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Russian reading and writing program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| jpazzz Groupie United States Joined 4844 days ago 54 posts - 76 votes  Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 8 28 March 2015 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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Hello Everybody, I have, increasingly, wanted to learn to read and write Russian reasonably well (in contrast to wanting to speak the language). I wonder if there's anyone else out there who may have had this same desire, tried various texts/courses and found one or another better than the others, and, hence, can recommend what seemed good. A quick examination of my own learning materials suggests that the old Teach Yourself Russian by Fourman (originally copyrighted in the 40s) might be good and also Linguaphone Russian. But are there any better materials for this particular purpose?
Cheers, John 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4965 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 2 of 8 30 March 2015 at 8:51pm | IP Logged |
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I suggest grammar-based textbooks, such as Modern Russian Grammar: a Practical Guide by Routledge.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3851 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 8 31 March 2015 at 4:40am | IP Logged |
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Hello Jpazzz,
First, I will say clearly that I have not progressed very far in my own study of Russian. I have come to accept that my not-so-successful attempts at learning this language are taking on the appearance of a sporadic, pleasant diversion rather than a serious effort. Nonetheless, I will suggest the following sources of material: CORTINA RUSSIAN I believe that you referenced this course in a recent post on the Cortina courses. While I have not studied Russian using the Cortina method, I have used their German course and, despite its age, I was impressed by the overall approach and the quality of the materials. LIVING LANGUAGE ULTIMATE RUSSIAN (Beginner-Intermediate & Advanced) I have used the Living Language Ultimate method for German, Spanish, Italian, and French and, in all cases, I found the materials to be of very high quality. The method is quite conventional in that it presents a series of situational dialogues, along with a list of ancillary vocabulary, and a fairly good, if succinct, presentation of the grammatical issues displayed in the dialogues. While the emphasis is on the spoken language, these courses are a good introduction to the basics and they could support a programme for which the ultimate goal is an ability to read and write the language (as would the Cortina Russian course). Although Living Language has ceased publication of this series, new and used copies can still be found on Amazon, AbeBooks, Alibris, EBay, etcetera. LIVING LANGUAGE RUSSIAN ALL THE WAY(Beginner-Intermediate & Advanced) These courses are exactly the same as the Ultimate courses. Random House merely changed the name and packaging in the late 1990's. The advantage of tracking down the All The Way versions is that their prices are often lower than the Ultimate versions. RUSSIAN READERS There are numerous graded readers available on the Internet. Here is AMAZON's current list: Russian Readers on Amazon. THEN AGAIN... You are likely already aware of the above materials. Still, my post just might encourage other members to jump in with their own suggestions. Qui sait? Edited by Speakeasy on 31 March 2015 at 4:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4089 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 4 of 8 31 March 2015 at 5:16am | IP Logged |
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New Penguin Russian Course by Nicholas J Brown would be my first suggestion. It is
very good, structured and quite a bit challenging. It also is cheap; the back of my copy has the prices: UK: £12,99; CAD20,00; USD19,00. There is also a book that I saw several times in the bookstores whose name I forgot. It was sometihng like "Russian for Beginners" or something like that, and was written in the 1960s for those who wanted a foundation for travel to the USSR. Despite the titles sounding easy, they are both thick in size and dense in content, especially in terms of explaining grammar and the written language (they have no audio). Edited by 1e4e6 on 31 March 2015 at 5:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4438 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 5 of 8 31 March 2015 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
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Doing written exercises is in itself a good way of learning how to write well, and the resources mentioned by others will certainly be useful. I don't know which level you are, and my recommendation below is only valid once you have passed the beginner stage and find yourself at an intermediate level.
For reading, my approach is to do as much intensive reading as I can, that is, looking up every unkown word and writing it down, and making sure I understand each sentence. For this I mostly use short news articles I find on the web from sources like Komsomolskaya Pravda, but short stories or wikipedia articles in Ruassian are also good. You should also make sure to re-read the texts you study this way after a couple of days. The vocabulary won't stick after reading it just once - I've found that words start sticking after the fourth time reading the text. To become good at writing Russian, you have to write in Russian. I don't practise writing as much as I should, but I've signed up to Lang-8, and if you manage to write and post regularly there, it is a great way of practising, as you get natives to correct your entries. However, you must be prepared to correct entries in your own language as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4506 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 8 31 March 2015 at 11:10am | IP Logged |
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Years and years ago, I got an account on Interpals. It is full of Russians who want to
learn English and do language exchanges. Unfortunately often their English is very bad, so I simply always "resorted to Russian" even when my Russian was horrible. I have made friends that let me sleep on their couch for a week that way in Siberian university towns. Now, I write in Russian every day. I have learned more from this than from any textbook. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jpazzz Groupie United States Joined 4844 days ago 54 posts - 76 votes Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 8 02 April 2015 at 8:27am | IP Logged |
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Hello all, Thank you all for the thoughtful responses...Good advice all!
Cheers, John 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6955 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 8 02 April 2015 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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I recently finished teaching myself Russian for passive understanding so that I can use courses of certain Turkic languages which are available in Russian only but without excessive consultation of my medium Russian-English dictionary.
See here for some suggestions. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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