Russian Audio Bible

(June 2014: Three years later I am updating my review for the third time… This app simply is not being maintained. It is still the old size. All of the below comments are still true.)

I use this app almost every day, and am glad it exists, though its not perfect.

I got this because of the audio part of the program. I was hoping that you could start the audio at any given verse, but that is not how it works... you can start it at the beginning of a chapter or drag the bar along to skip through the chapter, but you cannot control it reliably to (for example) read only 2 verses in a particular chapter. This would be a very nice feature to add and make it much more useful for those of us buying it strictly for knowing how to read a particular verse with correct accents and intonations. (Updating my review a year later: the PalReader people updated the program to allow for this capability, but the Russian counterpart has not linked the audio files to verses to utilize it.)

It is a real voice that reads to you (occasionally you can hear him clear his throat) and the man gives a good reading of the Russian Bible - neither flat nor overly exaggerated.

The man reading must be using a very slightly different version of the Synodal Translation because he always uses the forms of "это" instead of "сей". I have noticed a few other minor grammatical and occasional word differences between the audio and written text, but nothing that is bothersome enough not to use it. He adds his own opinion, occasionally, at the beginning of a book or chapter (usually before big lists of names). He also occasionally simply does not read a big list of names. I personally do not like this... again, I bought it to verify pronunciation and accents.

After Psalms "10", the Psalms are not matched with the correct audio files. The man reading is following the Russian chapter numbering and the written text is following the English Psalms numbering. You must read the Psalms with a regular Bible copy if you want to combine visual and audio.

(March 2011) Almost a year later I am updating my comment... It seems that the PalApp Reader program is maintained separately from the people who add content, so this should almost be 2 separate reviews... but the reader program itself doesnt look or operate as smoothly as other reader programs. They did recently add a couple features, and fix a cosmetic bug. Ive figured out how to make it work for me, and Im sure you can too!

Cr.Sh.Be. about Библия (текст и аудио)(audio)(Russian Bible), v8.0