Modern Russian Idioms in Use: A Reference and Practice Book for Advanced Learners of Russian

"Modern Russian Idioms in Use" is designed for advanced learners of Russian, who wish to improve their knowledge of Russian idioms and to make their colloquial language more idiomatic and expressive. Since it is both a WORKBOOK and a REFERENCE BOOK, it is not necessary to use additional dictionaries or reference books.

The book contains 125 ESSENTIAL RUSSIAN IDIOMS, which have been primarily chosen on the basis of their frequency of use in oral speech, but also in modern Russian films and in mass media, and cover a wide range of “everyday” topics. Every chapter includes a DIALOGUE presenting new idioms, followed by EXERCISES which train students to identify, understand and re-use the idioms in their right context. Most exercises are designed as dialogues: A dialogue makes it possible to imagine the situation of communication. The situations in the dialogues reflect typical everyday situations in Russia, providing crucial cultural context. Finally, every chapter provides DETAILED EXPLANATIONS of the idioms. Special attention has been focused here on COMPLETE GRAMMATICAL INFORMATION for each idiom, e.g. its syntactic role in the sentence as well as its morphological characteristics. For this reason, extensive information on its use is provided in numerous examples of free combinations with other words, phrase units and sentences. In addition, the book contains interesting ETYMOLOGICAL INFORMATION about the origin of most “non-transparent” idioms which are grounded in specific cultural and historical experiences and are therefore more difficult to understand. Finally, the book provides additional repetition exercises as well as an answer key.

For better understanding of the idioms and their phonetically correct spelling in spoken language, it is recommended to use the AUDIO FILES, which include the dialogues and exercises with ANSWER KEY, making the book suitable for self-study as well as classroom use. The audio material is recorded by Russian PROFESSIONAL SPEAKERS (link for free download can be found inside the book).

The book is an updated new edition of the textbook „Moderne russische Idiomatik" by Elena Minakova, published by Helmut Buske Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 2002, and by "Russkij Jazyk. Kursy Publishers“ under the title „Современная русская идиоматика“ in Moscow, 2005 and 2008, under license from Helmut Buske Verlag GmbH.