lesson. At times you will run into areas where the author offers "extras" that he says can be skipped. My advice is don't. In the first few chapters the "extras" are pages explaining the correct way to pronounce words. He claims that you'll be understood if you pronounce the words phonetically as they're written, but why not take the little extra time and get it right? There's also great information on Russian handwriting, some cultural info (very brief), but the book is all business.One thing that it lacks is a way to hear native speakers, of course. While it goes a long way trying to explain how Russian is spoken, you won't be able to avoid tapes or some other method of actually hearing the language properly spoken. One inexpensive way would be Barron's Pronounce it Perfectly in Russian. The best way would be to purchase the Pimsleur lessons, but they're prohibitively expensive for most people. This book is a great foundation for learning Russian. It's a bargain. I also recommend another book by the author, the "Russian Learners' Dictionary", especially along with the Vis-ed Russian flashcards.

It's easy to see from the reviews for this book that there are more than one type of language learner. If you want Russian spoon-fed to you, forget it and learn Italian, French, etc. Russian only becomes usable when you have all of the inflected endings organized and stored in your head. And the only way to accomplish that is by studying with some degree of passion. I used this book along with the 3 pimsleur sets on russian and now have a very strong foundation to proceed into advanced studies. This book has a good mix of grammar and texts to translate. I never felt overwhelmed. That said, I progressed on a two-steps-forward and one-step-back basis. You will too if you want to learn Russian, so don't sweat it. It's normal. I was relieved when I got to chapter 10 or so and the book said something about "you have now met X number of words and have probably forgot most of them. That's ok. Just learn them again and it will get easier."My one regret with the book: I wish there was a workbook for more exercises. The exercises in the book are good, but I had to make up my own to really become accomplished at slinging those endings the way I wanted.Stay away from this book if you are looking for nice phrases for travelers. This book will teach you only if you put the right kind of effort into your studies.I have dozens of books on Russian and this is the one that taught me what I needed to know.

I've compared dozens of books about learning Russian from scratch, and this one is the best. There are advanced grammar texts out there which have more information, but they aren't geared toward beginners. The beauty of this book is that if you know absolutely nothing about Russian, you can start at the beginning and work your way through each lesson in the order presented, and by the time you're done, you will have a solid understanding of Russian grammar. Not only that, but you'll have a vocabulary of some of the most useful words in the Russian language.When I first started studying Russian, I had no teachers or classes or cassette tapes to help me. My eighth grade math teacher gave me a copy of the original version of The Penguin Russian Course, which was compiled by J.L.I. Fennell and published in 1961. The methodology was logical and straightforward with no spoonfeeding or watered-down grammar lessons accompanied by cutsy cartoon pictures. In each lesson, you would first memorize a list of new vocabulary words. Then you would study several concise grammar principles which were clearly explained. Third, you would examine a brief Russian text which incorporated the new vocabulary and applied the new grammar principles which you had just learned in the lesson. Finally, you would translate an English text into Russian to test yourself on the new vocabulary and grammar. At the end of the book was a key which showed the correct translation of the English text into Russian, so you could check yourself.This new version of the Penguin Russian Course is not as concise and straightforward as the first version, but it's actually better. Nicholas J. Brown has incorporated the original structure of J.L.I. Fennell's version enough that the effectiveness of the lessons is preserved, but Mr. Brown has added much more in this modern version. He has provided numerous additional Russian texts and conversations so that you can see how the vocabulary is used in context. And in this new version, the answer keys at the back of the book show the Russian-English translation as well as the English-Russian translation of the exercises.The best part of this book is the translation exercises at the end of each lesson and their corresponding answer keys at the back of the book. Translation is probably the best way to test whether or not you really understand the grammar and vocabulary taught in the lessons, and this book gives you plenty of opportunities to test yourself in this manner.Another advantage of this book is that it's small enough to carry anywhere, unlike those bulky Russian 101 textbooks used in college classes which use a slow, watered-down, almost infantile approach to teaching the language.If you want to learn Russian, buy this book and work through the lessons. The only major drawback is that you'll never really learn proper pronunciation without listening to native Russians speak the language, and this book doesn't have tapes to accompany

I've bought Golosa (including the tapes), New Penguin Russian Course, Living Language CD, Passport to Russian, and a couple of others. This book is the best. We moved to Russia 4 months ago, and this book was really helpful in getting us going on vocabulary, cases, tenses, etc. It is also the only book I've found with exercises. I'm now having our Russian tutor use this book in teaching me, as it seems better than having her create her own course from scratch.Do wish it came with a CD or tape, for helping with sounds.