Thanks, Baal and Solli, for your greetings! Yes, Solli, I am using other books to study Russian. I just bought Голоса, volume one, to use this summer in a Beginning Russian class at City College of San Francisco. There is a very helpful website that complements the textbook: www.prenhall.com/golosa. I am now also going through _Russian Grammar_ (by the same people who wrote _Teach Yourself Russian_). I also bought a book and CDs called _Ultimate Russian_, which I have started using. Then I just ordered online several books by Terence Wade, which should be helpful. I also have the Pimsleur Russian CDs, which I used when I was studying Russian on my own (by myself) a long time ago, but I have forgotten a lot, so I am reviewing now. Since I am a professional linguist (linguistic scientist), I can usually learn foreign languages fairly easily. So I have a pretty good idea at present of the grammatical structure of written Russian. However, my knowledge of Russian vocabulary is still very weak. And my speaking and listening skills are terrible! Nevertheless, if you write me in Russian, I will be able to understand it (with the help of Babylon 7 -- an online Russian-English dictionary). :)