Book Method Russian: Russian Self-Learning Method

I had read all the positive reviews about Assimil all over so I tried it. I have done many other courses but this one is special. What sets it apart it is a painless method the recordings are entertaining and add lots of vocabulary. The daily units often have a punch line which seems to help you remember the vocabulary/structures. The recordings are excellent quality and add many words to your vocabulary. It is more enjoyable than the other methods I have tried. One thing that I would like to know though is if anybody can actually keep up the pace of one per day and remember it. I could not and I knew quite a bit of Russian at the start. I only bring this up because I want others not to get discouraged if they can't keep that pace. I could not. It took me 9 months to get through it to a point where I can play any of the units and feel like I KNEW 90% or so of it. Keep at it, it will come. I tried many techniques including the multipass unit described in other reviews (probably from polyglot Conner) it helped but I did not completely get it. At around unit 80 I found a mthod that worked for me and greatly picked up my assimilation. 1) Listen to the recording and read the text so you know the words and the helpful hints 2) Import the lesson into Audacity (free) 3) Go thru each Lesson as a) Isolate a sentence in Audacity and loop play it b) Type the english sentence in and paste it in a track under the isolated portion in Audacity (while listening) c) While still listening to the looped sentence go to Google translate (or something else with Cyrillic keyboard) and type it in in Russian, WHILE LISTENING. This seemed to make me REALLY concentrate on the spelling and word separation. d) When the sentence is completely typed in correctly (looking at book) take it and paste it on a second track, When you are done, you will have a recording in Audacity that plays the unit. Above the recording for each sentence will be an English track directly above (or below) a Russian track that follows the recording. This worked for me. It would take about 2 or 3 hours or so per unit but I absolutely remembered them better than I did using other methods even though I had listened to some earlier units even hundreds of times. I think that listening to the looping sentence to get the spelling down forced me to concentrate more.

Book was exactly as described. In good enough condition to be given as a gift. Thank you.

The book was about the size of my hands! Which is really great because I travel a lot. Perfect size! - Probably one of the best translations of phrasing I have found!

I would recommend using this course until Lesson 25 to learn how to read, write, and pronounce Russian. The auditory input is extremely valuable. I would then recommend switching to The New Penguin Russian Course by Nicholas J. Brown, which lacks audio, in order to actually understand Russian grammar before, perhaps, resuming the Assimil course. I'm not new to Assimil's courses; their French with Ease course got me conversing in French from scratch over 10 years ago! However, Russian is not French, and the grammatical explanations in this book are too light, fleeting, and inadequate for a language this complex. I stopped at Lesson 40 out of frustration and switched to The New Penguin Russian Course. Upon delving into the latter, I felt like I had made a friend for life! I am currently on Lesson 5 and am feeling great about the progress I'm making.