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ADVICE FOR PEOPLE LEARNING RUSSIAN
Click here if you already have a teacher
Click here if you are not a beginner
If you are a beginner and you are going to be working on your own without a teacher, your first choice is the Ruslan 1 CDRom, which is a complete version of the Ruslan 1 course for Windows PCs. You can click on everything to hear it, and right click for a translation or an explanation. There are nearly 300 interactive exercises which allow you to do on your own many of the things that you would normally expect to do with a teacher in the classroom. It starts from zero Russian with an Alphabet Introduction, followed by all 10 lessons of the Ruslan 1 course. About 120 hours work.
Additionally you may want to have a copy of the Ruslan 1 book, to read in the bus or the garden, to take to Russia with you, etc. There is nothing in the book that is not on the CDRom (though there are exercises on the CDRom that are not in the book).
You may want to listen to the course dialogues away from your PC: in the car, or with a Walkman etc. For this you need either the Ruslan 1 audio CD. This is sold in a pack with the book, or separately in a jewel case.
If you want to write in Russian and if you want to concentrate on the grammar of the language, you will find the Ruslan 1 Workbook a useful extra. It comes with a free audio CD for additional listening practice.
The Ruslan 1 Reader gives you additional reading texts, translation exercises from English to Russian for reinforcement, and some additional songs and poems for learners, to help you remember structures and vocabulary. It comes with an audio CD with recordings of all the texts, songs and poems.
Some people like to have a set of Russian vocabulary "Linguistickers" to put around the house and turn their home into a living dictionary. Very useful if you have Russian visitors and want to speak Russian with them! And good reinforcement of the Russian alphabet.
If you already know some Russian and you will be working on your own without a teacher,
a CDRom is still the first option, but you need to choose between the different levels that are available. As a rough guide, the Ruslan 1 CDRom is equivalent to a full year of adult evening classes, or about 60 hours classroom tuition plus homeworks, so if you have been learning Russian for at least a year with some success you need to look first at the Ruslan 2 CDRom , which continues the work in Ruslan 1, and takes people to a very good intermediate or GCSE level. You may also want the Ruslan 2 book and audio CD for backup. Please check examples of the Ruslan 2 CDRom in other sections of this site to determine whether this is the correct level for you. If Ruslan 2 is too difficult for you, you need Ruslan 1. If it is too easy for you, please have a look at Ruslan 3. You can download the whole of the first lessons of all the Ruslan levels from the demos page.
You may be interested in additional CDRom materials:
There is a series of Ruslan Advanced CDRoms, suitable for AS and A2 level and above. These use the same template as other Ruslan CDRoms, with full interactivity.
The "Russian Language Routines" CDRom gives you intensive practice of Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives and Vocabulary.
You may be interested in the Ruslan beginner / intermediate video "Moscow for You!" . 47 minutes of survival situations shot in Moscow in 1997.
The "Living Russian Grammar" book will give you very thorough grammatical support at beginner and intermediate level.
The "Ruslan Russian Songbook with CD" contains 24 popular and folk songs for learners with texts, vocabularies, translations, and excellent recordings.
When you have decided what you need, please use the Orders page to confirm your order.
If you will be working with a teacher, my advice would be to wait until your first meeting before you decide what materials to purchase. However, whether or not your teacher wants to work with the Ruslan course, you may well still want to use the Ruslan CDRoms for additional practice between lessons. The alphabet introduction is particularly useful in the early stages.
If you want to find a class please look at the list on this site. If you want help finding a teacher in the UK, please send me an email or please telephone. I keep a list of teachers who give both group and individual tuition.
John Langran
February 2009
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