The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners (Penguin Handbooks)

very helpful to learn how to:
- pronounce the words
- read and write
- use grammar
- and for the vocabulary

I chose to use this book as the textbook for my Russian class because it was cheaper than Golosa or Nachalo. That was a mistake. The book includes all the grammatical information that you need to speak Russian, but a beginning Russian student needs more than just grammar. I don't know the author of this book, but I'm guessing that he doesn't place much importance on teaching. It seems he still adheres to the grammar-translation approach to teaching Russian. The organization of the book is confusing, neither thematic nor grammatical. The exercises are brief, and could have easily been lifted from a Russian textbook that was printed in the 50's or 60's. Frankly, I don't know why this book has gotten such rave reviews, unless it's being compared to not having any book at all. It's a lot cheaper than a real textbook, but there's a reason why it's cheaper. If you want a cheap way to learn Russian, check out the Berlitz Self-Teacher from the library.

This is a great book to learn russian from the ground up. Every lesson is comprehensive in its theme and there are exercises at the end of each chapter and solutions in the back. There are also consolidated grammar tables in the appendix for quick lookup and a 1500 word vocabulary. I bought 6 russian language course books on Amazon and this one is by far the best.

This book is EXCELLENT in my opinion. When I don't fully grasp grammar points from my russian textbook, I refer to this. It would be nice if it came as a cd course though.

I have studied on my own at various levels of seriousness 6 languages in my life, (some to the extent of becoming fully fluent, some becoming basically conversational, and some starting and giving up out of disinterest or dislike for the language in general) and amid the many books I've used for all the languages, I found this book to be the best book for any independent foreign language learner (i.e. not in a university or other language class). Not just for Russian - which this book happens to cover - but any book. The reasons, below:

- reasonbly compact chapters with specific points to be learned in a logical order
- starts with basic grammar, and expands very methodically upon the fundamentals, gradually progressing to A-level Russian
- no "travel talk" - all texts and exercises are normal, everyday (and progressively harder and "bookish") rather than "hotel/airport/taxi" topics
- very clear explanations of all grammar, at basic as well as obscure levels (and the author tells which points are not so crucial and may be skipped if one wishes to do so - he even does this for an entire chapter on the vagaries of Russian numbers, counting and mathematics)
- compact in size - can be taken anywhere, and densely packed with vocabulary and grammar - this is no amateur book
- grammar terms are explained very well, and examples given very clearly
- good texture of pages and very readable print; no clutter; fonts used are very soft on the eyes and bold (mainly Russian words) are well-highlighted against the slightly tan-tinged, off-white pages - not overly-contrasty as with pure-white linen-colored pages
- texts vary from being short and to the point, to longer and more literary, providing variety and a chance to move at a good pace
- again, a very logical progression from basic nouns, verbs, then cases, endings, etc. through tenses, "bookish" style, etc. to cover nearly all the points one might encounter in Russian grammar
- an unbelievable price for all this - $20 retail, $12 or so on Amazon - worth many times that in terms of content

The downsides?

- no audio tapes - as others have noted, there is no way to know the correct pronunciation unless you supplement it with another series (Teach Yourself, Routledge, etc.) which have dialogues recorded and transcribed
- there are plenty of exercises for each grammar point but most are pretty brief; need to supplement with Teach Yourself's "Russian Grammar" or Terence Wade's grammar workbook
- later chapters have rather long vocabulary lists - probably difficult to master all of the vocabulary at once for one chapter, unless one works on a chapter a week or so; takes time to master this moreso than the grammar itself
- not much use of the often difficult-to-read italic Russian font (found in some other college-related texts) or handwriting (again, not much to say on this but one or two examples would be a nice addition, perhaps the text of a handwritten letter as one chapter addition)
- I always think the cover photo is so odd - hardly a good shot of St. Basil's on Red Square, taken wide-angle and appearing far off, with the inexplicable marching soldiers and an old Coke billboard (long gone now, I hear) in the forefront - the attempt to juxtapose the various elements of modern and old Russia are negated by the poor photo angle and distracting elements (lamppost, old-ish cars, large boring sidewalk dominating the foreground, etc.) - I know this is hardly a reason to complain about the book, but this mundane shot doesn't get one excited about a Russia visit each time one picks up the book to study; perhaps a snow-covered Orthodox church in the countryside or a nightscape of St. Petersburg, as cliched as those scenes are, would be more attractive and sell the book (also - can't translate what's on that billboard, even after studying the book! Something about "Coca Cola - always better with... [something]..." - can anyone help??)

Otherwise, the best language textbook that I have ever used. Highly recommended above all others.