Reading is the best way to gain more vocabulary without being “bored out of your gourd” — learning words in context. But normally you have to have quite a large vocabulary before you get enough out of your reading to be able to make sense of it. Kristina offers us a nice compromise: reading real Russian in context, but with handy interspersed explanations after every paragraph, so you can follow what’s going on. And ideally you should read the text several times, perhaps many times, until you can easily skip the explanations. I especially appreciate the stress accent marks, so I can confidently read aloud or at least pronounce the words under my breath. And I’m finally reading Dostoyevsky in the original Russian! Hurrah!
