It’s tough enough to learn a new language, but it’s even tougher to learn a language with a different script or system of writing. If you’re a beginner student learning Russian, then you have your hands full, so you’ll need a good book to help you through the process. The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners is a great place to start your journey of learning Russian as a new language.
The book begins by introducing the Russian alphabet. You may be tempted to skip over this part, but relying on transliteration of Russian to Roman script is not a good idea. Build your foundation from the beginning and study this section thoroughly. The author of the book makes it easy to understand the sounds by using English examples which will help students attain the proper pronunciation of each letter or letter combination. It is important to learn how to read because as the book progresses, it will rely less and less on transliteration.
"It’s tough enough to learn a new language, but it’s even tougher to learn a language with a different script or system of writing. If you’re a beginner student learning Russian, then you have your hands full, so you’ll need a good book to help you through the process."
After going over activities to gain some basic reading skills, the book goes over some activities to help students develop their Russian communication skills. Rather than taking the common approach of topic-based dialogues and sections, this book relates each topic with specific grammar structures such as “doing things- verbs, personal pronouns”, “asking questions”, “going places- the accusative”, “describing things” and so on. Although these topics are organized in a very unique way, in comparison to most beginner level books, the approach is logical and straightforward. This approach also helps students build a proper foundation in the language as they learn common phrases and words. In total there are thirty lessons, including two which strictly focus on reading and writing exercises. Each lesson is about 9-11 pages long, giving ample content to last a week or more, depending on how you are learning.
The activities found in this book are perfect for group classes and self-study sessions. If you are an independent learner it would be wise to go over each lesson in the order that it is presented so as to get the full benefit of the course. Since a teacher or tutor isn’t needed when using this book, it would be wise to work with each lesson at a slow pace and even review some of the previous chapters before moving on to the more difficult chapters.
The New Penguin Russian Course has a lot to offer and students who use this book diligently will surely see results. By the end of the book, students can expect to have a great handle on the Russian language and will successfully graduate from a “beginner” to an “intermediate” student.
