The article is devoted to the period of the origin of Russian textbook studies in foreign languages, a significant contribution to the formation of which was made by Professor of Imperial Moscow University Ivan Andreevich Нeim (1759–1821), an encyclopedic scholar, teacher, and public figure. The article provides a brief description of the professional scientific and pedagogical biography of I.A. Нeim, who was at different periods of his academic activity not only a professor, but also the first Dean of the Faculty of Philology and the Rector of the University. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the structural and substantive characteristics of the first edition of the textbook by I.A. Heim “Russian Grammar for Germans” in 1789 (German: “Russische Sprachlehre für Deutsche”). Variant features of the metalanguage of the book in the field of translation of terms, as well as units at the graphical, orthographic, morphological and lexical levels are revealed. The content of the book, on the one hand, includes a theoretical description of the structure of the Russian language (in German), on the other hand, it is practical in nature, which is manifested in the absence of a large number of definitions, the presence of sections on teaching phonetics, a mini-dictionary and bilingual dialogues on everyday topics. The analysis of the textbook provides us with insights into the formation of textbook studies at the end of the 18th century and enables us to discuss the creation and development of prototypes of a modern tutorial book and phrase book of foreign languages.