Le Fleming Svetlana, Kay Susan E. Colloquial Russian: The Complete Course for Beginners

Second edition. — Routledge, 1998. — vi, 310 pages. — ISBN: 0-415-16140-1.Colloquial Russian is intended for students working on their own or with a teacher. It covers the situations, vocabulary and grammar required to take students up to GCSE level and in the later chapters it also includes some of the additional structures required at a more advanced level, e.g. participles and gerunds.Each lesson begins with a text followed by a dialogue. These introduce all the new structures and vocabulary dealt with in that lesson so it is essential to tackle them first, with the help of the vocabulary lists which follow the dialogue. Each lesson, as well as introducing new grammatical structures, also has a theme and will teach the student how to deal with a particular situation or situations in Russian. Only the new vocabulary is explained in each lesson. There is a cumulative Russian English vocabulary at the back of the book but it is important to try to master the vocabulary for each chapter before moving on to the next. The English-Russian vocabulary does not contain all the words used in the book. It is intended primarily for use with the English-Russian
translation and improvisation exercises.After the dialogue there are communicative and situation-based exercises which give practice in using and understanding the new vocabulary: multiple choice questions, questions on the text, related questions directed at the student and role play. Additional short pieces are associated with the theme of the chapter, such as forms to complete, advertisements, a map, a timetable, a menu, etc. and vocabulary-building exercises. This section is particularly useful for students working towards GCSE and teachers will find plenty of material for oral and group work. Similarly, the Russian realia section, which is new to this edition, should provide invaluable practice for GCSE reading exercises. Unlike the other material in the book, this is not specially written for beginners but is drawn straight from Russian everyday life. You will not find every single word and expression used in these extracts explained in the book. Only the minimum of key words is given. Treat this as a real-life exercise. Do no expect to understand every word, just enough to be able to work out the answers to the questions.Next in each lesson is a grammar section in which the new structures introduced in that lesson are explained. Explanations are strictly related to the material in the lesson and are, therefore, not exhaustive: they do not, for example, cover exceptions which do not appear in the book. It will probably be helpful to glance forward to these explanations when translating the text and dialogue and then work through the section more methodically before attempting the grammar exercises which follow. Finally, there is an English-Russian translation devised to test both vocabulary and structures encountered in the lesson. There is a key to both grammar and translation exercises in the back of the book so that students working on their own can monitor their progress.At the end of the book is a Grammar summary. This presents the main grammatical forms dealt with in the book in tables for easy reference. Also for reference at the back of the book is a two-way vocabulary and an index to the grammatical points covered in each lesson.