Customer Reviews

Golosa: A Basic Course in Russian, Book 1 (4th Edition) (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Golosa book series is worthless to anyone who wants to self-study because it gives no answers to the exercises. It is poorly organised and layed out complete with stupid drawings and useless exercises that can only be performed in a classroom setting. That is, if one can understand the poorly worded questions presented. And for $180 flamin' bucks for the two books I'd say that it is a complete rip-off especially when students are the least likely to be able to afford to throw their money away on this type of scholastic inflation. Their web-site is helpful however and I use it regularly. Get the New Penguin Russian Course it is way cheaper and way better. If your school requires this book Golosa as many do then I pity you.

This book is horrible, Russian is a very difficult language to learn and this book doesn't help one bit.
This book was used in my Russian class in college, and I'm sad I have to waste my money on it. The majority of my classmates where extremely lost and confused with this book, and this is in a classroom setting... I could only imagine the torture it would be trying to use this for self study.
The way the material is presented doesn't make any sense. The dialogues at the beginning of the chapters are monstrous and irrelevant. They don't even cover something as simple as "Kak vy pozhyvaete?" - "How are you?" , but you'll be able to say you have a white blouse!? If you can't greet people, why are they going to care what color blouse you have? The grammar tables are set up terribly, and are not helpful at all. There are so many rules and exceptions to the rules in Russian language that it really takes a good well-rounded book to explain them to students, and this is not it.

This book even lost me and I already knew some Russian going into the class this book was used in, and I absolutely did not learn any more than what I already knew.

There are better, and much cheaper books out there.

This book is not meant for self study, it is intended for college level instruction. This is the book I used when I took Russian in college. The publisher has a website with downloadable videos to aid the text. The lessons inside the book are great, but not intended for self study.

I was expecting the full set that was needed for my class, sadly only the hard cover came with no work book and no sound CD.

I have just started using the book and the student activities workbook and I think it is a pretty decent beginner book. Having said that, I do not recommend it for use outside the United States. The oral exercises are only available on line. This is great if you are in a place with free or cheap internet (like a university in the US) but not so great if you are in a former Soviet republic with expensive and slow internet access. I am not able to download from the website here either, so I am stuck paying to play the audio. I really wish I had known this in advance and would have purchased another book if I had known.

My Russian professor has used this book in my university-level courses and I'd say overall, very good. Great visuals, vocabulary lists and the chapters, for the most part, fairly comprehensive on their particular topics. However, without guidance, sometimes I'd get lost on the grammar portions. Attempting to read these sections on my own proved difficult and confusing. This is mostly due to a lack of examples or adequate explanations, that's where this makes a good coursebook as opposed to a learn-at-home text. There are reference sections in the back but I'd say unless you have access to assistance, this may not be the right book to begin with.

If you are looking to learn Russian on your own or with a tutor, this is the right book for you. It comes with a workbook. It is used at Boston University and probably Columbia University and others. You must get the cds that come with it, or you can download the whole set for free at [...] (I learnt of this from another reviewer on Amazon)!! The text + workbook + cds will help you speak well. I am not a native speaker and am using this program to learn. It is fantastic!!!!

not the best learning aid I've had for a foriegn language, that much is certain. But the shipping was good, and a reasonable price.