Russian Learner's Dictionary: 10,000 Russian Words in Order of Frequency

I am less enthusiastic about this book than the precedent reviewer. I hoped to receive a book with a vocabulary, which is not in alphabetical order (because it is difficult to learn from alphabetical lists). Unfortunately, a large part in this book is just in such an order. Together with the high price and the bad condition the book arrived (it looked like a second-hand book, for the price of 150 USD), I was disappointed and a little faché.

I am a VERY serious student of Russian... and therefore, I acquired this book by Sir Nicholas J. Brown. This list of 10K words will literally SAVE the student a lot of time by concentrating only on the most commonly used words. The book is sold as is, but I have actually had my Russian friends read the words and the examples aloud while I record their native pronunciation onto digital audio files. They say the word's number in Russian, eg. 1975, then they pronounce the word twice (Russian only), then they read the given example (without translating). This will work well for most, there is no need to record the English translation. The number of the word tells you where to find that. I hope that the next edition will be sold with a CD or MP3 files to accompany the product. Udachi!

The reasoning behind the design and the need of a Frequency of Use Dictionary, that is, a dictionary which prioritises words most present in our daily conversation and use, is not an easy one to follow, whatever be the target language. By the fierce argumentation the author does in favor of the use of a Russian/English frequency dictionary - even asking for a kind of primacy in this regard - it could be imagined that we are in the threshold of something brand new and that what it is at stake is equivalent to the Inauguration of a New Age in the very important field of Lexicography, the Art of Designing and Making dictionaries, which would put the effort of Mr.Nicholas in the same level as the effort taken by world famous lexicographers as Mr.James Murray (Oxford English Dictionary), Mr.Noah (Webster), Monsieur Larousse and a few others diligent and oustanding men and women of letters. Mr.Nicholas argumentative stamina notwithstanding, and despite his undoubtfull proficiency in this very difficult subject matter, his views are not at all convincing and not at all free from the burden of proof of its real useability, and in the end what the reader has in his/her hands is a very weirdly listed dictionary or lexicon, absolutely no more useful than the traditional ones already available in the market, and most probably of less efficiency than the author thinks it has and the reader expects it to be. What is worse, it increases and stresses the need for a traditional type of lexicon.

In my opinion, the balance between pros and cons for such a type of lexicon is heavily tipped in favor of the Cons instead of the Pros:

Cons:
1- there is not enough explanation of the meaning of the Russian words listed, thus not eliminating the need or utility of a traditional lexicon. This kind of over simplification does not do any good to any one keen on learning a new language, and should not be the apanage of any dictionary. Why not more meaningfull explanations in each entry? Simplification is not a concept that should be introduced in the field of Lexicography which grows trough diversification.
2- absence of the difficult Russian cyrilic alphabet listed in its alphabetical order with corresponding sounds of vowels and consonants in English; every traditional dictionary has one for just one reason: it works and it helps the reader's life a lot. It would be a plus also here!. A good historiography of the Cyrilic would also be a handy tool, specially for the readers acquainted with its parent but narrower modern Greek alphabet. A short history of the Russian language and its Slavic and Indo-European origins would also be a bonus.
3- absence of a Russian Grammar (even a unsophisticated one would do a lot of good!!) with a due explanation of the system of declensions, present too in a synthetic language like Russian.
4- absence of list of conjugations of verbs (paradigms) in Russian, present in every good traditional lexicon.
5- lack of the important sinergy between each and every development in language and also between difficult or literary words and common ones, which means that the words beyond the 10.000 threshold do not leverage the knowledgeability of words within that limit, and vice-versa. We know by the history of the development of the languages that they evolve trough intimate contact, both external and internal. The formation of the English language is a major example of this, both from the point of view of borrowing and lending to and from Latin, French, German, Nordic languages, etc. Russian would be no exception, given the historic interchange between the slavs of early time and the Romans and, more recently, with French and German.
6- in such a dynamic world of today things change very fast, and the first 10.000 words with more frequency of use of the last 50 years will certainly not be the same in, say, 5 years. Add the communist bias present in many of the texts of the last 45 years and it will compound the problem.
7- Why 10.000 words? 3.000 would be enough. 3.000 words is the amount of words of a reasonably argumentative person. The statistics for the use of each additional 1.000 words in the frequency vocabulary, shows that the percentage points of significance fall abruptly from one bracket to another. In fact, the rationale behind such type of dictionary, if there is one, prevails more for less than for more words.
8- The final product is a bit cumbersome, phisically much bigger and difficult to handle than a traditional Lexicon. A 10.000 word traditional dictionary would weight much less with much more content and useability.
9 - Also a good add-on would be a walk trough the influence some Russian words had on our occidental culture recently, "perestroika" and "glasnot" being the most conspicuos examples. Words of more ancient penetration in our western vocabulary would be also helpfull; tovaritch (companion), mir (peace) and "bistrô" (quick) would be good to be shown.

Pros:
1 - sinergy (by proximity) between the words of more common use (see item 5 above)
2 - good examples of phrases where the use of the first 800 words is given (a good example to be followed by any dictionarist)

To sum it up, the benefits of use of a dictionary such as this is only to be completely absorved by the very serious English or American student of Russian. To the non professional readers (like myself) it serves only as a very subsidiary tool among more important ones, being the traditional dictionary still a "primus inter pares" to whom I rush whenever there is the need of researching a word.

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I recommend this book be used with the Russian vocabulary cards by Vis-ed. Since words are listed in order of frequency of usage, you can look up the first 100, dig out those words from the set of flash cards, then move on to the next 100, etc. After the first 1000 words, you'll need to write your own cards, but Vis-ed sells blank ones too.

A useful tool, but not the screaming bargain that the author's Russian course is, this is more for the serious student.

Having begun studying Russian earlier this year, I was very pleased to stumble upon this book. Many people study languages and in the process learn many words they may not actually need. This book literally lists the most frequently used words in order of occurance in normal conversation and writing. It is perhaps wise to note that language is a dynamic beastie and words may shuffle in frequency of use, even inviting new words into the process. But you have to start somewhere. As stated in the beginning section of this book, it is a work built upon past efforts to document usage patterns, expanded to include more than simply what you would need to pass a scholastic requirement. But remember, this is a list, not a text book. There are examples of usage offered (for the first 600 words) as well as tenses, but no detailed explanations of application. Any serious student of language will find such a reference most valuable.