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

The only people who should get this book are people who are forced to because their school uses it. It is poorly planned and hard to find topics that you want to review. The worst part about this book is that it has no answers to the exercises in it making it usless for anyone wanting to advance at their own pace or for self studiers or even know if they are on the right track! A waste of money. Get New Penguin Russian Course instead for a fraction of the price it is way better than any of the books that the universities are using.

I highly reccomend this book for anyone looking to learn Russian. It's easy to understand, and very elementary in its methods. I feel that you should take a class while reading this book, because there are a few words that Golosa will slip in that they don't specifically introduce. Good luck learning a new language!

I used this textbook in an intensive Russian class I took in college. It follows the standard textbook format: Each chapter introduces a grammatical concept and new vocabulary. There are a few short dialogues and several exercises to reinforce the grammar and vocabulary. There are also exercises at the beginning to practice cursive in the cyrillic alphabet. At the end of the book there was a grammar reference so it was easy to review and brush up on previous lessons. It was a perfectly good textbook to use as part of a class.

In this case I also used the workbook and tape set. The workbook has additional exercises for each chapter in the book. It helped, but isn't necessary since things are covered in enough detail in the book. The tapes were helpful for picking up on how to pronounce. Russian pronunciation is very tricky. Basically they contain spoken versions of the dialogues in the text and a few simple exercises. I would just try to repeat after them to pick up on how to pronounce. The tapes are only useful as a supplement to a class, and not to teach you Russian on your own.

This and Golosa Book 2 is a good textbook set to use as part of a class. I used it in college but it would also work for highschool. It did a pretty good job of explaining things and covered the concepts adequately. Teachers will want to know that there is a third edition out now.

If you are trying to learn Russian on your own: Don't try to use this as a tape and book set. It isn't designed for this and unless you have superhuman amounts of natural aptitude for Russian it isn't going to work. Instead find a good tape and book set specifically designed for studying on your own. If used copies of the Golosa books are on sale dirt cheap then consider buying them for the exercises and to use as a grammar reference, but don't expect to learn Russian from them alone.

I recently finished an accelerated Russian "101" course. We went through the whole book this past semester. Wow! I speak French and Spanish, so I understand more than the average student. I had never studied Russian before. By the end of the course, my Russian was good. This book/course work, in conjunction with constant conversation practice, allowed me to develop an impressive level of Russian. I surprised several Russian exchange students with my abilities. Not knowing all of the rammifications of the language, please consider that my review is from a STUDENT'S standpoint. I am not a linguistic scholar. Book 1 covers all of the cases, while enforcing basic vocabulary and common expressions. Book 2 I will see next semester! I am aware of two other modern Russian college texts: "Nachalo" and "Troika." I hope that my review has helped!

Golasa RULES!!! I wouldn't want to learn russian any other way.