Olly Richards - Short Stories in Russian for Beginners

In our first languages, we employ a variety of micro-skills to help us read. For example, we might skim a particular passage in order to understand the general idea, or gist. Or we might scan through multiple pages of a train timetable looking for a particular time or place. While these micro-skills are second nature when reading in our first languages, when it comes to reading in a foreign language, research suggests that we often abandon most of these reading skills. In a foreign language we usually start at the beginning of a text and try to understand every single word. Inevitably, we come across unknown or difficult words and quickly get frustrated with our lack of understanding.

One of the main benefits of reading in a foreign language is that you gain exposure to large amounts of words and expressions used naturally. This kind of reading for pleasure in order to learn a language is generally known as extensive reading. It is very different from reading a textbook in which dialogues or texts are meant to be read in detail with the aim of understanding every word. That kind of reading to reach specific learning aims or do tasks is referred to as intensive reading. To put it another way, the intensive reading in textbooks usually helps you with grammar rules and specific vocabulary, whereas reading stories extensively helps show you natural language in use. While you may have started your language learning journey using only textbooks, Short Stories in Russian for Beginners will now provide you with opportunities to learn more about natural Russian language in use.

Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind when reading the stories in this book in order to learn the most from them: