Many people want to read Russian literature in the original language. There’s just one big problem. It’s incredibly difficult. And in order to practice reading Russian, you already need a reasonable vocabulary. So if you’re a beginner, you can’t practice reading, since you lack the necessary experience. But you also can’t gain experience, since you don’t have the skills yet to practice reading. Bilingual books in Russian…What are bilingual books? Bilingual books sometimes (also called dual language) books are books that show the English translation next to the original text.
In our case, that means that you see the English and Russian languages at the same time.
In practice, most bilingual books:
- have the Russian version on one page, and the English on the other
- show the English translation underneath the Russian original
- hide the English translation underneath the Russian original – so you need to click it if you want to see the translation (only works online)
These are the 3 most common formats. After all, the main goal is that you can test yourself, and see if you understand the Russian original. And if you do not understand the phrase, you can easily look it up.
In the previous 10 years many new Russian English bilingual books have been published. The reason for that is that the internet makes it easier and simpler to create books, and to add the translation on the other page or below.
If you would want to, you could even create your own bilingual book, by using Russian translate and a Google Docs document. It would require a lot of copy-pasting, and the translation from Google Translate would be missing the point once a while. But you would be able to create it.
That’s not the point, though!
It’s a lot easier to just read the books that others (who are often both fluent in Russian and English) have created.
How do bilingual books help you learn Russian?
To start, they’re the first step to reading actual books. If you’re anything like me, you’re learning Russian because you’re interested in the language, country and culture.
You need a reasonably high starting point to read Russian books.
Even if you’re reading Russian children’s book, those still require a small-to-moderate vocabulary. Depending on the book, they say it’s about 500 to 1000 words
Bilingual books are the answer if you’re a beginner
When you’re reading a book that has both the original Russian and the translated English text next to it, you can enjoy both worlds.
You can read the story. See how much you know. And if you don’t understand something, just check the Enlish version.
While checking the correct translation, see if you can direct words back to the original text.
It almost has a ‘puzzle-like’ feeling to it.
You read the Russian sentence. You understand 50% of the words. You’re almost grasping the meaning of the sentence, but cannot completely get it because of your limited vocabulary.
Now you check the translation.
You see that you got half the words right. And you see the translation of the words you didn’t know. Now you check in which cases they were, and who was the subject of the sentence.
Everything becomes clear. You’ve learned a couple of extra words, and tested your grammatical knowledge of Russian.
So bilingual books do a great job at:
– helping you start reading in Russian if you’re a beginneallowing you to read books above your level (for example there are bilingual versions of classic literature from Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Many people wish to read them in original, but you need a good intermediate Russian level for that)
- teaching new vocabulary
- testing your grammatical skills
- making learning Russian fun
It’s also a pretty low intensity activity, as you can choose to focus more on the story, and less on the ‘need to figure out exactly how this sentence in grammatically constructed’ type of reading, that often gets used in classes.
So having one of those books next to your bed, to read for about 5 to 10 minutes before sleeping, would be a great way to improve your Russian.
3 tips to get the most out of dual language books
As with any effective method, there are some things you should do to get the most progress out of it. And some things to avoid.
Here are my 4 tips to successfully read the books:
1.START WITH BILINGUAL BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
It might be tempting to start with world-famous Russian literature, since the translation is right next to it. However, if you’re a beginner, you better start with books at your level. Specifically bilingual books for children.
The language used isn’t too difficult. The stories aren’t long. Sentences are short. Everything works together. If you already have a basic vocabulary, then it will be much easier to get into the flow of reading the book.
If you’d start with difficult books, you would end up just reading the translated text.
Starting with children’s bilingual books allows you to understand just enough, so that the puzzle element becomes challenging. But not too hard.
If you’re unsure about your level, check this page that shows you apps that are developed by TORFL (The Test of Russian as a Foreign Language) examiners and professors. If you don’t manage to pass the B1 test satisfactorily, I recommend you start with bilingual children’s books.
2.PICK A BOOK/GENRE YOU ENJOY
There’s no need to torture yourself. Read a book or genre that you want to read. If you’re not a fan of detective stories, don’t try to read the bilingual version of anything Boris Akunin wrote.
If you do like that genre, please get his books.
The more you enjoy the story, the easier it will be to pick up the book and start reading. And the more time you spend reading, the faster your progress will be.
3.TEST FIRST IF YOU UNDERSTAND A PHRASE BEFORE YOU CHECK THE TRANSLATION
If you want to maximize the use out of each book, you need to do this. Hide the English text with a paper or your hand. Challenge yourself to first only read the Russian version, before you allow yourself to look up the translation.
Bonus points if you spend half a minute thinking about the sentence, its meaning and how the cases/verbs work together.
This changes the exercises from passive reading to active learning. Which has been shown to improve how good you remember things.
You don’t want to spend 5 minutes pouring over a sentence, long after you’ve understood which parts of the phrase you understand – and which you don’t.
You also don’t want to bore yourself. Keep it a challenge, but make sure you still enjoy reading the book