Customer Reviews

Intermediate Russian: The 12 Chairs

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This book was a great way to study Russian. It presented excerpts from the novel The Twelve Chairs and based grammar and reading comprehension exercises on them. And it was extremely well written!

This textbook, along with the CD and audio tapes is, like The Twelve Chairs itself, a classic of learning materials. It will reward the diligent student with a knowledge of the language and culture of Russian while entertaining him to a degree he has no right to expect.

Based on a classic Russian novel, the course is centered around simplified chapters adapted from the novel. Notes and a vocabulary on the facing page make the readings fairly easy I would say for anyone with knowledge of basic Russian.

But there is more! Each chapter from the book is then matched with a segment on the video CD, showing a clip from the Russian film based on the book. The clips are broken down into manageable chunks, and even more importantly have several features which make for a thorough learning experience. Beneath the video is a complete word for word transcription of the video. On the right hand side of the screen is a list of key words and terms. Click on any word or phrase and get all the information you need to know, grammar, definition, and sometimes a cultural note or two.

Back to the book. Grammar is explained on the pages following the text and notes at a level you would expect from a university course. Nothing dumbed down,
but still very clear and understandable. The emphasis seems to be on the verb system, distinguishing perfctive from imperfective.

There is also a set of short dialogues for each chapter, which use modern, contemporary people and settings, but still highlighting the same grammar and vocabulary found in the adapted text.

There are plenty of exercises as well. The problem for self learners is an answer key. Still, it would be a good idea to spend a good portion of time on the last set of exercise, translating from English to Russian. The answers can be found easily in the lesson itself, if in fact you studied the chapter thoroughly.

Topping it all off is short one page continuous story that goes throughout the book, chapter by chapter, of two fictional college students, taking the course at Yale (where the author teaches), and reacting to the story as they go along. This is entirely in Russian and I recommend you read through it.

There is a thorough grammar of the Russian verb in the back of the book which will be of interest only to extreme lovers of grammar. Otherwise, don't let it discourage you.

Also, there is a set of audio tapes that you can order from Cornell University which has recordings of all the adapted texts and dialogues, read I believe by the author himself. I ordered mine a while back, so check and see if they are available and if they have updated the format to digital instead of old fashioned cassettes.

All in all, I cannot possibly recommend this enough to anyone who has gone through a beginner's Russian course already. The story is hilarious and the book and othe rmaterials are so well done.

I just wanted to say that this book is the best way for american people to understand the russian sence of humor.And it also can help you to understand the russian national character, i would say character of whole Soviet Union at 1926th!I read that book more than 20(!) times,and i can not stop to admire it!This is a masterpiece of russian literature.I would recomend to all of the american people,who are interested in russian culture to read that book,because Russia is my native country,but now I live in the U.S.A.,so I'd love to share my culture with american people!