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1 review for:
Beginner's Russian: With Interactive Online Workbook
Frank J. Miller, Anna S. Kudyma, Olga Kagan
3.25 AVERAGE
1 review for:
Beginner's Russian: With Interactive Online Workbook
Frank J. Miller, Anna S. Kudyma, Olga Kagan
3.25 AVERAGE
I spent 40 weeks (once a week for 3.5 hrs) with this book. While I learned a lot, I have to attribute much of that to the teaching of and supplements from the teacher, my investment in Pimsleur (1-4) (I'm halfway through #3) and from google searches & additional book purchases for clarity.
In this book, the cases are introduced in a piecemeal way which was very confusing and frustrating for all involved (i.e. singular case endings introduced in first half of book and plurals in the second half...case by case... so instrumental plural was introduced in one of the last few chapters). It would have been better for me as a student for this book to have each case presented in its entirety (at least all endings) before moving on to the next case. I had to do this process on my own which did make the end of the book easier but I really could have been learning something more meaningful then. The course I took which used this book has decided to invest in another teaching option for beginners. Sorry, I do not know what the new book will be.
The online portal was useful but a huge hassle to access. It required getting a UCLA login and reading fine print about what the password should be if you are indeed not a student there (which I'm not). Somehow I made it in and then there were still hoops to jump through to use the material - back buttons were not my friend and quite a number of pages would freeze up or not work at all once the 'submit' button was selected. It operated like an older program retro-fitted to a new format (which I'm pretty sure it was) and felt clunky, as though it were about to crash often. Not confidence inspiring when you are using it to learn a language through self-tests and your 'answers' page crashes before you can see how you did. Seriously, who user-checked this process!?
Considering how much money and time was spent to make up for the lack of explanations in the book and the technical difficulty accessing their online area, I can only give this 3 stars. I can after all, have short conversations now but how much of this is from the book and how much is from everything else I've done can not be separated.
In this book, the cases are introduced in a piecemeal way which was very confusing and frustrating for all involved (i.e. singular case endings introduced in first half of book and plurals in the second half...case by case... so instrumental plural was introduced in one of the last few chapters). It would have been better for me as a student for this book to have each case presented in its entirety (at least all endings) before moving on to the next case. I had to do this process on my own which did make the end of the book easier but I really could have been learning something more meaningful then. The course I took which used this book has decided to invest in another teaching option for beginners. Sorry, I do not know what the new book will be.
The online portal was useful but a huge hassle to access. It required getting a UCLA login and reading fine print about what the password should be if you are indeed not a student there (which I'm not). Somehow I made it in and then there were still hoops to jump through to use the material - back buttons were not my friend and quite a number of pages would freeze up or not work at all once the 'submit' button was selected. It operated like an older program retro-fitted to a new format (which I'm pretty sure it was) and felt clunky, as though it were about to crash often. Not confidence inspiring when you are using it to learn a language through self-tests and your 'answers' page crashes before you can see how you did. Seriously, who user-checked this process!?
Considering how much money and time was spent to make up for the lack of explanations in the book and the technical difficulty accessing their online area, I can only give this 3 stars. I can after all, have short conversations now but how much of this is from the book and how much is from everything else I've done can not be separated.