Russian Stories: A Dual-Language Book

Great value. I never progressed past beginner with Russian, and I still flip through this book from time to time. The stories are wonderful, so even just reading the English side is great. Exploring the footnotes can give you interesting little tidbits about culture, and it's actually kind of fun to compare differences in sentence structure between the two sides. The two versions are laid out well enough that you can quickly find the translation across the binding. If you want to test your comprehension (or maybe retention is a better word), there are short sets of quiz-like questions in the back for every story as well! They even included a short dictionary in the back of words that were not common enough to know off-hand, but used in the book. All around great purchase. Even if you are only armed with a recreational interest in Russian I think you could still get something out of this book (although maybe a straight English collection of the stories may be a little lighter), and not feel too bad about parting with the money for it. Really recommended!

Great book

This was a gift for an English speaking/reader. They are in the process of learning to speak & read Russian & it is serving them well.

I bought this book as part of my ongoing acquisition of the Russian language. The layout is excellent and typical of these types of book; the stories are well selected and entertaining, with a wide range of vocabulary and grammatical usage. But... Anyone wanting to use this book as a booster to their contemporary Russian language skills should bear in mind that a Russian person learning English would not be best served by heading for the library and taking down Dickens, Tennyson, and Gaskill. Languages shift, change, and evolve and today's spoken Russian is as different from that of Gogol as English in San Francisco is different from that of Thackerey. Arguably the English spoken in San Francisco is fairly nasty ("He was like, that was so totally awsome, and I was like, cool...") because it is imprecise and unfocused and in fact fails to convey much meaning; nevertheless a solid grounding in Henry James wouldn't prepare someone for a close encounter with the local natives of the Sunset District. Likewise, the stories here won't really help you much with contemporary Russian as spoken by a teenage girl in Peter or a xenophobic hoodie near Red Square. But as a pleasure in itself, this book is a gem and a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone who is just establishing a beach-head in the language.

This is a reprint of a book from a series of bilingual readers that that first came out under Bantam Publishers in the 1960's. It was out of print, then Dover did what it does best: It bought the rights to "Russian Stories" and made it available to a whole new generation of intermediate-to-advanced language learners. In line with the other books in the series, it presents the original text on the left side with a good translation into English on the right page. (One of its sister-books, "First German Reader," is how I initially made the jump from being a beginner to becoming eventually fluent in that language.) "Russian Stories" brings you selections from masters of Russian prose, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, as well as more recent authors. It even gives the reader advice on which order in which to read the stories, starting from the easiest and progressing to more difficult texts. If you want to read real Russian literature--not simplified versions or textbook anecdotes--this is the place to begin.

The book is Ok.

This dual-language book is a great way to learn Russian, provided that you have an intermediate or better knowledge of the language. The story selection is also excellent.

The dictionary of terms is helpful and the footnotes add rich context to the stories. The translations are almost word-for-word literal, just as promised. It's surprising how much structure and meaning is retained despite this. I won't be at a level where I can easily comprehend the Russian side soon, but it's nice to familiarize myself with the stories for now.

Trata-se de um ótimo livro para estudantes intermediários da língua russa. Possui o texto em russo ao lado da tradução integral em inglês. Além disso, as palavras em russo estão acentuadas para melhor enfatizar a sílaba tônica.

tempi rispettati, buona qualità e prezzo sodisfacente. tutto è risultato come da descrizione, e posso quindi consigliarlo come un buon acquisto.

Dover Dual Language books are a great resource for language learning. This one lives up to that reputation with twelve classic Russian short stories

I had bought this book for my Learning Russian but for now I am reading the stories in English because they are very good

初版が１９６１年で、本書は８９年の新装版だそうです。要は、冷戦真っ只中につくられた、英語ネイティブのためのロシア語・ロシア文学教本。1９世紀から20世紀半ばまでの代表的な作家の作品が生誕順に紹介されています。原文と英語訳がまるで鏡で映したように並んでいるのには、惚れ惚れしますね。相手が日本語ではこうはいかない・・・。意欲のある独学者でも学べるように、付録が充実。ロシアのレアリアに関する註、ミニ露英辞書、果ては演習問題まで付いています。また、語学用教科書として使用する際の読書ガイドも。どこまでも面倒見の良い先生のような本ですね。