Russian Short Stories for Beginners

I thought this book would have Russian on one side and on the next page English. A lot of these kinds of books I have bought in French and Spanish were like this. If I had known it was only in Russian with an English summary, I would have bought the Kindle version. Other than that I think it's pretty standard for this genre, not much to say about it really. Edit 1: A year after purchase, my Russian has improved enough to write a review of this book. Overall, I think it's really good. I also bought the competitor's books by Olly Richards and the writing in both of them is really different. These Lingo Mastery books have more every day life themes, the stories are shorter, but you get more of them, and more vocabulary is translated at the end of the story than Olly RIchard's books. The stories kind of remind me of something a high school kid might write but that isn't a criticism, it's a book for language learners. I do have one criticism though, there was one story that was a bit ridiculous. It featured a mother of 3 who had apparently never spent a few hours apart from her children before and cried because they were gone for a few hours. I just don't think this is a healthy vision of motherhood. I did appreciate the woman focus of this story and the writing was fine but again overall, kind of an annoying message and I think they could have done better for a country that has more women in STEM than western countries. I thought about docking one star but decided it against it because the other stories were fine and some pretty cute. Also a lot of the stories are written from the first person of different people and there are several short biographies of various famous Russian people. I bought the Volume 2 and will continue reading. Reading is such a great way to improve language. Edit 2: I forgot that I wanted to say that everyone in this book gets tuberculosis.

This is a great book for someone learning the Russian language. The stories are simple and short, though tough for a rank beginner like me to plow through. Many words used in the story text are translated in a section following each story. There are also sections that include a synopsis and review questions for each story. The publisher got this idea for a language learning tool just right. I sent a second copy of this book to my Russian tutor in Ukraine to use as a resource for other students.

This is a good practice resource alongside a Russian language learning course.

Pretty good and easy to use. Really great for language practice, but do not use any of these stories as a point of reference for what Russian people are like.

I'm a university student minoring in Russian, but I'm at the point now where I've finished almost all of my classes and I'm having to learn on my own. This book is certainly not for "beginners" in the traditional sense of the word, and the authors acknowledge that. "Beginner" in this sense implies that you must have already learned all of the grammar and cases and have achieved a solid set of vocabulary. I'm officially certified to communicate on at least the "intermediate" level, but still come across a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary in this book. As for specifics, this book is perfect in almost every way: 1) short stories, 2) difficult words in bold, 3) glossary for those words, 4) summaries in EN/RU, 5) post-reading questions (and answers). It's difficult to think of anything else they could add to make it a better product. It reminds me of required readings my instructor would give us, but at your own pace. My only critique for the seller would be adding accent marks in the glossary. My biggest challenge when speaking to native speakers is mispronunciation, entirely due to my ignorance of where the emphases in words are. But if you have a good dictionary that shows the accent marks (I use Oxford), you can look up the words and write them in yourself. Overall, one of the best resources I've found. Will be recommending them to my professors.

I personally love the way this book is helping me expand my Russian vocabulary and understanding. First I would say that you would benefit the most from this book if you already gone through some type of absolute beginners course of Russian. If you are an absolute beginner this might be a little too tough for you. The stories are genuinely fun to read. And having already gone through an initial beginners course I find it going to the stories I usually can figure out what unknown words mean based on context and if not there is a great glossary at the end of every story that helps you with keywords. I would say my favorite thing about these stories is that they're based on Modern Times. So a lot of the phrases kill to me like things I would actually use in real life and an actual context that I would be living in. The first story was a little rough for me but after working through that I find that every story I read their after seems to get easier and I find myself less often going to the back of the story to check on the glossary. My method that works for me at least is sticking with one story for a week. First I just read the story and I don't worry about the words I don't know. Then on the second day I read the story again but this time at the end I'll peek over at the glossary to look up the highlighted words but I didn't understand. I take my time with it and then after I finish the glossary I go back and I reread the story again. If there are words that are hard for me to read out loud I always pause to read them slowly and then I increase the speed as it becomes easier to pronounce and say. Usually by the fourth day I don't have to look at the glossary at all maybe for just one or three words and I can just read the story and I do so imagining as if I'm reading it to somebody. Oh really as if I and the person in the story narrating what happened. It's fun! Most of the time I spend only the mornings usually right after I wake up doing this. But I found it on the days where I read the story at least two to three times throughout the day that what I was reading began to absorb into my mind much more readily and naturally. So if you're looking for improving a Russian after having gone through a beginner's course or even an intermediate course I think this would be a very good fit for you. I'm certainly enjoying it. And soon I plan on asking my russian-speaking friends the favor of recording themselves reading the story so I can have an MP3 to listen to of how it is actually pronounced by a natural Russian speaker. So good luck.! This is certainly a very fun language to learn

Simply said, Lingo Mastery is the best foreign language publisher that I have encountered (and I've read a lot of books from quite a few different publishers). They really know what they are doing and make it fun to learn a foreign language by creating original, interesting stories. For example, they realize that the key to learning a foreign language is to repeat each new word or phrase until it is embedded into your long-term memory. Lingo Mastery does this very well without making it a boring or tedious process. Another thing that I've noticed is that the audiobooks by Lingo Mastery are truly exceptional in comparison to other publishers. They use professional voice actors and make crisp, high fidelity recordings. In addition, they have excellent customer support and respond rapidly to emails for support. I feel so fortunate to have discovered their books they have really helped me learn Russian.

This is probably best for strong beginners. I’d recommend doing the reader by Vadim Zubakchin first because it’s easier, has stress marks and has side by side English and Russian. Despite this, it’s a great bargain, the stories are more interesting than the typical fairy stories.

Pour lire des textes accessibles, c’est très chouette. Le seul bémol selon moi c’est que pour la prononciation les accents ne sont pas indiqués. Il aurait été intéressant que la lettre accentuée soit en gras par exemple pour être sûr de prononcer correctement ce qu’on lit. A part ça, chouette achat

The book is very well done, as others i read by this editor. The stories are at the right level of complexity for me (level A2-B1), that means i can read and understand them with some effort also without knowing every single word. The most unusual words are then explained at the end of each story, where there's also a summary of the story in english and in russian. The topics of the stories are interesting, covering lives of russian important personalities and cultural themes. That's also a good motivation to continue reading and understanding.

Me encantó el libro, muy útil para principiantes.

Muito bom para quem está bem no início, meu caso! Ótima fonte de vocabulário útil! As histórias são curtas - o que facilita o aprendizado para quem tem pouco tempo e não gosta de romper um raciocínio e torna a necessidade de tradução palavras menos maçante. Ao final de cada texto há uma lista com as palavras/expressões "novas", um resumo da história e algumas questões de múltiplas escolhidas para a fixação. Para ler no Kindle - revisar/aprender/pesquisar novas palavras em qualquer lugar - muito prático, está sendo minha leitura de "horas pelo caminho". As histórias são bobinhas, mas estou satisfeita - considerando que é difícil encontrar material de fácil compreensão para iniciantes como este.

Have been working through steadily. Is helping with learning the language