Pay no attention to its dreary cover - the Penguin Course is far and away the best Russian textbook on the market for beginners. Every fresh-faced language newcomer has to wade through a sea of trumped-up phrasebooks, masquerading as 'complete courses'. This, however, is the real deal and will get you to a solid B1 level.

Don't expect any cheer or colour though: the style is no-nonsense and could put some people off who need to be eased into a new language. Try to look past this: all of the grammatical points are explained extremely well, with plenty of examples and supplementary exercises. The glossary and grammar tables at the back of the book come in useful if you ever forget any material that you've already covered.

× Warning Unfortunately, many universities still insist on forcing new students to learn Russian with the Unfortunately, many universities still insist on forcing new students to learn Russian with the Rus' series . Don't be fooled by this mammoth textbook: it is poorly organised and very difficult to follow.

Once you have worked your way through all 26 chapters (starting with the Cyrillic alphabet, and culminating in a short story by Chekhov), you should be able to hold your own in simple conversations and read newspapers (with the help of a dictionary).

The only thing that stops this being the ultimate Russian beginner's resource is the lack of accompanying listening exercises. But as we have that covered below, it really isn't too much of a problem at all.