Rodnaya rech' with website, an introductory textbook for heritage learners, addresses the unique needs of students who have at least intermediate-level listening and speaking skills on the ACTFL scale but who have underdeveloped or nonexistent literacy skills. With an emphasis on conceptual understanding of vocabulary and grammar, Rodnaya rech' builds students' literacy skills and teaches them to strategically use the linguistic intuition they have gained as heritage speakers while strengthening all four skill areas. The accompanying companion website-included with the book-offers fully integrated exercises to use alongside the text.
Rodnaya rech' can be used as the main course material either in an intensive one-semester class or at a more measured pace over two semesters. This book is flexible enough to be used in specialized heritage or in mixed classes. It can also support independent study and learning in less formal settings, such as community schools.
For Instructors: Separate print Teacher's Editions of Rodnaya rech' are no longer available. Instead, instructors should submit exam and desk copy requests using ISBN 978-1-64712-219-5.
Irina Y. Dubinina is associate professor of Russian at Brandeis University, where she also directs the Russian language program. She has extensive experience teaching Russian as a second and heritage language.
Olesya Kisselev is an assistant professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at University of Texas at San Antonio. She has many years of experience teaching Russian as a second and heritage language.
Reviews
"Dubinina and Kisselev are at the top of their game: applying modern, innovative teaching methods, bringing to the fore the rich culture behind modern spoken Russian, and engaging their students in a sophisticated dialogue. This textbook will be a gold standard for future textbooks designed for heritage speakers of different languages."—
Maria Polinsky, professor, Department of Linguistics and Language Science Center, University of Maryland, College Park
Table of Contents
Introduction
Phonetics
- Syllables
- Vowels
- Consonants: Hard-soft pairs
- The hard sign and the soft sign
- Voiced and voiceless consonants
- Word stress: Stressed and unstressed vowels
Morphology: The composition of a word
- Morphological principle of spelling
- Writing unstressed vowels
Grammar: Parts of speech
- Adverbs
- Nouns
Summary
Chapter 1: How to describe people
In focus: Word meaning
In focus: Form and structure
- Parts of speech: Adjectives and adverbs
- Noun-adjective agreement
- Adjectival endings
- Superlative degree of adjectives
Summary
Chapter 2: How to talk about daily routine
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
Verbs
- The Infinitive
- Reflexive verbs
- Verb tense
- Tricky verbs
- Irregular verbs
Summary
Chapter 3: How to describe past, present, and future events
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
Verbal aspect
Imperfective and perfective forms of verbs
- Functions of verbal aspect
- Verbal aspect and tense
- Tricky aspectual pairs
Summary
Chapter 4: How to talk about family and friendsM
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Grammatical case
- Genitive case of nouns
- Adjectives and possessive pronouns in the genitive case
- Personal pronouns in the genitive case
- Functions of the genitive case
- Insufficient amount of something, lack of something or absence of something or somebody
Summary
Chapter 5: How to describe a community where I live
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Plural nouns in the genitive case
- Plural adjectives in the genitive case
- Important details on the form of the plural genitive
- The fill vowel
- Exceptions
- Additional function of the genitive case: counting
Summary
Chapter 6: How to talk about academic studies
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Accusative of nouns and adjectives: Singular
- Personal pronouns in the accusative case
- Functions of the accusative case
- Accusative of nouns and adjectives: Plural
Summary
Chapter 7: How to talk about trips and travel
Central focus: The meaning of words
- Verbs of motion
- Central focus: The form of words
- Conjugation of verbs of motion
- Direction/destination and directionality
- Review of the accusative singular
- Verbs of positioning, self-positioning and location
- Review of the accusative plural
Summary
Chapter 8: How to talk about feelings and emotions
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Dative case of nouns
- Singular adjectives and possessive pronouns in the dative case
- Personal pronouns in the dative case
- Describing emotional states
- Plural nouns, adjectives and possessive pronouns in the dative case
- Verbs requiring the dative case
- Different endings—different meanings—different cases
Summary
Chapter 9: How to talk about where people live
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Prepositional case of nouns
- Functions of the prepositional case
- Personal pronouns in the prepositional case
- Adjectives and possessive pronouns in the prepositional case
- Expressions of time in Russian
Summary
Chapter 10: How to talk about people’s interests
Central focus: The meaning of words
Central focus: The form of words
- Instrumental case of nouns
- Functions of the instrumental case
- Adjectives and possessive pronouns in the instrumental case
- Personal pronouns in the instrumental case
- Verbs requiring the instrumental case
Summary
Chapter 11: Tying it all together
Categories of gender and number
Categories of case
- Subject and object
- Talking about places: Location, direction, point of departure
- Spatial prepositions
- Expressions of time
- Temporal prepositions
- Categories of verbal tense and aspect
- Competition of aspect
- Verb government of cases
- Co-occurance of words
- Parting words
