Customer Reviews

Russian Learners' Dictionary: 10,000 Russian Words in Frequency Order

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've bought a lot of books in trying to increase my vocabulary in Russian. This one, however, has been the most practical. It seems like every time I learned one of the most frequently used words, I'd begin to hear it almost immediately (we were living in Russia at the time).

Before this, I'd picked up a lot of words (thousands) that I simply never used. Wish I'd had this book about a year earlier.

Whatever posessed Brown to embark on the mind-bending task of figuring out the 10,000 most frequently used Russian words is unclear, but I'm glad he did. This book is a great study aid, enabling one to prioritise word lists so that the most useful ones can be memorised first. Each entry comes with a small phrase to give the word context, and stress marks are given throughout.

The fun part is when you've absorbed, say, 10 words from the list and then listen to native Russian speakers. The new words pop up with surprising regularity and give a major boost to one's comprehension of what's being said.

It's an ideal accompaniment to any Russian course and could really help you pull ahead if you're studying in a classroom environment.

I recommend this book be used with the Russian vocabulary cards by Vis-ed. Since words are listed in order of frequency of usage, you can look up the first 100, dig out those words from the set of flash cards, then move on to the next 100, etc. After the first 1000 words, you'll need to write your own cards, but Vis-ed sells blank ones too.

A useful tool, but not the screaming bargain that the author's Russian course is, this is more for the serious student.

This books strength is in its ability to assist in the consolidation of useful Russian words. Rather than learning words that are unlikely to arise in everyday conversation or literature this book definitely assists in strengthening your grasp of the most commonly used words. As the author quite rightly states, although "(do)sveedanya" (goodbye) may be one of the first words in the language you may learn - in usage terms it is the 1273th most common in usage (sveedanya). You'd be better in general terms to learn "ryeshat" "to decide, solve" being number 1272 in frequency, even though this may not even be mentioned in a conventional Russian course - indeed in the authors excellent new Penguin Russian Course this word is not mentioned until Chapter 13!

My personal usage of this book is to highlight with a bright marker words that I have learnt. A quick glance at the book then immediately gives me feedback on my progress in vocabulary terms.

This alone is an excellent tool and encourages you to an even greater vocabulary. Where else can you get such instant feedback?

Nicholas Brown at the University of London has given us a dictionary of the 10,000 words he believes are the most common in Russian. The interesting twist is that the first part of the dictionary is sorted, as the subtitle says, "in frequency order". From the most common word meaning, "and" to the 10,000th most common meaning, "furious,raging, fervent", he outlines a method for expanding your Russian vocabulary. This book could prove to be a useful tool in deciding to memorize particular words.

A helpful alphabetical listing follows the frequency list.

I think this volume is best used by a second or third year student of colege Russian.

Having begun studying Russian earlier this year, I was very pleased to stumble upon this book. Many people study languages and in the process learn many words they may not actually need. This book literally lists the most frequently used words in order of occurance in normal conversation and writing. It is perhaps wise to note that language is a dynamic beastie and words may shuffle in frequency of use, even inviting new words into the process. But you have to start somewhere. As stated in the beginning section of this book, it is a work built upon past efforts to document usage patterns, expanded to include more than simply what you would need to pass a scholastic requirement. But remember, this is a list, not a text book. There are examples of usage offered (for the first 600 words) as well as tenses, but no detailed explanations of application. Any serious student of language will find such a reference most valuable.

I am a VERY serious student of Russian... and therefore, I acquired this book by Sir Nicholas J. Brown. This list of 10K words will literally SAVE the student a lot of time by concentrating only on the most commonly used words. The book is sold as is, but I have actually had my Russian friends read the words and the examples aloud while I record their native pronunciation onto digital audio files. They say the word's number in Russian, eg. 1975, then they pronounce the word twice (Russian only), then they read the given example (without translating). This will work well for most, there is no need to record the English translation. The number of the word tells you where to find that. I hope that the next edition will be sold with a CD or MP3 files to accompany the product. Udachi!

This is a great tool, and not a Russian course to learn the language - as some reviewers take this for, and it's designed for those looking to gain an insight into the most frequent words in the Russian language. I find it very valuable as a guide to see my progression, for starters, but as well for not wasting time learning words which you will not be finding in a lot of books. It was referred to me by professor Huliganov, or uncle Davie, and I use it in his Goldlist method of learning languages. I love this book.

Nicholas Brown at the University of London has given us a dictionary of the 10,000 words he believes are the most common in Russian. The interesting twist is that the first part of the dictionary is sorted, as the subtitle says, "in frequency order". From the most common word meaning, "and" to the 10,000th most common meaning, "furious,raging, fervent", he outlines a method for expanding your Russian vocabulary. This book could prove to be a useful tool in deciding to memorize particular words.

A helpful alphabetical listing follows the frequency list.

I think this volume is best used by a second or third year student of colege Russian.

This book is also available in paperback.

This book is both fascinating and a boon for any serious student of the language.

Some of the words in the earliest sections of the book will be surprising, and some of those that don't appear will also surprise you.

As a learning tool, I can say from personal experience and from the experience of friends, thoroughly learning the high frequency words and working your way through will increase your reading fluency in leaps and bounds.

As a fascinating linguistic study it will be of interest to any Russian learners who wonder how things such as communism, glasnost, perestroika etc have affected the language.

It isn't a book for beginners, it's a bit heavy for anyone just starting out (literally as well as metaphorically ;)) as well as not being especially cheap (though it's good value). This isn't a dictionary in the "I-want-to-know-the-word-for-bread-now" sense, and anyone expecting that would be disappointed. But for any student who wants a structure to vocab learning, or wants to improve reading fluency, etc, it is a godsend and well worth the money.