The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Russian, 2nd Edition (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

This book is okay, I mean it was a nice introduction to Russian but I had to buy many other books to further my studies. This book is NOT, I reapeat, IS NOT going to teach you all you need to even be conversational let alone fluent. The book has non sequiter chapters about things that really aren't quintessential to the beginning student of the Russian Languages. One good point fo the book is that it has an excellent chapter on expalining cases in Russian which is a difficult concept to the English speaker. I reccomend getting an outling on Russian grammar and a Russian vocabulary booster to go with this if you want this to be your main text on learning Russian.

Because this is labeled as an "Idiot's Guide" does not mean that you can sprint through the book. The focus is mainly on spoken Russian - how to communicate. It's a good overview of the language, teaches a broad range of vocabulary, gives a decent but not exhaustive explanation of grammar and pronounciation, and keeps it all interesting and fun. Each section stands on it's own, so you can skip around without getting totally lost.

I tried to read this book... and guess what? It's no good... from the very beginning where the russian alphabet is not on one page but five pages... so it means going back and forth all the time.... Does this man know how to teach? I think not. i am a teacher. This isn't teaching If it is ... then I guess I am not enough of an idiot....