The idea of creating this workbook came to me after having taught the Russian language for ten years. We use the constructions presented in this workbook at the very first level of speaking Russian, but sometimes even upper-intermediate learners keep making mistakes in them. These constructions are called “tricky” in the title of the workbook because they are really different from what we use in English or Romance languages, and this is what makes them hard to memorize.

The goal of this workbook is not to explain all the constructions in detail but to draw learners’ attention to them and practice them. The key points of a topic are shown in schemes and tables with notes. If you find out that you need to study the topic deeper, there are different formulations in English and Russian given in almost every chapter, so you could google them or find them in the books.

Some tasks can seem difficult to understand. But in certain exercises, I have to give quite a lot of context for you to understand the usage of the construction better. Don’t worry! The task will become clearer when you study the model sentence and start doing the exercise.

I hope this workbook will teach you to be more attentive when you speak Russian and also feel and catch the moments when you have to use the constructions described here. That will make your speech richer and closer to natives’.

Thank you!

– Oksana Baranova