Customer Reviews

Golosa: A Basic Course in Russian, Book II (2nd Edition)

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I studied Russian in some capacity for almost 5 years now. As a russophile one runs into many text that offer little explanation to make this complex language more easily understood. This book is certainly not one of them! The Grammar review sections are perfect whether you are advancing your study by yourself, or you are reviewing for a test in a class. The vocablary sections are complete and well organized. This the second Golosa book focuses even more on authentic texts than the first volume. My only complaints include: the glossary--it is not a complete enough to serve as a useful tool; the cultural sections--on rare occasion are not complete enough to avoid broad generalizations; and the illustrations are childlike and not always clear. Nonetheless, this is a text that must be included in every Russian language student's reference library!

I have been studying Russian for several years now in college and the textbook that we used was "Live from Moscow" and "Live from Russia" but in those books, as any, there are some things that simply aren't explained well so I used this book and the next one as a supplementary learning device. It worked masterfully! It seems that the things not explained in this book well, the authors of "Live from Moscow/Russia" explain much better and vice versa. If you are using this book and having trouble I would certainly advise you to use the other books as well. They ARE more expensive (upwards to a hundred dollars brand new and with a workbook) but if you're serious about learning Russian then I definitely suggest it. Best of luck!