Golosa: A Basic Course in Russian, Book 1 (4th Edition) (Bk. 1)

In terms of self study, this book *is* totally worthless... However, in a classroom environment with a good teacher, it becomes a lot more effective. I don't recommend this set for people who prefer studying on their own.

The website is more useful than the books.

This book is horrible. There is almost NO English in it. I'm not sure how you're supposed to learn a language if the book doesn't tell you what it means in English. I literally mean there is NO English translation for what you are learning. There are only English descriptions of grammatics. Its unlike any other language book I've ever used. DO NOT BUY THIS! It also relies heavily on the CD. (which I did not receive with the book.) It would be impossible to just learn from the book. Don't waste your money.

I have used this book in a two semester series in Russian language. Overall, the book is very good. I find that the grammar could be explained in more detail - this book would be difficult to use for self-study, and is not a very good reference. Plan on using the accompanying workbook as well - there are far too few exercises in the book.

The Golosa book series is worthless to anyone who wants to self-study because it gives no answers to the exercises. It is poorly organised and layed out complete with stupid drawings and useless exercises that can only be performed in a classroom setting. That is, if one can understand the poorly worded questions presented. And for $180 flamin' bucks for the two books I'd say that it is a complete rip-off especially when students are the least likely to be able to afford to throw their money away on this type of scholastic inflation. Their web-site is helpful however and I use it regularly. Get the New Penguin Russian Course it is way cheaper and way better. If your school requires this book Golosa as many do then I pity you.

After two semesters of using this book it is my opinion that it is only useful for students who already speak the language but need grammar reinforcement. Even though there are many exercises in the manual and a workbook to accompany the material, there are no answers in either the manual or the workbook to verify that you have done the exercises correctly. In many cases, when I developed answers from examples in the dialogs in the book and tried to verify them with Russian friends, the typical response was "well, technically, its correct ... but we don't talk that way".
The book also seems to have no organized structure. It is very possible that it is organized to suit the needs of the professors who wrote it to fit the curriculum at George Washington University ... but I don't attend GW and it seemed like the information was just thrown at me and left to me to sort it out.
While the vocabulary presented in the book seems to be well suited to the material covered, five months of school lasted about 5 minutes in conversations with native Russians on a recent visit to St. Petersburg. There are a large number of words that just are not used in everyday conversations.
I suggest that if you know that you are going to be using this book because it is a college requirement, you should try to prepare yourself by taking a conversational Russian course prior to using the book.