Duel language books provide a gift of reading for Russian friends

books:


	• Russian Stories: A Dual-Language Book Dover Publications, 1990 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The perfect language learning tool.

That's what this is, the perfect language learning tool for a student of the russian language, with one or two years of college level russian who wants to continue their study of the language. I would be surprised if universities did not use this text for intermediate level students. The only thing more that I could wish for would be an audio version of this book, which would help me to consolidate, and strengthen the knowledge it gave me, by allowing me to listen to the stories it contains in Russian, as well as being able to read them.

Read classics, learn Russian

This dual-language book features twelve shortstories by 19th-century masters of Russian literature. The pages are specially formatted with Russian Cyrillic on the left opposed by English translation on the right. The Russian and English texts match eachother nearly line-for-line, simplifying cross-reference. Here is an entertaining way to enrich vocabulary and perfect syntax, for the intermediate to advanced student who already has the basics of grammar. The editor chose some great examples of Russian writing, including Pushkin's haunting "Stationmaster", Gogol's grotesque "Nose", and Dostoevski's macabre graveyard drama "Bobok". Only one thing detracts from the book's usefulness as a learning tool, which is that many of the phrases and expressions are somewhat archaic. There are several dual-language compilations of contemporary (Soviet) shortstories available, for those who prefer to familiarize themselves with more modern language usage.

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First Rate

With stories by Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol and Chekov this is a great book to help you improve your Russian skills and read the masterworks in the original. It's a great way to check your Russian against the English tranlsation on the opposite page.

The book itself has been around for several years and while it is a bit expensive for what you get used editions are fairly common. My only real criticism is that this is one of the few dual readers available in the US on the Russian language. Hopefully the publishers will remedy this by printing another volume. A real must for Russian language students.

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Duel language books provide a gift of reading for Russian friends

This book is a wonderful rare find. I am a friend/neighbor of highly educated recent Russian immigrants with limited expertise in English. Although they are taking English classes, it is almost impossible for them to find interesting books to read in English beyond those of a childrens book reading level. Having to use a Russian/English dictionary while reading eliminates a lot of the simple pleasures that reading provides. This book's dual language format is absolutely perfect. They can finally enjoy a book written in English that reflects their reading interests due to the fact that the exact Russian version resides on the opposing page. This dual language format is also an absolutely perfect tool for English students learning the Russian language. It gave me so much pleasure to provide them with this opportunity to both practice and better enjoy reading books in English. I only wish that there were a lot more books available in this style for my friends to enjoy....

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Enjoyable But...

I bought this book as part of my ongoing acquisition of the Russian language. The layout is excellent and typical of these types of book; the stories are well selected and entertaining, with a wide range of vocabulary and grammatical usage.

But...

Anyone wanting to use this book as a booster to their contemporary Russian language skills should bear in mind that a Russian person learning English would not be best served by heading for the library and taking down Dickens, Tennyson, and Gaskill. Languages shift, change, and evolve and today's spoken Russian is as different from that of Gogol as English in San Francisco is different from that of Thackerey. Arguably the English spoken in San Francisco is fairly nasty ("He was like, that was so totally awsome, and I was like, cool...") because it is imprecise and unfocused and in fact fails to convey much meaning; nevertheless a solid grounding in Henry James wouldn't prepare someone for a close encounter with the local natives of the Sunset District. Likewise, the stories here won't really help you much with contemporary Russian as spoken by a teenage girl in Peter or a xenophobic hoodie near Red Square.

But as a pleasure in itself, this book is a gem and a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone who is just establishing a beach-head in the language.

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