Short Stories in Russian for Beginners (Teach Yourself Short Stories for Beginners-multiple Languages) Paperback – November 13, 2018

I bought this book on February 27th, 2021 and finally finished it on December 27th, 2021. I had been learning Russian for about 6 months before I bought it, but not as consistently as I would have liked because when you're a Finance student sometimes your life is hell. For whatever reason, either my mentality or the difficulty of the Russian language or the stress of modern life, I have found reading in Russian to be stressful and slow going. I have had a lot of success reading in French and Spanish. I think it may because there are not quite as many cognates in Russian, although they exist. Maybe I just haven't quite reached the tipping point in my vocabulary acquisition yet. Sorry, I know this is less of a book review and more about my progress in Russian but I guess I don't really know what to say about the book. I plan on rereading it. I did like that the first story was about a kid getting lost in a foreign country and I like that Olly talks about his experiences in foreign countries and how not all of them were good experiences. I also have the audio book and the audio quality is good. I think these graded readers are great value for the money. If you read it intensively and study the vocabulary (although this isn't Olly's recommended method but I never asked him), you can take in a lot of vocabulary for the price of one month of Lingq. I also used and enjoyed Lingq but ultimately decided to move on to graded readers because they are more my pace for the money spent and plus I have a kindle so I can look up vocabulary on it.Edit: The stories are more enjoyable on the second read.

I have read a lot of beginning Russian texts and this one is my favorite. It is very easy to read, gives you vocabulary words at the end, and is an ongoing story that is entertaining. I have not finished the story yet, but it has kept me motivating to read, which is hard for me as a beginning Russian speaker. I would highly recommend to anyone in the beginning Russian phase of their linguistic journey!I recommend downloading the audible content with it so you can hear it being spoken. It does not come with audio, which I probably should have known, but would have liked an option for an audio setting with Kindle versus having to use audible and Kindle simultaneously. Overall, highly recommend!

While this is not a book for beginners, I was quite elated in that mostly I could read the various stories in one go. The book consists of rather different kind of stories. At the end of each story there is a synopsis, followed by multiple choice questions and some vocabulary. Most words are shown in such a way that you know where the stress is supposed to be, although I have to admit it is not very easy to see. At the end of the book there is still an alphabetical list of words and expressions and some words/expressions in the text are highlighted. In 1967 I took an intensive 3rd year summer course of Russian in Toronto, Canada. Of course, that was a long time ago. Since having a Kindle I have been reading bilingual fairy tales and other stories, some consisting of one paragraph in English followed by the paragraph in Russian. Some had longer stretches of text before the other language was shown, so for me this was the first time I could actually follow a whole story and then just check some of the vocabulary of which I might not have been quite sure. I also have to say that I am a linguist knowing several languages and Russian has actually a number of words adopted from other languages, just like with English and French.

I bought both this book as well as the dialogues in Russian. It’s a good resource, and I’ve been going through both books with a tutor.Improvements:- There is no translation in English for entire text but only some select words. I ended up buying both physical copy as well as kindle copy so that I can get translation. On Kindle, thankfully there is a feature where you highlight a sentence or paragraph, and it gives you the translation by Bing.- Audio is available, but you have to pay extra money. I wish it was already included. I already paid the 3 times the price of the book because I bought 2 physical copies, one for myself and one for my tutor as she is remote, then I bought the kindle version.Other than these two things, the stories are interesting, and I’ve been thankful for the resource to learn Russian.

First - the website lists this as a book for beginners. It doesn't say so on the cover however and it really isn't. I had a year of full time Russian at the Defense Language Institute and I still have to look a word or two up per story. However, these stories are just plain fun. This isn't Dostoevsky, the plots are contrived, but there are sufficient twists and surprises to keep you moving. I feel it's sort of an inside joke: the author teases you with improbable scenarios, and you refresh your Russian while having a good time. For example, a man falls asleep on a bus in St Petersburg and wakes up in Vyborg. That's like getting on a bus at the US Capitol and waking up in Baltimore. But these sort of twists make you want to keep reading. This is a fun,easy way to polish up your Russian. And since Eastern Europe is heating right now, it's a good time fro Russian speakers to hone their skills.

My husband loves this book! He reads it night and day and his Russian is getting way better