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10 Best Russian Books for Intermediate Students

Updated: Oct 12, 2021

List of the most useful books to learn Russian for intermediate level


There are tons of books for Intermediate Russian language students...

but not all of them are really worth using. I have analyzed lots of various resources for Intermediate students during my teaching experience and I decided to make an honest review on the best Russian books for Intermediate level. You can be assured that these books are really of a high quality and will help you improve your Russian really fast.


Read my guide and choose the best Russian books for you. Please, note that if your purchase any of these books with provided links, I will get a small commission that will help me maintain this blog. However, be assured that I recommend you only high-quality books I have used myself to teach.


Here is a list of these amazing books to learn Russian for intermediate students:


Intermediate Russian Course | Learn Russian fast

This is the most amazing language course ever. But don't expect any miracles. This Russian language course is really the best course to give you the basics to actually start speaking Russian. It does not provide much emphasis on grammar but rather help you understand the system behind Russian language. Believe it or not, but you will start speaking Russian with almost no grammar knowledge. However, there also some cons of this method as it does not teach you written Russian, only conversational. Therefore, I hightly recommend this Russian course only as a starting point. It will boost your vocabulary and make you feel more confident speaking Russian language.




Russian stories for Intermediate students

It is very important to find really captivating and interesting stories to improve your Russian at Intermediate level. This book contains 10 great stories on various topics that you will find easy to relate to.

Each story is carefully chosen and introduces certain grammatical patterns in an easy and efficient way so that you don't need to memorize any Russian grammar rules. There are many natural dialogues in each story that one can use in everyday situations. Overall this book will help you boost you Russian vocabulary, painlessly learn useful Russian grammar patterns and improve your general comprehension. You will find a list of words with translation in English after each chapter.




Learn Russian with short stories in Russian

Here is a famous story book for Russian language learners. If you have already read their book for beginners, you should know how it works. There are eight interesting stories in a variety of genres, including science fiction, crime, history and others. This makes it really fun to read this Russian stories and you learn new Russian words without even noticing it. They provide real-life dialogues that will improve your conversational Russian and give you more confidence speaking Russian. Russian grammar is presented in a friendly relaxed way without putting emphasis on grammar rules. Therefore, you learn Russian grammar a natural way. This book also provides a list of all difficult Russian words with English translation. Just great!




Russian stories to read for Intermediate level

Another interesting book to read for Russian language learners. This book is a perfect resource not only for Intermediate students but also for more advanced levels. There is a great range of various topics covered in this book, including culture, history, society, science, business world and others. Therefore, you do not only learn new Russian vocabulary, but you also discover some important insights about life in Russia. There are clear and useful exercises that help enhance your understanding. List of words are provided for each chapter with English translation. Overall, it is a great Russian book for someone who wants to learn more academic vocabulary in Russian.




Russian vocabulary course for beginners

This is another Russian course by Michel Thomas that is specifically focused on vocabulary. In particular, during this course you will learn 600 new words and everyday phrases. But the most important you will learn how these words are formed that will help you to form more Russian words of the same structure. As in its main course, the Method of Michel Thomas includes an audio from a class session where 2 students learn Russian language with a teacher. This Russian course does not require you to do any hometasks as you can learn everything you need while listening to these Russian audio lessons. This method is really the best for Russian language learning and I highly recommend you this course.




Russian grammar book | Learn Russian fast

I am against learning Russian grammar the usual way with a book that explains in details grammar rules. However, as soon as you reach an Intermediate level, it is a very good idea to look through some good grammar books in order to polish your Russian grammar and to analyze some grammatical patterns. The thing is that when you are already using the language at a decent level, you can better understand the grammar and you might even like analyzing these grammatical patterns. This book "Comprehensive Russian grammar" is really worth checking out as it provides clear explanations and examples for each grammatical pattern. However, I don't recommend you to focus too much on grammar anyway.




Russian grammar book | Learn Russian

Another useful and comprehensive Russian grammar book that will help you better understand the logic of some grammatical patterns in Russian language. You will be even surprised to see how exciting and curious Russian grammar can be. All grammatical patterns are given in the context that makes it easy to remember. You will also learn how to properly use these patterns in everyday life in order to sound more natural. While this book can be see as overwhelming and extremely difficult for beginners in Russian language, Intermedate students must really enjoy reading this book. Therefore, as usual, I don't recommend starting this book to Russian beginner students.




Russian genitive case

This guide is not a simple book with grammar explanations. It is a whole course that will help you master the Russian Genitive case in a fun, engaging and easy way. Learning Russian cases can be a really daunting task if you use wrong materials with boring grammar explanations and complicated tables of endings. But this guide will show you that you can hack this system and understand how it works instead of merely memorizing tons of information.

In this guide, you will find all possible situations when the Genitive case is needed. Moreover, you will learn lots of fixed expressions with the Genitive case that you will be able to use in your speech.

And the 'treasure' of this guide is a final story about a man named Gena (association with the Genitive case). This story contains all situations that require the use of the Genitive case. This story was created based on a TPRS method (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) that is extremely effective for learning new languages. And in the end of the book you will find a good bonus that will put your Russian on the next level!


Russian Accusative case

The Russian Accusative case acts like a chameleon. When it is used with inanimate objects, it answers the question 'Что?' (What?) and replicates the Nominative case. But when it is used with animate (alive) objects, it answers the question 'Кого?' (Who(m)?) and is similar to the Genitive case depending on the gender. There are many different situations when you need to use the Accusative case to show an indirect object.

In this guide, you will find all situations when we need to use the Accusative case with nouns / pronouns / adjectives. This guide is not a simple book with grammar explanations. It is a whole course that will help you master the Russian Accusative case in a fun, engaging and easy way.

But the key element of this guide is the final story that sums up all situations when the Accusative case is needed. This is a story about a household spirit called Kuzya (association with Accusative case).This story was created based on a TPRS method (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) that is extremely effective for learning new languages. And in the end of the book you will find a good bonus that will put your Russian on the next level!


Another book in the series of Comprehensive guides to Russian cases. This guide is not a simple book with grammar explanations. It is a whole course that will help you master the Russian Prepositional case in a fun, engaging and easy way (good for both beginners and intermediate learners).

And the 'treasure' of this guide is a final story about a bear named Preppa (association with the Prepositional case). This story contains the key situations that require the use of the Prepositional case. This story was created based on a TPRS method (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) that is extremely effective for learning new languages.


That is it! These are the best Russian books for Intermediate students that I can recommend you. Please, note that if you buy any of these books via provided links, I will earn a small comission that will help me maintain this blog. But I assure you that my review is honest and would not recommend you дерьмо (you can google to find a meaning of this word). So yeah, I will not recommend you something useless as I have analyzed and used these books myself as a teacher.

It's also very important to know how to pronounce Russian words correctly as not every Russian letter is pronounced the same way as it's written. There are certain Russian pronunciation rules that are really easy to learn.

And the last advice - Enjoy learning Russian! This is the key to your fluency!


Do you want more Russian authentic materials? Then watch this video on free authentic Russian resources to improve Russian vocabulary and listening skills.


Video "Free Authentic Russian Resources for Intermediate Students"


 

Hello! My name is Mila and I am a founder of Hack Your Russian language platform. You can find me here:

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