Annotation
Овсиенко Ю. Г. Русский язык для начинающих: Учебник (для говорящих на английском языке).
- 11-е изд., испр. - М.: Рус. яз., 2004. - 472 с.
ISBN 5-200-03247-4
Учебник адресован взрослой аудитории и предназначен для всех, кто начинает учить русский язык. Он может быть использован как в работе с преподавателем, так и для самостоятельных занятий.
Будучи компактным, учебник достаточно информативен: он содержит основные сведения о фонетических и грамматических законах русского языка, краткие сведения о речевом этикете, картинный словарь, обобщающие грамматические таблицы, ключ к упражнениям.
Текстовый материал учебника знакомит учащихся с культурой и историей страны и дает возможность для развития диалогической и монологической речи.
Подбор и организация учебного материала, коммуникативная направленность его представления и закрепления служат основной цели: практическому овладению языком как средством общения.
This is an elementary Russian course intended for adult beginners in Russian (senior secondary-school pupils, college and university students, and others). It can be studied both with and without a teacher. To make it suitable for unaided study, the theoretical explanations, the notes on Russian history, geography and culture, and the instructions for the exercises are given in English. For the same purpose the course is supplied with a key to the exercises.
The course aims at helping the student acquire a working knowledge of Russian so that he could: communicate with Russians on topics covered by the situations dealt with in the course; express his thoughts in Russian on the basis of the grammar and vocabulary studied; understand aurally, read and retell simple texts, conveying in Russian his attitude towards what he has read or heard; read with a dictionary and translate more difficult texts and prepare oral or written reports on given topic.
Thus the course gives the student a thorough knowledge of the fundamentals of Russian. On completing it the student, if he so desires, will be able to continue an unaided deeper study of the language.
The Structure of the Course
The book consists of the following sections: 1. A shot phonetics course. 2. A pictorial dictionary introducing concrete vocabulary grouped thematically. 3. The main part consisting of 33 units. 4. Russian conventional speech clich?s. 5. A key to the exercises. 6. A general alphabetic Russian-English vocabulary.
The brief phonetics course gives information the main rules of Russian phonetics (sounds and letters, pronunciation of Russian sounds, stress and reduction of sounds, soft and hard consonants, and the main types of intonational constructions).
The pictorial dictionary introduces the most common of the concrete words, grouped thematically. Its purpose is to explain that part of the concrete vocabulary which, while belonging to the main active Russian word stock, has a low frequency in speech and writing. It is precisely the low frequency of these words in the texts that calls for their visual presentation.
The contents of the course are presented in two parts: Part I contains 19 units (1 to 19), and Part II 14 units (20 to 33). Each part is concluded by summing-up grammatical tables. The 33 units of the parts give all the necessary information on Russian grammar. They deal with the following fundamental themes: declension of nouns, adjectives and pronouns in the singular and plural; verb conjugation; verbal aspects; verbs of motion; the main methods of expressing location, direction and time; the main types of simple and complex sentences; the conditional mood; direct and indirect (reported) speech; the participle and the verbal adverb; etc.
The section "Russian Conventional Speech Clich?s" sums up and supplements the relevant material contained in the units of the course.
The vocabulary of the course has been selected on the basis of a comprehensive statistical analysis of the Russian word stock and includes the most frequently used words and phrases. It contains about 2000 words and phrases in all.
The Structure of the Units
The contents of the phonetics section are arranged thematically and not in accordance with the units. They can be divided into four main subsections, each of which is concluded by one of the intonational constructions and a short text.
The phonetics course is followed by some spelling rules. Only those letters are dealt with which may prove difficult for English-speaking students to master.
The units of the course are arranged as follows: 1. Preparation (conventional formulas, set phrases, clich?s, and words and expressions occurring in the texts). 2. A text and a dialogue (or dialogues), based on definite lexical and grammatical themes dealt with in the unit concerned. 3. Notes on Russian history, geography and culture relevant to the text and the dialogue. 4. Grammatical notes, preceded by speech patterns (syntactical models), and grammatical tables. 5. Exercises of the following types; observation exercises, substitution exercises, situational exercises (based on visual presentation or speech stimulus), exercises in translation, and communicative exercises to be done either orally with a teacher or to be recorded on tape. The study of a unit should be concluded by doing the "assignments on the text". This system of exercises is aimed at a gradual development of the student's speaking skills and habits.
In presenting and consolidating the grammar and vocabulary the functional approach is consistently followed (presentation of the contents in speech patterns and model sentences, the communicative slant of the exercises, creative assignments on the texts, etc.).
In addition each unit includes supplementary material for the student's unaided study: texts based on Russian history, geography and culture, and thematically relevant proverbs, sayings, extracts from poetry, and songs. This serves a dual purpose; while broadening the cognitive range of the course, it also provides material for the development of the student's dialogical speech (conversation, discussion) and his monological (oral and written) speech as well.
The texts given in the "Read with Dictionary" section are supplied with lexical notes and notes of historical and cultural interest. In boxes structures that may prove difficult for the student to grasp are given (with their English equivalents).
The units contain material for active and passive assimilation (the latter is marked with a special symbol - (P) ). Part of the material introduced in the first units as passive is activised in the subsequent units.
The more complicated types of assignments on the texts (proverbs, sayings, execerpts from poetry, etc.) are to be done after the completion of the main studies. This material, marked with a special symbol - (S) makes it possible to slant the course to the student's level: students who do all the main exercises without difficulty may be given additional tasks for unaided creative work.
The "Key to the Exercises" is given in order to enable the student make sure whether he has done his exercises correctly. This part of the course is particularly important for those studying the course outside the Russian language environment.
Thematically this course is based on socio-cultural material and includes information on Russian history and geography. In addition to a purely pragmatic purpose, the illustrative material aims at broadening the student's knowledge of Russian culture.
The choice of the material and its arrangement have been determined by the principal goal of the course - giving the student a working knowledge of Russian.
