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

This book is great.

Very great.

It has what you need to know to get off of the ground. It goes through noun cases, adjectives, verbs, handwriting, participles, diminutives, superlatives... It has...what you need.

It is small, compact. But friendly. If you get this book, you should start at the start, go through every chapter in order, and do all of the 'EXTRA' sections (sections where the author says it is not necessary to learn to be able to be understood). The only thing I don't think is really necessary is the handwriting part. But I encourage at least reading the chapter.

If you learn Russian, you should be very strict on yourself. You almost have to be. Do every lesson, every example in the book, everything. After you are done with this, you should pick up "Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar". That book is like a workbook. But also teaches you grammar. It has plenty of exercises to keep you up to par.

As everyone else has said, do not buy this book expecting to be very good at Russian. You need (1) a dictionary, (2) a verb book, and (3) some kind of audio, like Pimsleur. (See my reviews on (1) and (2) for some information on books I have used.)

You NEED audio. Though this book explains pronunciation - you probably won't get it unless you actually hear it. I recommend Pimsleur's audio courses. I am currently using those, one lesson a day. You learn pronunciation, some more vocabulary and sentence structure, and some speaking and listening skills.

My only complaint is the quality of the construction of the book. I had it for a week or less, and the spine was already giving away. Granted, I did bring it with me to school and such - but I did take care of it. If you buy it, I recommend getting some of that clear packing tape, and covering the spine as well as each edge of the front and back. That works really well for me. But also be careful to not rip the pages.

Conclusion: Buy one. Maybe two. They are inexpensive. Any and every Russian student should have one.

I'm using this text to teach a first semester Russian course. I chose it in preference to a much more expensive standard text. My library includes at least a dozen Russian books meant for the beginner, and I think this one is the best. The vocabulary is useful (with a few exceptions - the complications of the Russian word for "Welshman" aren't even of remote importance to me), the order of presentation makes very good sense, and we don't dwell on minor points of grammar until the larger points are dispatched.

The book has some deficiencies as a primary textbook, e.g., not a very wide variety of exercises, a lack of charts to summarize cases for nouns, adjectives, possessive pronouns, etc., but I've managed easily (and cheaply) to compensate for those with handouts. My students find it to be a generally friendly, understandable text. It doesn't make Russian easy (nothing can do that), but it does make it seem learnable. The author displays a wry sense of humor ("The grammar or Russian numerals has other intriguing complications." At that point one of my students nearly wept) to go with his command of the subject matter.

I don't care for the author's pronunciation guidance - his English accent is obviously far from our Louisiana-Texas drawl. I think an American student would be well advised to buy some tapes for beginners and not rely on this book to learn correct pronunciation. But that's a minor point. If I were trying to teach myself Russian (which thankfully I did not), this would be the book I'd choose. It gives a lot of bang for the buck.

I bought a much more expensive textbook for my Russian I course in college. The New Penguin Russian Course cost a fraction of what I paid for my textbook and it was a lot better. There is a lot of vocabulary and pronounciation help. There could be more exercises, but considering the compact package the book is in, I think that it's way above average. I'm really happy with my purchase.

Hands down, this is the best course out there. Could easily be used as a do-it-yourself, or in a classroom. I bought this book to help me re-learn after a few years with no practice, and throughout the book there are explanations that really get to the conceptual heart of issues I had struggled with back in the 90s. I can't emphasize this enough: The best thing about this book is how it gives you a ground-up understanding of grammar and usage patterns. The most complex of rules are presented as you need them, right alongside other "easier to tackle" issues so that it all seems to unfold naturally. Prof. Brown is a genius for how he works all of this in with a practical guide to pronunciation. The exercises are all worth doing, though I'd suggest also picking up Schaum's Outline to Grammar for even more well designed practice. The two complement each other very well. For the amount of money they want for this book, or even at two or three times that cost, this has to be the best Learn-Russian text available. Don't miss it!

First let me say, don't ever buy into those books that are like "Learn to Speak Russian Fluently in 4 Days". It will never happen. If you are truly serious about learning Russian, its going to take time. I really recommend this book if you are super serious about studying the Russian language. It breaks down the grammar and alphabet for you so it is really easy to understand. However, I will say don't let this be your only source for learning Russian. Be sure to buy other books as well and cross-reference, because some books explain things better than others. Overall, I recommen getting this book for an easy-to-understand layout of the Russian language!