The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners

Very lovely book! I enjoy learning and this book is so nice. I recommend using this a long with Youtube videos, and the mezhdunami website illustration story.

Pretty decent, definitely tape the spine to keep the book from falling apart. Very very helpful in its pronunciations and such. Highly recommend

My husband has taught himself to speak Russian using a number of books! He LOVES this one and HIGHLY recommends it. His 1st one kind of fell apart and he loved it so much he had me get him another one.

I bought this book because I thought it would be a great book to have to help me while I learn via Duolingo as well. I have never tried Rosetta Stone or what not. This book has a great section for learning the alphabet and reading cursive, which as I've realized is confusing especially on packaging of Candies and other products. I fully expect it will help me, as long as I am diligent and use it steadily, especially with something like Duolingo which offers the audio supplement as well. I also bought a Russian story book to help me. If this book doesn't quite live up to expectations past alphabet, meaning in teaching grammar, I may come back and change my review, because that would be very important to me. As it stands right now, I would highly recommend this book for its content__________________Now. If you are trying to buy the book new from Amazon, in my experience, I have received two books with rather large creases in them and some scuffs. If the condition of the book matters to you, I'd say its worth to get a replacement and see if you get one in better condition, but not out weigh the condition over the actual content in the book especially for $12 or $16 (which I bought it for) but not for the full price of $21.The first book was shoved into a sleeve that barely fit with mechanical pencils and lead. So I thought: It's because they packaged it wrong and inconsiderably.I am leaving a review to discuss this because the second book I received did have a decent size (but smaller than the first) crease on the front of the book which makes me think: This is not packaging. This is what the product they have in their warehouse looks like before it is even shipped.The second book I received was definitely better than the first as far as damage, and as I have gotten to read it while I got a replacement, I will keep it because I can see how well it works and will work for me. :)I'd still say to definitely buy it but also realize there is a considerable chance you will buy new and get something in what I would consider used condition.

I have used one of these for 15 years. And I give one away to every young person I know who is studying RU... have probably given away at least 10 by now. The strong suit of the book is its organization... it is very easy to find any topic you are looking for in the book. The covers are falling off my copy from use, so guess I need to buy a new copy !

I'll not lie, I bought this book based largely on the hype that surrounds it. So many reviews and recommendations that it simply wasn't possible for me to pass it up. On first arrival, having little more than knowledge of Cyrillic, I wasn't impressed. I didn't appreciate the EXTREME lengths the book typically went to towards explaining grammar. Out of fear of mispronunciation I didn't like the almost total abandonment of transliteration from chapter 5 on (and then only appearing occasionally or on words that don't sound as they are spelled) coupled with a lack of audio backup. I tried several other resources, none I'd call bad, but ended up sticking with this one. It honestly probably is the best.Of the grammar - yes, it can get VERY intense and thorough; at times it seems overwhelmingly so. I soon gave up and moved on to other books, but still had a large problem - I could not form sentences correctly. After talking with several Russian friends on Skype, I found them correcting large parts of my Russian speech. Almost always simple mistakes, such as the endings of words ("ends with -y in this case", "this word following в ends -e", etc.) and I couldn't wrap my head around it. My knowledge of English, even as a native speaker, has never been from a highly grammatical viewpoint. It is my native language and despite not being an English teacher am quite capable of submitting a quality report. As an adult with no other known languages, I noticed one glaring flaw in my approach to Russian - it is most emphatically NOT English and, from my age anyway, requires heavy study of grammar. When I sat down, studied hard and completed some of the drills, things began to make much more sense. Sure, I still have to think about what I say before I say them, but mistakes are being made far less often.Of what some reviews cite as being dated vocabulary - honestly? I haven't encountered many issues when speaking with friends. By and large it would appear (based solely on conversing with friends) that most of the vocabulary is accurate and few is obsolete. I tried Pimsleur (and Rosetta Stone, as well as many others, and most certainly don't recommend RS) and noticed something in the first eight lessons, totaling four hours of study - it does contain dated references and only addressed, "Вы" conversational. I suppose if your goal is pure travel this is not an issue, but to make friends? Could be an issue. The friends I spoke with also found it very amusing that it made many references to, "Mr. and Mrs./Miss" of which I was told even in polite Russian have almost entirely fallen out of disuse.I suppose if I had to be critical in any way of this title, I would cite lack of audio. Really, I think this book could have served as a student textbook had it included more drills/exercises or had an accompanying workbook. Even then, seeing as we all have access to the internet it's a minor issue at best. Find a Russian speaking friend with a bit of English background, pick up this book and enjoy yourselves!