Re: Russian Study Group
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 11:30 am
I have used 3 textbooks so far:
Russisch mit System - This is a German textbook which is of very high quality, but pretty much undoable for a beginner. I found the texts well structured, the sound good, the exercises sensible and the vocabulary is not too idiotic either. On the other hand, it sometimes introduces 2 or even 3 grammatical concepts in one chapter, which is way too much, especially since you need to understand *all* the introduced concepts before you can do the exercises properly. I guess it would be a good book if you had any prior knowledge, to practice the grammar and catch up after a longer break, but as a beginner it was terrible. I felt completely overwhelmed by it.
Russian for Everybody - This was the textbook used for the very good course Russian World on Youtube. The course is meant for high school students and it goes very slow, covers all the basics and the teacher is very encouraging. Added plus: funny 90s hairdos and clothes as well as additional cultural knowledge. Southern American twang with a Russian accent is just hilarious. The textbook on the other hand is one of those very traditional grammar heavy text books with teaching texts that are so boring that you want to pull your hair out. It's well paced, the exercises are ok and useful, never too complicated. However, they don't have solutions in the book, so you have to use lang8 for corrections. If you're immune to boring traditional teaching texts, this is a good one since the pacing is just perfect for beginners.
Assimil - I'm just starting to use it, since I used Assimil for my French and found it fantastic. The method is really strange and I have no idea how it works, but it somehow does! It goes like this: Listen to the dialogue *without the text* and repeat everything you hear, speaking over the recording in the same speed. Try to match it as closely as possible. Even if you don't understand the words, do it anyway. Usually you can already guess what the text is about even when you don't understand half the words said. Once you managed to say every single sentence at the same speed as the recording, open the book. You listen one more time with the Russian text, reading it as you listen to it. Now you can match the spelling to what you heard. Sometimes you realise that you misheard and suddenly the whole text becomes clear in a flash. Then listen to the recording one more time and look at the translation while you're listening. There is a word for word translation provided so every last problem will become clear at this point. Only then go ahead and read the notes - not too detailed grammar explanations -, and finally do the exercises. As I said it's strange how this one works. It kind of carves the right pronunciation into your brain and the repetition starts to make things clear by itself. And usually the repetition alone is enough to figure out how to do the exercises. I'm not sure how well this works if you don't have any prior knowledge of the language since it usually works best for closely related languages - Russian and English (or in my case French, I'm using Le Russe) aren't close at all, but with my previous experience in Russian it's not even a struggle. Also, it doesn't come with any proper training for the alphabet. Russian World on Youtube is great for that. What's definitely fantastic is to do the shadowing for pronunciation, because it will highlight the subtle differences between what you're saying and what the person in the recording is saying. For French Assimil was the only textbook I used before starting to read with a dictionary after 10 days. After 3 months of Assimil and intensive reading I could read books without a dictionary and watch series and I didn't know a word of French before I started! It was kind of amazing. This is how I'm doing it this time as well, only that I had 3 months of grammar torture already on the last attempt with Russian. I'm curious to see whether it works just as well with Russian as with French, as Russian is a lot more complex than French. I'll keep you updated on that.
Russisch mit System - This is a German textbook which is of very high quality, but pretty much undoable for a beginner. I found the texts well structured, the sound good, the exercises sensible and the vocabulary is not too idiotic either. On the other hand, it sometimes introduces 2 or even 3 grammatical concepts in one chapter, which is way too much, especially since you need to understand *all* the introduced concepts before you can do the exercises properly. I guess it would be a good book if you had any prior knowledge, to practice the grammar and catch up after a longer break, but as a beginner it was terrible. I felt completely overwhelmed by it.
Russian for Everybody - This was the textbook used for the very good course Russian World on Youtube. The course is meant for high school students and it goes very slow, covers all the basics and the teacher is very encouraging. Added plus: funny 90s hairdos and clothes as well as additional cultural knowledge. Southern American twang with a Russian accent is just hilarious. The textbook on the other hand is one of those very traditional grammar heavy text books with teaching texts that are so boring that you want to pull your hair out. It's well paced, the exercises are ok and useful, never too complicated. However, they don't have solutions in the book, so you have to use lang8 for corrections. If you're immune to boring traditional teaching texts, this is a good one since the pacing is just perfect for beginners.
Assimil - I'm just starting to use it, since I used Assimil for my French and found it fantastic. The method is really strange and I have no idea how it works, but it somehow does! It goes like this: Listen to the dialogue *without the text* and repeat everything you hear, speaking over the recording in the same speed. Try to match it as closely as possible. Even if you don't understand the words, do it anyway. Usually you can already guess what the text is about even when you don't understand half the words said. Once you managed to say every single sentence at the same speed as the recording, open the book. You listen one more time with the Russian text, reading it as you listen to it. Now you can match the spelling to what you heard. Sometimes you realise that you misheard and suddenly the whole text becomes clear in a flash. Then listen to the recording one more time and look at the translation while you're listening. There is a word for word translation provided so every last problem will become clear at this point. Only then go ahead and read the notes - not too detailed grammar explanations -, and finally do the exercises. As I said it's strange how this one works. It kind of carves the right pronunciation into your brain and the repetition starts to make things clear by itself. And usually the repetition alone is enough to figure out how to do the exercises. I'm not sure how well this works if you don't have any prior knowledge of the language since it usually works best for closely related languages - Russian and English (or in my case French, I'm using Le Russe) aren't close at all, but with my previous experience in Russian it's not even a struggle. Also, it doesn't come with any proper training for the alphabet. Russian World on Youtube is great for that. What's definitely fantastic is to do the shadowing for pronunciation, because it will highlight the subtle differences between what you're saying and what the person in the recording is saying. For French Assimil was the only textbook I used before starting to read with a dictionary after 10 days. After 3 months of Assimil and intensive reading I could read books without a dictionary and watch series and I didn't know a word of French before I started! It was kind of amazing. This is how I'm doing it this time as well, only that I had 3 months of grammar torture already on the last attempt with Russian. I'm curious to see whether it works just as well with Russian as with French, as Russian is a lot more complex than French. I'll keep you updated on that.