American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Russian through Pictures by I. A. RichardsReview by: Morton BensonThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring, 1963), p. 78Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/304804 .

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78 Slavic and East European Journal

by bus.' First Course gives for 'five and two thirds' and 'six and three quarters' a construction with s: pjat' s dvumja tretjami and gest' s tremja detvertjami (p. 36). Actually, s in such expressions is normally limited to use with 'one-half, " which the book does give in cetyre s polo - vinoj. With other fractions, the following construction should have been used: pjat' i dve tresti, gest' i tri cetverti. In time expressions of the type 'at a quarter to three' the Russian rendering should be bez c"etverti tri, without a preceding v (p. 40) . In describing case usage with distribu- tive po, First Course indicates that the accusative is used only for the numerals dva, tri, and etyre ( p. 41). In fact, the accusative is used also for the numerals dvesti, trista, 6etyresta, the collectives such as dvoe, and troe, and the fractional forms poltora, poltory, and poltorasta. The Russian sentence "On beret kurs po literature" ( p. 53) 'He is taking a course in literature' reveals English influence, i.e., a calque of 'to take a course. ' Better Russian would be on slulaet lekcii po literature or on zapisalsja na kurs po literature.

There are a few minor stress errors, such as vysotiax 'heights' (prep- ositional plural, p. 166) instead of vys6tax.

I. A. Richards et al. Russian Through Pictures, I. New York: Washing- ton Square Press, 1961. 189 pp.

This book is the latest addition to a series of similar manuals already published for English, French, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and German. A typical page contains four related pictures, which are to be studied in a prescribed order. Each picture is accompanied by one or more senten- ces which describe the action or situation depicted. By the end of the book, the sentences have provided the basic vocabulary and essential grammatical construction of Russian. No English is used at all. In sev- eral places a set of voprosy is given to the reader so that he can test his knowledge of the material previously covered. Answers to the questions are provided several pages later sothatthe student can verify his own answers. Cyrillic is used exclusively throughout the book except for the introductory section (pp. 19-27). In this section the Russian alphabet is introduced to the readerwith the help of a phonemic transcription fol- lowing each word written in Cyrillic. The Preface indicates that record- ings, workbooks, film strips, and motion pictures have been manufactured to help the student work through Russian Through Pictures.

The text being reviewed has been competently prepared. Russian Through Picturesrepresents an interesting novelty in manuals of Russian. It can be used as a beginning text for the self-learning student, if it is accompanied by recordings and workbooks mentioned above. Russian Through Pictures, on the other hand will appeal to many students already enrolled in classroom courses, as a supplementary text. Through the use of pictures and the complete absence of English, this text should serve the student as a powerful stimulus to think directly in Russian.

Only insignificant defects were noted in Russian Through Pictures. One was the use in the phonemic transcription mentioned above of several confusing symbols. Hard 1 is rendered as 1w, y as wi, c as th. Thus, lampa is iwampa, pticy is ptyithwi, cvety is thvyitwi, etc.

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