Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Script

Okay, I had no knowledge of Russian script when I started this book. In four days, I was reading PRINTED Cyrillic 100%. Only four days and I could read Russian print. I spent four more days on only the practice of Russian hand-written script. Then I worked through the rest of the book in a little over a week. At that point I could read written Russian pretty well. Maybe 80%. There are some letters that are very close in appearance and a bit of variation in how some are written/connected -- you'll see what I mean. So it will be a while before I'm acing it. But after spending about 30 minutes a day for about two weeks, I'm reading all kinds of Russian. It's like a big door has been opened.

I found this book just right for learning the Russian script. It is taken in gradual steps with lots of cognates so you don't get bogged down with vocabulary learning. The book keeps your interest using many tips on Russian life and introducing pertinent (practical) words which will be useful on any visit to the country. Also examples of ads, tickets, announcements, etc. to give you a real life idea of how the script is used. I didn"t give it five stars because it does not tell you how to form the letters of the handwriting and you will have to look closely at the examples to find out which letters are higher than the others and which go below the line. Would recommend this along with a basic Pimsleur audio course before tackling a grammar.

This might be fine for someone who wanted practice in reading the Russian alphabet. However, I made the mistake of taking the title literally. I can read (or at least sound out) Russian books, but I have trouble reading or writing cursive Russian, which often looks quite different from the printed font. There is hardly any material on handwriting the language.

Excellent starter book to learn from.. Have used more than anything else to learn to speak short conversations with older russian patients. Able to communicate much more than I thought. The only thing that I can sayy negative about book is that I wish the print was a little bigger, as, I have poor sight and the print is kind of small. Great content!!!!!

I am taking a beginning Russian class and have found this book to be very helpful in preparing me for the initial classes. I would have been lost without it.

The Russian alphabet can be offputting however, after only a couple of days with this text, I was able to read in Russian and often even understood what I was reading. Of course, this book is only helpful if you spend time with it but that's not hard because it's well written and well organized. I highly recommend it.