Russian I, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Russian with Pimsleur Language Programs [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

The Pimsleur method strives to condition your mind first with the comprehension of words and phrases spoken by native speakers and to allow you to quickly form a response without puzzling over complex grammar rules. Secondly it strives to enable your spoken words to be pronounced correctly with the correct inflection.

The concept is that most conversations in any language consist of only a few hundred words and that most people speak using common phrases or word groupings. If you learn the overall meaning of a phrase, or word grouping, you are able to comprehend what is being said even when the words seem to run together and preemptively anticipate a response. This contributes to a greater fluency of the language and provides an excellent foundation to build on.

If your goal is to be able to converse in Russian this program is for you as long as your expectations are realistic. At the end of the programs I, II and III, if you are diligent, you should have a good foundation of spoken Russian on which to increase your fluency. What is more important is that you will have a good "feel" for the language and chances are you will get compliments on your accent.

Some of the complaints in other reviews are that there is no printed lesson book that comes with the program to teach how to read Cyrillic Russian and that the accent of the male speaker is difficult to understand. If you wish to learn to read Russian as well it would be necessary to supplement this course with another more traditional course that emphasizes reading skills. Pimsleur does not claim to fill this need but rather focuses on being able to converse. As far as the male speaker goes, I have encountered more people on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg who speak with his accent than the female speaker's accent. In addition it is my impression that there is more than one male and more than one female speaker. There seems to be an attempt to familiarize the student with more than one accent and thus increase fluency. This is more of an advantage rather than a weakness.

As a language teacher, I would rate Pimsleur Russian I as an excellent product. Though expensive, it teaches accurate pronunciation, correct intonation (something generally not taught, or not taught well, in many conventional textbooks). Pimsleur's method of repetition and reintroduction is effective and generally successful at keeping one's attention. I agree, however, with a number of criticisms. One of its "strengths" is not introducing too much vocabulary at once. The downside is that there is probably less vocabulary introduced than many could wish. I have not seen Levels II and III, so there may be significant compensation there, but despite Pimsleur's correct observation that core vocabulary can account for the lion's share of our communication, someone wanting to become really proficient in Russian will need much for vocabulary acquisition than Pimsleur provides. Like others, I found Pimsleur works best in conjunction with a good dictionary and Russian grammar. There is no reason why an adult should not take advantage of language-learning helps ordinarily unavailable to a child. I also find that, for visual learners, being able to "see" the Russian words in your mind can be a big help. Although Pimsleur does not advocate this, having such materials makes it much easier for me. It also clarifies some points which would remain obscure unless you learn to read and write the Russian as well (e.g., the different spelling but identical pronunciation for the nominative and genitive singular forms of nouns like "pivo" beer). Also, while learning to speak Russian may be your goal, it seems hardly ideal to be functionally illiterate, so learning to read and write Russian will normally have to be tackled eventually anyway. If begun more or less at the beginning of the Pimsleur course, or a little way into it, it could actually improve your learning even the spoken language (my experience, anyway). In all, Pimsleur Russian is a very good product but best combined with a reasonably good textbook. I think my only real caveat is that you need to take some of the claims for "achieving proficiency" as relative and not confuse proficiency with fluency. Pimsleur is a good beginning, but real mastery of Russian will require much more work. Ideally, it would be nice to see a Pimsleur "Intensive Russian I, II, and III" which tackled some of these weaknesses. It would pay to have some idea about what degree of competence you would realistically like to attain. For getting around as a tourist, I think the program is excellent, but you won't be reading Tolstoy.

No one in these reviews has touched on the questionable grammar introduced in these tapes... Perhaps these people have not gone on or tried to put their Russian into practice (indeed it is unlikely that someone they don't know will try to correct them on a trip), but I have continually had to 'relearn' certain mistakes in these tapes which were riddled throughout the series. This ranges from things which I have been told are 'unnatural' in conversation to downright ungrammatical. However either should be considered unacceptable, as in an AUDIO course with emphasis on speaking, I would expect emphasis to be on natural, conversational Russian.

Also, many subjects of grammar are 'danced over', and never fully explained grammatically...I realize length of time prohibits this, but I as someone interested in grammar, I would have found it easier for a quick explanation, such as a word is in 'accusitive' form, rather than have them make up some 'layman's' explanation that I have to try to interpret, only to find out ultimately the concept was quite simple.

All in all, this series is a WONDERFUL way to learn language...my attention was always kept and after completing just halfway through the second series, I already feel that I can convey some very simple things with my Russian...

...the only problem is that it's not entirely CORRECT Russian...