Teach yourself Russian (Teach yourself books)

Russian belongs to the Slavonic group of languages, which includes Bulgarian, Polish, Serbian and Czech.

This book was first printed in 1943. I’ve got the 1958 edition, whose Preface says something which wouldn’t fit our modern times: “qualified Russian teachers are still scarce in England”. And then you would have to consider the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. That surely had an impact on the Russian language presence in English territory.

Each lesson in this book has the following elements: Russian grammar, words for everyday use, lots of exercises using coloquial sentences, and extracts of poetry and prose. As for the outlook, I mean, the script, I agree with what many say: “how funny the Russian letters look, rather like ours upside down”.

Maximilian Fourman thinks Russian is “no harder than any other language”. His justification is as follows: since the language is virtually phonetic, its words are “comparatively easy to learn to pronounce”. Plus: “most of the letters can be pronounced in only one way”

Russian is also “amazingly uniform” [he meant in the vast expanse of the Soviet Republics], contrary to English with its variations, say, in London, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. And yet, like English, Russian has incorporated many words from Latin, Greek and other European languages.

Product Details

• Full PDF E-Book
• Title : Teach yourself Russian, (Teach yourself …
• Publisher : English Universities Press
• Publication Date : 1954
• Total Pages : 289 pages
• Download File Size : 15.1MB
• Secure Download with Google Drive