Russian Learning Approach + Linguaphone versus Assimil

[Lysander]

While I wait to sort out what comes next, I have stopped posting as much, and starting reading a lot of older threads instead. The life events that are determining my language learning future are still unfolding, but I am trying to be productive while it all gets sorted out. I am reading up on what are considered good courses and websites for exposure to "real" language for a variety of languages that could plausibly be of use so I can jump right in once I know the way to go. I thought I'd share my thoughts in case they are of use to someone else even if Russian doesn't end up being the one for me.

Russian seems like an interesting challenge in that it would be substantially more difficult than Brazilian Portuguese while being one of the rarer "hard" languages where one still has the possibility of drowning in resources like with French, Spanish, etc... For the non-course portion of my study, I would utilize these four websites:

NHK for listening practice of 10+ minutes daily that comes with a transcript.
Euro News for short articles with audio.
L!fe for access to short news articles without audio. I would not use this as much to start until I was comfortable and confident with pronunciation. But the articles are short and often overlap with Euro News, so it could be a good way to get exposure to similar vocabulary by using them together.

Global Voices to make parallel texts as described in iguanamon's amazing post. Though, since these are much longer and more complex than the articles above, I'd probably wait a month or two until adding these to the mix as I'd value the exposure to text with audio over longer and more complex text without audio to start.

Now, for actual courses to use, my library has quite a few different things. From reading posts on here and the old website, the ones that seem most of interest to me are:
A) Survival Russian: A Course in Conversational Russian by N.B. Karavanova Oddly, though the edition at my library is newer, it has the same ISBN as this edition, so I can only assume there are not many differences in the editions. Now, Survival Russian does not seem discussed much here, but it got a lot of plugs from "hobbitofny" on the old website:

Survival Russian will give you good modern Russian... It will explain culture commentary for everyday life. Most chapters give 6 or more dialogues. They do a wonderful job of presenting the common exchanges you will have with a Russian. I was surprise how often the exchange presented the most common dialogues you will hear and need...It can be used to start learning Russian or after completing another course. The title is very correct for the content.

... It covers most normal events a person living in Russia will encounter. It also has culture information. The dialogues are very natural for current Russian use. You have mp3 files of all vocabulary lists and most all the dialogues. It is Moscow State University tested. If you are looking for the better Russia produced language learning items, MSU is as reliable are it gets. (The Linguaphone Russian course was written by MSU staff.)

The only downside is that it seems to teach only somewhere in the neighborhood of ~800 words. However, I think there may be something to be said for learning the basics extremely thoroughly.

B) New Penguin Russian Course (NPRC)
NPRC seems near universal in its acclaim except that it has no audio, and the pronunciation section is apparently awful. However, since Survival Russian has audio, I think this is not a huge deal.

My impression is that Survival Russian and the New Penguin Russian Course could likely get me to A2, especially if used in conjunction with the other free online resources I posted above. A2 is defined (on Wikipedia) as:

Waystage or elementary

Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).
Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.
Can describe in simple terms aspects of their background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

Does that seem reasonable? I find it hard to assess how far a grammar book can take you. Or maybe it is an issue where NPRC provides grammar up to, say, B1, but it is up to me to learn the requisite vocabulary separately. I'd welcome anyone's thoughts on how much grammar that book gives you.
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The second half of my thread title is about Assimil versus Linguaphone. After Survival Russian, I would want to flesh out my vocabulary quite substantially. From some discussions in other threads, I recognize that things like Assimil/Linguaphone are still very much beginner courses. But does anyone think one of these would be good to use after Survival Russian and concurrent to NPRC (I imagine the latter takes longer to finish than the former)? I think that diving wholly into extensive reading after just Survival Russian may be too much. But I am not sure if there is something out there considered a better second course than Assimil or Linguaphone.

I am not very interested in the Princeton Russian Course or Modern Russian as I more want something created with the independent learner in mind from the start.

I find it hard to suss out the relative merits of the latest Linguaphone Russian course versus its Assimil counterpart. From reading old threads and just looking at available material, I would think Linguaphone would offer more in terms of grammar explanations, but about the same in terms of vocabulary. However, if NPRC is all it is cracked up to be, that might render the grammatical advantage of Linguaphone moot. However, if it is a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other, I'd likely go with Assimil simply because I already know how to edit its audio the way I like it, and it seems a bit unwieldy to lug all those Linguaphone books around. Or even just to keep them organized when doing a lesson Plus, it would seem doing Assimil second would render one of its big flaws (poor grammar explanations) less of a detriment. Though, perhaps I'd find it boring as a second course. I imagine it teaches substantially less than the romance languages, so the enjoyment of the dialogues themselves may not be as high.

Shortest version of the above:
1) Are one of Assimil/Linguaphone a good idea to follow-up something as short as Survival Russian and its <900-word vocabulary and NPRC?
A) If not, what is a better way?
B) If yes, which do you recommend and why?

If Russian ends up being the language I pursue for professional reasons, the goal would be solid B1 in all three of speaking, listening, and reading as the minimum to reach, with an eventual B2 level in reading as the overall goal. Thanks for reading! I know I am verbose.

[zenmonkey]

Shortest version of the above:
1) Are one of Assimil/Linguaphone a good idea to follow-up something as short as Survival Russian and its <900-word vocabulary and NPRC?
A) If not, what is a better way?
B) If yes, which do you recommend and why?

Basically, I tend to do multiple methods at the same time. There is nothing wrong with doing both Assimil and Linguaphone. There will be some overlap, but you'd be surprised at how quickly they are divergent in any language. For German, I've done FSI, ASSIMIL (both), MT, Pimsleur, Living Language, etc... A some point you need to move on to local material - but I found repetition and seeing the same words in different material is useful in contextualising a language.

Currently, I tend to have a primary method, which is what I task myself to constantly work on and a secondary, which if what I use if I have extra time for the day. So from my side, without knowing the actual material in a specific language I'd suggest either or both. Just go through them. Move on afterwards. And remember, Assimil is a two wave system - first it is about creating understanding (you should be able to get the meaning of the sentences only) then in the second wave, it is about production.

[Speakeasy]

Lysander, great post!

First, I concur with all of zenmonkey’s comments, particularly those concerning the simultaneous use of multiple sources.

Going further, with respect to your supposition “…I would think Linguaphone would offer more in terms of grammar explanations …”, my experience has been that Linguaphone and Assimil provide more-or-less the same depth of coverage of grammar in their lesson notes and, in my opinion, they both do a very poor job at it. It is as if their explanations were written for “insiders” who already possess a fairly sound understanding of the target language’s structure. For this reason, I suggest that you purchase a “simple” grammar of Russian for consultation when studying with either of these courses.

As to Modern Russian, yes, these materials were designed for presentation in a classroom; however, they can be used successfully in an independent-learning situation to the same extent as the DLI/FSI basic courses of the same period can. The major criticisms of Modern Russian resolve around (a) the use of the audio-lingual method of instruction, a method which I appreciate, particularly in introductory courses, and (b) the presence of some out-dated vocabulary, a matter which I believe is unimportant to someone wishing to acquire a deep knowledge of the target language; in fact, from my perspective, their presence is an advantage.

EDITED:
Tinkering.

[Arnaud]

Just my 2 cents about the learning of russian:

At the beginning, always listen your lesson first, and then read it. Before starting Assimil or Linguaphone, spend a few hours/days on the "russian reading rules": how the vowels are pronounced under the stress (pronounciation of the alphabet) and how the vowels are pronounced out of the stress, that's very important: once you have understood that, the pronounciation of the russian becomes easier.
Same for the consonants: they are "reduced" at the end, and often in consonantic groups: learn to save your energy.
Exemple or exemple with english subtitles (click on the CC button)

Once you know that, use the method that gives you the more fun, the grammar will come gradually ("russian in exercises" by khavronina is a classic for beginners if you need to train on what you learned in the Penguin course)

[Xmmm]

Modern Russian is the gold standard in Russian courses. It's just so boring that most people can't finish it.

This might sound like a crazy idea to Speakeasy, but maybe it's possible to finish Modern Russian successfully ... if you skip the drills.

A typical lesson is:

1. a cool Soviet era dialogue with vocabulary list
2. some grammatical explanations
3. five hours of deadly boring drills that will make you scream

What if the user read the grammatical explanations and otherwise just took the dialogue and vocabulary and used it "Ari's Chinesepod" style -- listen, read, listen, read, listen, listen, listen, shadow, listen, shadow, shadow, etc?

I think there would be a lot of value in doing that.

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So in this order:

1. Assimil
2. Modern Russian "lite" as indicated above
3. Russian in Exercises

[Speakeasy]

... This might sound like a crazy idea to Speakeasy, but maybe it's possible to finish Modern Russian successfully ... if you skip the drills. ...

You do know what fate awaits heretics in this life and in the hereafter, don't you?