Russian Short Stories for Beginners + Audio Download: Improve your reading and listening skills in Russian (Learn Russian With Audio Book 1) Kindle Edition

OK, admittedly these stories may not be captivating or mind-blowing, but they cover exactly what a beginner needs to know to be able to communicate - daily routines, food, transportation, etc. Beginners need practical vocabulary to express their immediate wants and needs, and this book delivers. Although I haven't gotten through all the audio, I want to point out that sometimes the gender of the reader doesn't match the gender of the character in the story. For example, in the first story, a male reader is speaking in the first person about a woman named Sarah, and when he reads things that Sarah supposedly says, he reads the feminine form in sentences where it is appropriate, although just from the sound of the voice saying those things, you would expect it to be a male character using the masculine form. So it's just a bit odd to hear a male saying the feminine form of "I am not hungry." But the book still deserves 5 stars!

I bought this book to practice reading. From the very first story there are complicated Russian words with three consecutive consonants that are not for beginners. Also, e and ë are both written as e which is very confusing for non-native speakers. This book promises to help with pronunciation but it does not show where the accent goes which makes it difficult to know how to pronounce words; the accent makes a huge difference! There is no explanation to grammar structures, only an English translation of the Russian sentence. This book assumes one already knows cardinal numbers because they are not spelled out and the font used makes it confusing- is this the number 3 or is this the Russian letter 3 (english Z sound)? I am keeping the book because I've written allover it already and I have a Russian professor guiding my reading but I do not recommend this book for any beginners. If you aren't dismayed and still wish to learn Russian, Essential Russian Grammar by Brian Kemple is a great book I found for English speakers.

Great start for beginners! I have never studied the language formally, but found this book easy to follow, which made it easy to pick up on the pronounciation and vocabulary. I must admit I have already studied Serbian, which does help read the Cyrillic alphabet. But, overall this book would be great for beginners and intermediate learners as it does incorporate a lot of vocabulary, which would also be great for an intermediate-student to review. The incorporation of English translations below each Russian section, makes it easy to understand each part you are reading as you listen to the audio. Highly Recommend!

I have a friend from Mexico, she is fluent in English and Spanish and now she is learning Russian language. I must say her Russian is pretty good for a beginner. She has been to Russia for the Olympics. Anyways, long story short, she was visiting me a few weeks ago, right before New Years and I wanted to buy her something, and as we all know book is the best gift so I bought her, "Russian Short Stories for beginners". Because when I looked at the book what I liked the most was the summary and quiz after each chapter, I think the best way to learn a language is to read and then check yourself if you understand it correctly. My friend absolutely loved it.

The audio isn't very good. Its choppy and hard to understand. Its not how Russian speakers actually sound. If you're getting this for the audio, I'd recommend you try something else.

It's like Pimsleur on steroids -- very long audio sections followed by interpretation. Good production value, clear diction, just not for beginners. Intermediate to advanced.

Not really suitable for beginners. Excellent book if you are at the intermediate stages of Russian language learning

A very good book to relearn to read Russian.

Very useful tool for picking up basics plus foundation vocabulary and grammar. Audio of stories by native speaker is a nice addition. Far less painful and more intuitive way to learn grammar than step by step explanations. More suited towards intermediate beginner with total grasp of cyrillic as opposed to total beginner.