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Easy Russian for English Speakers: From everyday essentials to Chekhov, Pushkin, Gagarin and Shakespeare
Unavailable
Easy Russian for English Speakers: From everyday essentials to Chekhov, Pushkin, Gagarin and Shakespeare
Unavailable
Easy Russian for English Speakers: From everyday essentials to Chekhov, Pushkin, Gagarin and Shakespeare
Audiobook2 hours

Easy Russian for English Speakers: From everyday essentials to Chekhov, Pushkin, Gagarin and Shakespeare

Written by Max Bollinger

Narrated by Max Bollinger

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

The Russian audio course that jumps right into learning the language with expertly designed structure of the lessons and their thematic organization to. This audio book set includes essentials from vol. 1 such as greetings, travelling, numbers, food and drink, shopping, getting around town, business meetings, dating and telling the time. Followed by vol. 2 with more detailed explanation of Russian phonetics, Russian names, birthdays, taking about planet Earth, flying on a Russian space ship and cultural content with fragments of Chekhov, Gagarin and Shakespeare in Russian.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 27, 2010
ISBN9781907832444
Unavailable
Easy Russian for English Speakers: From everyday essentials to Chekhov, Pushkin, Gagarin and Shakespeare

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Reviews for Easy Russian for English Speakers

Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
4/5

15 ratings9 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There aren't very many audio resources (at least not stocked on the shelves of your local Barnes and Noble) in Russian, and this second volume is, like the first, a valuable resource for anyone trying to learn the language. I'm not sure if all copies are packaged this way, but mine came with quite a lot of written material on learning Russian as well that was very helpful. On its own merits, though, I'm not sure that you could learn Russian only with the aid of the CDs, though that may not be what Bollinger is going for. At the beginning of this one, he states that he wants you to learn Russian like a native, and I think he succeeds in that - when I learned English as a child, no one sat me down and said, "This is English, and here's how we're going to sequentially learn it." Instead, you learn new words as the need arises, in life, which is a lot like what happened as I listened to the CD. But this hopping around-approach is a little disconcerting to the casual listener. We may start learning about how Russians view Shakespeare, segue into something like how to say "oil and gas company", and end up with Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. On the other hand, I do feel that the CD has a real strength - it teaches you a lot about Russian culture and heritage. You learn about the aforementioned Russian approach to Shakespeare, about patronymics (Russian middle names that indicate a person's parentage), saints' days and many other things that may be unfamiliar to an American or other native English speaker. And with such an eclectic approach to the language- when you do get to Russia, many of the words will probably be at least a little familiar. I would certainly buy this, if I were trying to learn Russian, but you will also need a good dictionary, and something a little more like a textbook wouldn't hurt (though, to be fair, Bollinger also mentions a number of helpful websites on the CD).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This series of bite-sized Russian lessons will not turn you overnight into a Russian speaker, but it does include those phrasebook nuts and bolts (hello, goodbye, please and thank you) that would be helpful to a traveller in Russia, as well as wandering into some more complicated territory – you learn to point out an interesting barn, for instance. The later sections include some hardcore stuff – readings from Chekhov in Russian (I fear I would not even understand Chekhov in English), as well as Yuri Gagarin talking about space travel. Perhaps its key benefit is the way it familiarises the listener with the sounds and subtleties of the Russian language – the way the words are formed, the different ways the same consonant might be pronounced, and advice on the positioning of the tongue. Listening to repeated audio is perhaps the most natural way to start learning a language – the way we all learned our first one.The vocal delivery is clear and precise throughout, and new vocabulary is repeated, as well as being broken down into sections which I found particularly helpful. But to be really effective this course needs to be listened to in conjunction with some kind of printed material. There is no accompanying written guide, though transcripts of some of the sections are available online (I found downloading was a lengthy process). The use of a whole new alphabet means words don’t look the way one expects when written down! Furthermore, the lessons don’t stray very far into the realms of grammar; many verbs and nouns are introduced but transposing them to different contexts requires understanding of the case system with its fearsome array of word-endings. So a proper visual course would be needed in order to go beyond repeating the vocab in the lessons.The whole thing can be downloaded onto an iPod which is exactly what I did, and I found the concise sections were perfect for listening to on short car journeys, or when in one of those pesky British queues. I have probably listened to it through about four times and some sections are starting to stick though the section on telling the time still ties my brain in knots. It has undoubtedly expanded my vocabulary. It even includes the verb ‘to listen to something to the point of forgetting everything else’, so I guess if I ever do get carried away whilst plugged into this on my iPod, there is a chance I could formulate a Russian excuse.