Reddit reviews Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar, Second Edition (Schaum's Outlines)

First, i know it will seem pessimistic of me to ask but; are you guys getting along very well? Most likely one will be better than the other, cause some frustration and will kill the learning process because of ego mismanagement.

If you guys can really work as a team, here's what i suggest:

• As a couple, your best asset is the very fact that you're a couple. If you live in a big town, google russian and the name of your town and go hangout there. Since it will be an "enclave" rather than a ghetto, you will see cultural stuff everywhere. Pamphlets and ads in local russian newspapers with tons of cultural events and beginners-in-russian are most often than not warmly welcomed, since russian is a very hard language to master for non-native speakers, meaning that they will be happy that a stranger puts in the effort of learning their language and their culture. They will often go the extra mile to help you pronounce and correct your mistakes. Of course, you will encounter suspicious and taciturn characters but hanging out in russian cafés and attending local cultural events will super-charge your russian assimilation. Languages are meant to be spoken.
  
  
• Secondly, i strongly, strongly recommend the acquisition of this book:
  
  http://www.amazon.ca/Russian-Learners-Dictionary-Words-Frequency/dp/0415137926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300431171&sr=8-1-spell
  
  And follow this man's method, The Goldlist Method:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6FERpM5fQ (Part one)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTyJiGVJ0LM (Part two)
  
  This will be your main method of vocabulary acquisition. I also recommend:
  
  http://www.amazon.ca/Schaums-Outline-Russian-Grammar-Second/dp/007161169X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1300431298&sr=8-2
  
  and
  
  http://www.amazon.ca/Big-Silver-Book-Russian-Verbs/dp/007143299X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
  
  Yes i know, spending money sucks, but i bought all three of them and not regret my choice at all. Very practical.
  
  Speaking of spending money, if you have money to spend, spend it on a private tutor for both of you. The value of this cannot be stressed enough. He will explain things to you that books can't and will correct your pronunciation and also challenge you by having higher degrees of conversation (like the use of dative instead of instrumental, etc) so that you learn in deep and not just "to get by".
  
  A huge part of language acquisition is the exposition to culture. The longer you expose yourself to russian, the faster and better learners you will be. That means listening to russian music, watching russian videos and movies, reading russian news and get interested in what's happening int he country, speaking russian as much as possible. Immerse yourself in it.
  
  If you do all of this and you really, really dedicate yourself to it and use your couple as a blessing rather than a curse, i guarantee you that in 6 months, your level of russian will be that native russians will not believe you when you will tell them it's всего шесть месяцев :)
  
  Hope this helped, good luck with your russian!
  

No promises, but I might be able to write up a document. Depends on how much time I got after I'm done grading these calculus papers.

EDIT: This is taking longer than I thought! I might suggest an EXCELLENT grammar book, though: Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar by James Levine. It's amazingly comprehensive, shows tons of tables, gives example usages, has exercises with keys in the back... we're using it for my Intermediate Russian course right now, and I love it. It might be a bit overwhelming if you're just starting out, though. But even then, if you take it a bit at a time, it can be a huge help.

I'm not sure if I'll keep going with this, because I want to put so much into it (otherwise I feel I'm just rehashing what can already be found online). I'd like to put:

• A description of patterns found in declensions
  
• Logical explanations for certain features / patterns / historical artifacts that appear
  
• IPA / phonemic charts for declensions (what phonemes make up the endings?)
  
• Orthographic charts for declensions (what do these phonemes end up looking like when written?)
  
• Example declensions for all genders in each of the three declensions (this is like 6 paradigms)
  
• Example declensions for all six stress paradigms
  
• Lists of irregularities...
  
  All of this (except the IPA stuff) is featured in Levine's book, anyway. I'd honestly just recommend buying it.