Russian for Reading books?

Moderator:voron

eskandar
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:3093
Joined:2006-12-15, 8:27
Russian for Reading books?

Postby eskandar » 2013-08-11, 8:19

Are there any good books for learning Russian that are geared specifically towards reading skills? I want to learn to read Russian but I don't need to be able to speak or write it, just read. There are some excellent books that teach French and German for reading only, so I was wondering if there is anything like that for Russian. My goal is to be able to read Russian texts with a dictionary, so I don't want to waste my time learning how to book a hotel room in Russian, etc. Any recommendations?
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

User avatar
voron
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4945
Joined:2007-07-15, 3:29
Real Name:Igor
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Russian for Reading books?

Postby voron » 2013-08-11, 14:40

eskandar wrote:There are some excellent books that teach French and German for reading only

Can you name the titles?

I'm not sure I've seen anything like this for Russian. Perhaps you can combine a grammar book and a reader book. You can find a few Russian readers on the net.

eskandar
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:3093
Joined:2006-12-15, 8:27

Re: Russian for Reading books?

Postby eskandar » 2013-08-11, 15:59

Thanks for the suggestion.

voron wrote:Can you name the titles?
French:
French for Reading Knowledge; Reading French in the Arts and Sciences; French for Reading (there may be more as well)

German:
Reading German: A Course Book and Reference Grammar; German Quickly
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

SmotritelTerve
Posts:19
Joined:2013-11-23, 9:59
Real Name:Alex
Country:RURussia (Российская Федерация)

Re: Russian for Reading books?

Postby SmotritelTerve » 2013-11-23, 10:26

I would recommend Iliya Frank's method: http://www.franklang.ru/
There are some bilingual books available on his site and you can google other ones.

Mrwhoohoo
Posts:1
Joined:2020-02-15, 20:23

Re: Russian for Reading books?

Postby Mrwhoohoo » 2020-02-15, 21:25

1. E Vasilenko and E Lamm Learning to Read Russian (Russky Yazyk, Moscow, 1986 and other years) 440pp
(WARNING: DO NOT confuse this with the same authors' similar sounding Russian on your own: Learning to read Russian 308pp)

You can find copies of this on the usual internet bookshop aggregation sites This is a Soviet era self-instructional course. Although completely focused on acquiring skills in reading the language, there are accompanying tapes (which I have uploaded to archive.org) which are used early on to teach pronunciation.
Unlike the Soviet texts of an earlier period, which were printed on poor quality paper and looked very dull, this is in a different class altogether: printed on glossy paper with plenty of colour photographs, drawings, cartoons, crosswords, it is a an attractive and enjoyable text. Divided into 40 Chapters distributed amongst 7 Units. Unit I is devoted to teaching the alphabet, script, pronunciation and basic sentence structure. The succeeding Units develop the grammar, with plenty of exercises, and practice texts of increasing length and sophistication. There are answers to some exercises given at the back of the book, together with physical and political maps of the USSR, together with a 2,500 word Russian-English vocabulary.
I'm not professionally equipped to evaluate the level properly, but I guess it takes you to about B1-B2 on the CEFR levels.

2. Patricia M. Arant Russian for Reading (Slavica Publishers, Columbus Ohio, 1981) 214pp
This is the only other textbook purely for learning to read Russian that I am aware of. Designed for classroom use, rather tha self-instruction, it is a much more spartan product than the Soviet text. Alphabet, script, pronunciation etc are dealt with in a brisk 12 page Introduction, which sets the pace for the rest of the book. Twelve lessons, 800 word vocabulary. A useful supplement to the above, but difficult to use as a self-instruction text.


Return to “Russian (Русский)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests