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I am studying the Russian language and I would like to know if this can benefit me, mathematically speaking. For example, I know French and this gives me the possibility to read a lot of undergraduate books with exercises and solutions and, of course, one day I will be able to read Grothendieck's materials (I would like to do research in commutative algebra soon).

So, are there good books in Russian not translated to English?

Thanks in advance.

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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user42912
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    You can try "Russian for Mathematicians", by Petukhov, or "Mathematika kak Metaphora", by Manin, or "Russian for Mathematicians", by Glazunova. I'd rather not recommend a russian mathematics text book for a beginner: though the language makes lots of expressions simpler, the almost crazy russian grammar can be tough to handle. Yet, the book by Manin exists also in english ( I mean, the short article that gives name to the book), so you can compare texts and learn a lot... – DonAntonio Mar 31 '14 at 13:29
  • Dear @DonAntonio I'm not looking for beginner books in Russian, I would like to know if when I'll be able to understand well Russian what this can add me mathematically. – user42912 Mar 31 '14 at 13:32
  • Well, then your question in the post and your question in your last comment are different, @user...Of course it'll add you, and a lot, mathematically, as there are many untranslated papers and books. – DonAntonio Mar 31 '14 at 13:33
  • One way that knowledge of Russian would be useful is that it would allow you to make use of the vast collection of reviews in Referativnyi Zhurnal Matematika. I'm quite certain that many lesser known Russian papers probably have more information about them here than in Mathematical Reviews or in Zentralblatt fur Mathematik, and for other papers just having a third review of a paper can be very useful. I don't know if the RZMat reviews are online, but if they aren't, I'm sure one day they will be. I believe this reviewing journal began in 1953. – Dave L. Renfro Mar 31 '14 at 15:43

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Surely there are! It's a bit arrogant to even think that maybe another language has nothing good that you can't find in English... I wish I knew French, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Hungarian, Chinese, Dutch and all other languages... English is by far the most useful, but learning another language is always useful.

Btw, Gauss learned Russian and loved it!

N. G. M.
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