The New Penguin Russian Course

By (author) Nicholas J. Brown; By (author) Brown Nicholas J.
Short description/annotation
Features a Russian language course for beginners. This book is designed to provide the student with an excellent command of basic Russian (the equivalent of A level standard). It features thirty lessons punctuated by revision exercises. It places an emphasis on acquiring vocabulary, experiencing conversational language and learning useful grammar.
Description
Whether you’re learning alone or attending classes, you’ll find this complete Russian language course for beginners both accessible and indispensable. Designed to provide the student with an excellent command of basic Russian (the equivalent of A’ level standard) the book features thirty lessons punctuated by revision exercises to ensure you have fully understood what you have learned. The emphasis is on acquiring vocabulary, experiencing conversational language and learning useful grammar. The book also includes a vocabulary of 1,500 words and a glossary of grammatical terms.
Table of contents
The New Penguin Russian CourseIntroduction
Acknowledgments
1. Learning to Read Russian
Alphabet and Pronunciation; Transliteration; Street Signs

2. Russian Handwriting; More on Pronunciation

3. Everyday Phrases; Basic Grammar
Naming Things; Basic Grammar; Gender; Map of Russia

4. Doing Things - Verbs; Personal Pronouns
Present Tense; Conjugations; Word Stress; Nouns and Cases; Conversation in the Metro

5. Asking Questions; The Prepositional Case
Indeclinable Nouns; Dialogues

6. Possession; Going Places; The Accusative Case
Russian Personal Names; Dialogues

7. Describing Things: Adjectives
Masculine, Feminine and Neuter Adjectives; "What kind of...?"; "This" and "That"; Prepositional and Accusative Cases of Adjectives; Adverbs; Moscow Street Map

8. Plurals; Spelling Rules; Buying Things
Spelling Rule 1; "Is There...?"; Spelling Rule 2; Map of Europe

9. Numbers; The Genitive Case
1-5,000; Genitive Singular and Plural; Quantities; Roubles and Dollars; Buying Things; Street Market

10. "To Have"; More on the Genitive
Genitive Pronouns; "There Isn''t"; Prepositions Taking the Genitive; Genitive of Adjectives; "Whether"; Dialogues

11. The Past; Reflexive Verbs
The Founding of St. Petersburg

12. The Future; Aspect; The Dative Case
Imperfective and Perfective; "To Want"; Dative; "To Give"; "To Please"; Spelling Rules 3 and 4; Prepositional Plural; In the Restaurant; Visiting Friends

13. Aspect in the Past; Use of Tenses
Aspect of the Infinitive; Reported Speech; More about "Whether"; Dialogue

14. Aspect in the Future; Impersonal Constructions
Dialogue

15. Requests and the Imperative
Summary of Aspect Use; Two Lost Tourists; Phoning a Bureaucrat

16. The Instrumental Case
TOT and TÓT; Declension of Surnames; A Family at Home; Volodia and the KGB

17. Time, Date, Age; Ordinal Numbers
Months; Years; The Daily Life of Chaikovskii (Tchaikovsky)

18. The Comparative; Superlatives; Relative Clauses with
("Who," "Which"); Victor Wants to Meet Mary; Siberian Superlatives; Map of Siberia

19. The Conditional; Obligation; Prefixes
Mary Seeks an Absent-Minded Professor

20. Verbs of Motion: Going, Running, Bringing
Travelling Around; Tania in Motion

21. Possession; Purpose
Mr. Thornwaite Doesn''t Like His Hotel; Was Turgenev a Revolutionary?

22. Fun with Numbers
Declension of Numbers; "Both"; Collective Numerals; Fractions; Soviet Divorce Statistics

23. Time Expressions
"When?"; "How Long?"; Vadim and Eva; Mr. Kuznetsov and Mr. Pope

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