Russian: Learn to Speak and Understand Russian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Express)

Pimsleur is simply the best most useful way to learn a language. It's practical, actually fun, challenging and effective at getting you SPEAKING a language instead of staring at a page trying to memorize rules and vocabulary.

The need to react quickly and the variety of things they throw at you really cement the knowledge and make it instinctive and not just intellectual. It's not cheap, but there is no other substitute out there that comes close to this.

You will need a good book in addition to help formally learn grammar rules and you'll need to learn more vocabulary than you can on an audio program, but when it comes to hitting the ground running and internalizing a language, Pimsleur is the way to go. SIX STARS.

It is a good product for acquiring pronunciation skills, but it would have been better if the supplied manual had included at least the Russian texts of the dialogues. If you are trying to learn Russian on your own, you will need at least a grammar text, a dictionary and perhaps a verb conjugation text. I find it easier if I can visualise the written Russian while trying to speak it.

When you learned your native language, what was the most effective grammar lesson? For most people, it had nothing to do with memorizing rules, reading grammar texts, and surviving grammar lectures. You learn the most grammar by repeatedly HEARING grammatically correct sentences. By the time you were old enough to read, you already instinctively understood most of the grammar rules you would now be taught in school.

That is why the Pimsleur method is the cornerstone of my Russian study program. Memorizing a grammar book is not my idea of a fun Saturday. However, listening to these Russians and being taught how to construct grammatically correct sentences without memorizing the rules is a fantastic way to begin learning a languange.

In addition, these CD's will train your ear to comprehend Russian words and accents. No book can train you in this way. To properly and thoroughly learn a language, you need to verbalize it, visualize it, and hear it. Pimsleur's CD's and booklet will give you the fundamentals to do all three from day one, and will continue to develop your skills to a respectable level.

My Listmania contains all the resources I have used or are currently using to learn Russian. There are several valuable resources out there. I believe Pimsleur is the most valuable, and it remains the guiding force of my Russian program.

Pimsleur courses are the best way to start learning a language because they teach you useful stuff from the beginning, thus keeping you motivated to learn more. Sure, they are not enough to achieve real fluency, but neither is a grammar book without audio, especially when it comes to Russian, which is a rather difficult language to pronounce correctly. Besides, unless you are exceptionally self-disciplined, learning just from a textbook is very boring, in fact too boring for most, which means you will quit altogether. As to the price, I will only say it need not necessarily be expensive.

As to the suggestion made by someone that renting subtitled movies is a better choice than a good audio course, I must say that is the worst language-learning advice that has ever grated my ears. As someone who understands several foreign languages (French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), I can tell you that subtitles rarely correspond exactly to the actual dialogue, but are instead abbreviated versions of it, usually also cleansed of profanity, etc. Besides, when you hear a whole sentence in an unfamiliar language, it's impossible to make heads or tails of it: you can't tell what is a verb, a noun, etc. Neither will you realize it when a speaker uses non-standard pronunciation or grammar because of a lack of education or regional accent. And you won't even hear the phonemes (sounds) of the language correctly unless you first get your ears used to them, and it's much easier to do that through a specially designed medium, such as a Pimsleur course, than through material designed for native (or at least fluent) speakers, such as a movie.

Bottomline: you need an audio course to properly learn a foreign language and Pimsleur is the best. Get it!

This is my third Pimisleur language. Great program. But cd case now has
a problem. The cd case for the 30 lesson editions were designed for the
user guide booklet and reading booklet to hold the cds in place. (My
earlier purchased language sets with this arrangement work great and do
not have a problem.) The publisher has changed the guide booklet to a
fold out. With this simple change they created a major problem for
protecting the cds. Now the first half of the cds will not stay in place. The
second half of the cds was designed to use clear plastic stays. They
work great. The first half of the cds will NOT stay in place and do fall
out. The act of carrying the case across the room will have the cds
sliding inside the case. Great care must be used opening the case or the
cds roll across the floor. Pimsleur will replace a damaged cd. The
plastic stay will not work on the front half of the set, only the back half.
They have no solution for the disks falling out. They suggested I buy a
cd case and move my cds into that case. My suggestion to them is they
fix the problem. I paid for a set that now has improper working storing
case.

5 star spoken language program. 1 star for case problem.

Any suggestion on how to hold the cds in the publisher's case is
welcome.