I purchased quite a few russian courses being determined to learn it. This includes the penguin course, the CD based courses by both rachel farmer and the one by daphne west, and this one. Of the CD based courses, so far I like this one the best.
I must say that I have really enjoyed this course to date. I have not completed it yet, but it is a great way to build one's russian vocabulary to the point where you could converse and get around in russia. The included manual contains the english and the russian cyrillic which I find helpful so as to see how the words are spelled in russian.
At least in the early lessons, there is not much addressing proper grammar, as russian grammar is different than english, but I think that this is addressed to some extent in the later lessons. I am using the penguin text as well to supplement this and they do complement each other well.
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Reviews with images
A good, solid addition to the study program for students of the Russian language.
The basic premise of Learn In Your Car Russian (LIYCR) is to have an audio-based learning program which does not require book study, so it can easily fit into people's daily schedules while they engage in other activities. There are 9 hours of audio teaching 600+words for the entire course.Level One is heavily oriented towards the traveler, and addresses important issues such as, transportation, money, hotels, finding your way around town, numbers, restaurants, shopping, time, schedules.Levels Two and Three go beyond survival words and phrases, increasing vocabulary and developing core grammar skills.STRENGTHSI've been to Russia about 15 times , and can state that LIYCR teaches very useful vocabulary and expressions for a person who is actually going to put their feet on the ground in RussiaThis is one of the few beginning study courses which does not shy away from the difficulties of Russian grammar for the English speaker. It gives practice in all tenses for verbs and all 6 Russian grammar cases for nouns. Also, this is one of the best courses I've seen for using a restricted vocabulary in almost all available grammar permutations, making it very good at showing how to form natural Russian sentences.WEAKNESSESThere are few conversational dialogs and no real story lines, so there's nothing here to particularly capture a person's interest. It definitely takes some fortitude and motivation to go through these rather dry lessons.For the absolute beginner, LIYCR is rather rough. There isn't very much repetition (unlike Pimsleur Russian), and the pace is very rapid fire. The result is that acquiring the presented vocabulary of 600+ words from the audio alone is difficult. As suggested by another reviewer, augmenting your studies with flash cards is very beneficial.LIYCR does have a small booklet with the Russian alphabet, pronunciation guide, and transcripts with translations of the spoken dialogs. However, it is really beyond the scope of the booklet to teach a person how to read Russian.This leads to my major criticism of LIYCR - if you are a total beginner and couldn't understand something from the audio (highly likely), the booklet doesn't offer much help since you can't read Russian either. Although the course's stated objective is to be a completely audio based program, it IS necessary to refer to a booklet, and the course does not prepare you to read the booklet.WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM "LEARN IN YOUR CAR RUSSIAN"?For students with some prior knowledge of Russian, this is a good addition to your study program. For what you get, the value is quite good. However, it is not a stand-alone course, and you will need other study materials. It really shines at developing intermediate grammar skills and providing a practical vocabulary for the traveler.Although I have studied for years, I still use LIYCR (mostly levels 2 and 3). It's great practice for pronunciation and reviewing fundamental grammar skills used in everyday speech. I've had numerous compliments from surprised Russians that I don't have a foreign accent and that I seldom make the usual grammar mistakes of an English speaker. I credit LIYCR for much of this (Pimsleur Russian being the other main contributor).WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BUY THIS?For a one time traveler to Russia, even Level One LIYCR is probably more than you want to invest time wise. Buy something such as the book "Russian in 10 Minutes A Day" to learn how to read maps and signs in the Russian alphabet, plus a phrase book/audio CD.For an absolute beginner who is seriously interested in learning Russian and wants a completely audio-based program that truly lives up to it's claims (i.e. doesn't need a book or other 3rd-party study materials), I recommend just going straight to Pimsleur Russian, and coming back to this afterwards. The 2 courses complement each other well, and Learn In Your Car Russian is more appropriate for someone with some prior knowledge of Russian.