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There aren't very many audio resources (at least not stocked on the shelves of your local Barnes and Noble) in Russian, and this second volume is, like the first, a valuable resource for anyone trying to learn the language. I'm not sure if all copies are packaged this way, but mine came with quite a lot of written material on learning Russian as well that was very helpful. On its own merits, though, I'm not sure that you could learn Russian only with the aid of the CDs, though that may not be what Bollinger is going for. At the beginning of this one, he states that he wants you to learn Russian like a native, and I think he succeeds in that - when I learned English as a child, no one sat me down and said, "This is English, and here's how we're going to sequentially learn it." Instead, you learn new words as the need arises, in life, which is a lot like what happened as I listened to the CD. But this hopping around-approach is a little disconcerting to the casual listener. We may start learning about how Russians view Shakespeare, segue into something like how to say "oil and gas company", and end up with Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. On the other hand, I do feel that the CD has a real strength - it teaches you a lot about Russian culture and heritage. You learn about the aforementioned Russian approach to Shakespeare, about patronymics (Russian middle names that indicate a person's parentage), saints' days and many other things that may be unfamiliar to an American or other native English speaker. And with such an eclectic approach to the language- when you do get to Russia, many of the words will probably be at least a little familiar. I would certainly buy this, if I were trying to learn Russian, but you will also need a good dictionary, and something a little more like a textbook wouldn't hurt (though, to be fair, Bollinger also mentions a number of helpful websites on the CD).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Easy Russian is a fun and pretty simple way to learn some basic Russian. this is Volume 2 so I had a little trouble catching up since I don't own volume 1 but I speak a little Russian, just about enough to get by and start out with this volume. I liked using it but I wish I had had volume 1 to start with so I would know exactly what the writers wanted me to know.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I did a year's course in Russian as a subsidiary module at university a number of years ago and reached a stage where I could speak it reasonably well (although far from fluently). Since then I have made several attempts, mostly working from books, to revise my Russian skills but have not retained a very firm grasp on the language.This CD, focusing as it does on the spoken language, provides a very useful complement to grammar books and other written study materials for someone in my situation. I have not seen Volume 1 and I don't know how suitable the series would be for learning the language from scratch; I suspect that it would be very useful in conjunction with other courses but probably quite difficult to use on its own.The CD lasts for just over an hour and is divided into 11 tracks, consisting of a short introduction, 6 lessons, 3 short readings (including a translation of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech and an excerpt from Chekhov) and an extract from a recorded speech by Yuri Gagarin. The reader, Max Bollinger (who is also the author of the course), speaks fairly quickly but quite clearly and repeats most of the Russian words and phrases 3 times, as well as breaking many of the sentences down word by word and providing quite extensive explanations of how things work. In addition to covering a range of grammatical points, there is quite a lot of discussion about points of pronunciation as well as Russian culture, both of which are important in order to gain a good working knowledge of the language.This strikes me as a well-produced and well-structured course. Although it lacks the true interactivity of working directly with a teacher, it provides a very useful complement to other study materials for anyone studying without easy access to native Russian speakers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Overall, I like the CD. It is easy to follow and language lessons seem well thought out and grouped in a logical manner. My only real complaint is that the CD is supposed to be stand alone and honestly I do think that the first volume is needed prior to listening to the second volume. I feel like I would have much better comprehension of the lessons if I had begun with volume one. Still, all in all, I feel like the CD is good.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Damn it, MAx Bollinger! Damn it, LibraryThing! I was all excited about getting this free review copy of Russian for English Speakers and reviewing it and helping you promote your book and learning some Russian along the way, and then I get it and it turns out it's not a book at all but a fucking CD-ROM, and like, I use a MacBook Air, guys? And it doesn't have a CD drive? And I know this isn't a review so blue flag me if you want but I came to you in good faith and what are you doing giving me stuff to review that's on dead media.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this DVD set as part of Librarything's Early Reviewer program. I requested it because a lifetime ago I studied Russian in college. I wasn't quite sure what to expect since it was the 2nd volume and I had not listened to the 1st volume. Thankfully, that didn't matter as the two volumes are independent.That being said, this DVD won't teach you how to speak Russian if you've never spoken it before. It is, however, a surprisingly useful tool for someone with a passing understanding of some Russian. Instead of a lot of repetitive drills, the DVD teaches you some of the more interesting rules of Russian and does a good job of teaching vocabulary by identifying the changes in meaning caused by prefixes added to root words. I liked the fact that the narrator mentioned that this is how Russians are taught their language in school.I also enjoyed listening to the larger passages included, such as Yuri Gargarin and Shakespeare in Russian. For those passages, the narrator explains the vocabulary extensively before playing the passage. I couldn't understand everything, but I could keep up with the gist of each passage, which was encouraging.If you set your expectations appropriately, this a very useful little tool for improving your Russian.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The problem with this material is it isn't  aimed at a specific learning level.  It moves quickly and assumes the student has already acquired an ear for Russian and since there is minimal written material (just some PDFs you can download from the website) a tuned ear is essential leaving beginners in a tough spot.  Anyone that has completed a beginning Russian course ought to be able to get a a fair amount of what's going on, but then anyone that's done that will have already learned some of the material anyway.  There is no discussion of any sort of grammar, little room for repetition and response, but there are several long Russian recordings sure to confound all but advanced Russian students.  Though on the plus side it does provide insight into the nuance of pronunciation that I didn't get from three semesters of college Russian.Ultimately this could never serve as a very substantial Russian language resource.  Even as an audio resource I'd still say you could take it or leave it, primarily because next to systems as extensive as Pimsleur this doesn't offer much for new Russian students and there's too much intro Russian to be very worthwhile for intermediate and advanced students.  It's far from useless, but it could really only function as supplementary material.