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lynn_k's review against another edition
4.0
So, I totally read a book in Russian and understood most of it!!!
This book is set up with short chapters and a has a plot summary after every story. There are also questions after each chapter to test reading comprehension. There are words throughout that are underlined and those words are defined at the end of the chapter.
Besides a few typos, like underlined words that were not defined and vice versa, I had no big problems with this book. The stories were varied and overall I enjoyed them.
This book is set up with short chapters and a has a plot summary after every story. There are also questions after each chapter to test reading comprehension. There are words throughout that are underlined and those words are defined at the end of the chapter.
Besides a few typos, like underlined words that were not defined and vice versa, I had no big problems with this book. The stories were varied and overall I enjoyed them.
poireauchaud's review against another edition
5.0
I believe this book is perfect for advanced beginners - intermediate Russian learners! The choices of vocabulary and how the sentenced are written made it clear and comprehensible. The stories are interesting. Very good not only to progress but also to gain confidence in the language.
ggmay's review
4.0
I have already read these stories in Italian and wasn’t overly enamoured, but interestingly the challenge of reading them in Russian made them much more enjoyable. I think the book is very well designed to help with language learning, and the stories are fun, if not mind-blowing.
kasss's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars.
I don't consider myself an absolute beginner in Russian any more. I've had classes for 2,5 years and am at a solid A2 level(honestly could be higher by now, getting my ass in gear to finally reach B this year). On the whole, the level of this book was just fine for me, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone below level A2. More suitable for high beginners/low intermediate.
Grammatically it was easy and I didn't run into any problems, but the vocabulary was occasionally challenging. The book has vocabulary lists but curious choices were made on which words to include in the list and which to... I don't know? Ignore? Assume people know them? Make people skip over them (not a bad technique)? The stories used quite a lot of vocab (especially verbs) that I wouldn't immediately expect someone of my level to understand, but then it added words like плакать, подарок, спокойно, новости etc to the vocab lists.
Talking about the vocab lists: there were quite a few words in the text that were underlined but that never showed up in the lists. A little sloppy. Also quite a few words that showed up in multiple stories (and multiple times within a story) and were listed every single time. We get it, улыбнуться means "to smile" and people in these stories smile a lot - I'd expect a reader to pick it up after one story.
As for the stories, they were enjoyable. Not too complicated, but then that's not what I expect from a book aimed at not-quite-beginners. I didn't care about the first two stories that much and found them a bit tiresome/boring, but thankfully it picked up after that. That's just my personal preference though - the book covers several genres.
On the whole, reading this book was a nice experience. I read a chapter a day (on most days) at first, but noticed I soon got better and faster at reading and started reading entire stories (3 chapters) in one sitting. Very satisfying to finish a book (which is exactly what Richards and Rawlings stated as their goal in the introduction, so good job!).
I don't consider myself an absolute beginner in Russian any more. I've had classes for 2,5 years and am at a solid A2 level
Grammatically it was easy and I didn't run into any problems, but the vocabulary was occasionally challenging. The book has vocabulary lists but curious choices were made on which words to include in the list and which to... I don't know? Ignore? Assume people know them? Make people skip over them (not a bad technique)? The stories used quite a lot of vocab (especially verbs) that I wouldn't immediately expect someone of my level to understand, but then it added words like плакать, подарок, спокойно, новости etc to the vocab lists.
Talking about the vocab lists: there were quite a few words in the text that were underlined but that never showed up in the lists. A little sloppy. Also quite a few words that showed up in multiple stories (and multiple times within a story) and were listed every single time. We get it, улыбнуться means "to smile" and people in these stories smile a lot - I'd expect a reader to pick it up after one story.
As for the stories, they were enjoyable. Not too complicated, but then that's not what I expect from a book aimed at not-quite-beginners. I didn't care about the first two stories that much and found them a bit tiresome/boring, but thankfully it picked up after that. That's just my personal preference though - the book covers several genres.
On the whole, reading this book was a nice experience. I read a chapter a day (on most days) at first, but noticed I soon got better and faster at reading and started reading entire stories (3 chapters) in one sitting. Very satisfying to finish a book (which is exactly what Richards and Rawlings stated as their goal in the introduction, so good job!).
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