Intro Text: Lipson's A Russian course

[Nancy Novak]

Lipson's A Russian Course was my first Russian text in high school, and
that book, combined with a good teacher who really enjoyed it and loved
Russian language and culture, was enough to get me hooked on Russian for
life.  I agree with all the criticisms of that text that have been given,
but yet, somehow, it worked--and very well.  I still remember many of the
"rituals," such as the "Akh, dorogoi uchitel'!" one, which I think is one
strong reason for its success.  I also studied Russian at Dartmouth using
the Rassias method with drill sections where we were drilled in such
phrases and expressions and poslovitsy, similarly to Lipson's method, and I
think that's a very effective method: learning a pattern before you
understand it & then having it already there as an example once you understand
that particular grammatical structure.
Nancy Novak, Univ. of Washington