Grammatika v kontekste: Russian Grammar in Literary Contexts

by Benjamin Rifkin

Release Date: 01 December, 1995

Edition: Paperback

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Good, but not Great.

We used this textbook, along with the tape cassettes and the workbook in my Intermediate Russian class last year. I'll give it credit that it was comprehensive in that it approached the language very traditionally with reading, speaking, phonetics, grammar, intonation, etc.

However, I found the grammar explanations left something to be desired--and were often left unexplained. My professor made several adjustments to the book when she noted things like incorrect prefixes or incorrect verb usage.

The "context" in which we were supposed to find this grammar was often obscure and irrelevant...mostly short poems and short stories that were largely translated in footnotes. The section on time expressions and verbs of motions were pretty much useless. The pre-listening/pre-reading exercies were just plain ridiculous. "Imagine that you were in a gulag. How might you feel?" and the like.

It wasn't bad, and I know there aren't a whole lot of options for second year texts, but this one isn't very good and I wouldn't really wish anyone else to suffer through a year of its drabness.