Customer Reviews

Guide to Russian Idioms

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There's lots of material in this book, but it has several major shortcomings that make it less than useful for an intermediate student of the Russian language.

A. The idiom in Russian is printed without accent marks, so unfamiliar words must be looked up in a dictionary just to find out where the emphasis should be.
B. There is no literal translation into English. They only provide the closest equivalent English idiom. So, again, unfamiliar Russian words must be looked up in a dictionary, just to get an idea of the colorful language. For example, they translate one idiom as "to give someone a pain in the neck." But you need to pull out your dictionary to learn that the literal translation is the delightful "to pester worse than a bitter radish."
C. Some of the English equivalent idioms are so obscure that they are no help in understanding what the idiom is supposed to mean.

A very advanced student of Russian might not be hampered by these issues. But for everyone else, I'd recommend A book of Russian idioms illustrated =: Russkie frazeologizmy v kartinakh instead of this book. Or just get a good dictionary that includes idiomatic uses of words, such as the excellent Katzner dictionary ( English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary).