Russian for a very beginner (American)

[gailochka.livejournal.com]

Dear friends,
could use your advice!

I would like to give a friend, who is American, some hints for studying very basic Russian. He already knows some words and phrases - and for real progress he would need a simple tool to learn more.

I just searched books in a book store - but they offer sort of more "serious" stuff for more advanced students... And we would need something really basic and fun.

Maybe you know something online?
Thanks.

Comments

[gailochka.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Your last paragraph is the most informative. I'll use the recommendation.

As for the other stuff - I agree with you that learning a language takes a lot of time, patience and work. Just can't see my friend doing all this - and we do not expect him to master the language, just to do it really for fun, to learn some phrases and words.

Thanks!

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I won't point a finger at those that don't seem to be serious (or serious enough) about studying Russian, show little progress over time and only appear to collect corrections instead of learning from mistakes.
But I can list a few lj users that are doing pretty well:
http://upthera44.livejournal.com/
http://olydiagron.livejournal.com/
http://seanseansean.livejournal.com/
You can ask them exactly what they do. I'm pretty sure they do a lot of work and although it's helpful to live in Russia (the first two have been here), it's only a part of the equation.