Customer Reviews

Russian: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been studying in Russia (as a total beginner) and this is the only book I took with me. I'll grant you, it does throw you in the deep end a bit, but I find it follows a very logical order and matches what we're learning in class. I do each chapter twice, I muddle through once on my own, and find I'm much better prepared in class. Then, once I've covered it in more detail, I go back over the chapter again. If you are trying to teach yourself, I would recommend getting a companion book that is a little easier, or shows more pictures like another review recommended, but it really is necessary to learn the grammar, despite it being drudgery, and this book will really help you do it.

I was looking for a textbook to teach Russian to a student of mine (I am a private teacher) without breaking the bank by buying a more expensive textbook. This was just about the only book available on-hand in bookstores that actually had exercises in it.

I was impressed at first with this book since the spelling rules and hard and soft vowels, etc. are discussed at the very beginning of the book. However, that first impression quickly wore off after using it to teach Russian to my student, who had a familiarity with the alphabet, but nothing beyond that.

My student and I have found that although the discussions of spelling and grammar or word usage were interesting and helpful... we have found a lot of problems: No cursive alphabet; no drawings of clocks, relatives, animals, food, "cheat charts of declensions", etc; not all of the words used in exercises are defined in the book; there are incorrectly spelled words; words are given for the first time in a case other than the nominative case, etc.

I have been bringing my dictionary and verb conjugation book along with me to the classes I teach since a lot of words aren't defined in this book and there are very few verb conjugation examples in this book.

After using this book for three months with my student, we are now looking for a "college textbook" since this one does not meet our needs.

Very good book, useful in teaching a class also in addition to being well arranged for self teaching.

I hated this book. It's hard to read, and you have to back to previous pages to make your own translations of phrases they give you to "fill in the blanks" to complete sentances.

I picked this one because it was less expensive. I already had the actual book of Idiot's Guide to Learning Russian, so I figured I'd give something else a chance. I would have been better off getting the same book I had for my iPad, so that I could study it when I was on the go with less weight to carry around.

If you're shopping for a beginners lesson book, get the Idiots Guide to Learning Russian.