This well established Russian vocabulary book contains some two thousand words, arranged in sections, according to subject grouping, of roughly equal length, but of varying difficulty and importance. All the words included are of high frequency, and the student who knows them all will have acquired an essential basic Russian vocabulary. The categories are grouped in such a way as to form a basis for elementary essay writing, oral work or revision, and they range from 'the universe' and 'nature', through 'colours' and 'countries', to the main prepositions and prefixes.

Patrick Waddington is Emeritus Professor of Russian Literature at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.