German: How to Speak and Write It (Beginners' Guides)

I have been working on teaching myself German at home using a number of different courses, both in book and audio form. Although this book has no audio to go with it, and you definitely need to hear native speakers for the proper pronunciation, as no book alone can give you that, I've found this book very helpful. It covers a lot of ground with clear explinations of basic German word and grammer usage with helpful pronunciation tips and English translations of what you're learning in German so you can check yourself. It also has many illustrations to help you identify objects in German and a series of photographs of German life that are captioned in detail (in German) with complete English translations available at the back of the book. For me, being able to learn the German words and being able to see everything with the English translations is really helpful. You may not be able to actually "speak" German with this book, but this will help you learn, read and write German. So while you will need some kind of audio course to supplement this book, I highly reccomend it. As far as audio courses go, I've used the Pimsleur German 1 (which I've reviewed elseware) which is great for pronuciation and the repetive exercises help you remember the lessons, but has no printed materials available legally, and because of this you have no idea what you're actually saying, how words are broken down and what the German words actually look like. German words are pronounced much differently than they are spelled, and so you're at a real loss when you try to look up words and see that v's are pronounced like f's and w's are pronounced like v's, and so on. It's a very frustrating way, at least for me, to try to learn something. You'll never learn to spell or write German with Pimsleur although it's okay in the car for practicing. I've found the German Living Language Complete Edition much better for me. It's all written out for you so you can see what you're saying. The Pimsleur is better for pronunciation, but you'll learn a lot more and faster with the Living Language course. Obviously taking German lessons with real native speakers would be the best way to learn the language, but for now, this mixture of these several courses I've mentioned seems to work best for me, as I haven't found the perfect home course yet. If someone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I first bought this book about 15 years ago (OMG), but I didn't stick with my German studies long enough to make real use of it. I remember thinking even then that it would be a great self-study book. When I found it on Amazon for so cheap, I ordered it again. As remembered, this book is really fantastic. Obviously, it's a little dated, having first been published in 1962. But the majority of the content is still valid and since you won't (hopefully) be relying solely on this book for your studies, the few out-of-date things shouldn't be an issue. The format of this book is pleasant to me for some reason. It has lots of quaint photos and images to illustrate vocabulary. There are exercises to test your mastery of the material, with keys to the exercises in the back of the book. In the first few lessons, example sentences have pronunciation aids beneath them. Reading sections are presented on the left side of the page with the English translation on the right. The material covered is divided into the typical sections: family, colors, greetings, numbers, the home, weather, traveling, shopping, sports, dining. And of course by the end you'll have a good understanding of grammar. At the end of the book is an introduction to German literature, which briefly covers (in English) the history of the language, as well as key influences such as Luther's translation of the Bible, Shakespeare, philosophy, war, etc. There is also a brief introduction to German customs/society, obviously very dated.

I bought this book entirely on the strength of the positive reviews on Amazon. And the price made it a small investment to boot. Rather than repeat the accolades of others, I would mostly say "thank you" to the other reviewers for their accurate comments. This little volume has a lot of helpful grammar hints and tables. For me, it is like a course book which I am working through a chapter at a time. I am using it to supplement Learn in Your Car German, which assists in developing aural and pronunciation skills. Between the two I am finding that my German vocabulary and reading skills are growing rapidly -- it is hard to imagine ever speaking German fluently, but then I felt that way studying Spanish and French at the outset. UPDATE Aug 10, 2009 It is now another month since my initial review and I keep finding more to like about this learning aid. The 15-page Grammar Summary near the end of the book has a marvelous compilation of how articles (der, die and das, plus so-called "ein" and "der" words, change in each declension. Seeing the striking similarities in the endings for the various words in each case has made what looked to me like an incomprehensible mess pretty comprehensible. UPDATE July 7, 2011 Using this book helped me with making sense of signs and the written word while traveling in Switzerland in 2009. I put it aside for 18 months and now have another trip to Switzerland coming up so started over. Although I forgot a lot of vocabulary, the second time around the book is even better, probably because the first time around the declension of nouns and the split verbs were a complete mystery. This time, it all makes much more intuitive sense for some reason and the utility of the vocabulary taught in the book is much more evident to me this go around as well. When my Swiss grandsons understood my simple and probably grammatically incorrect sentence -- "Hast du essen gern salat?" "Do you like salad?" They and I were both surprised and pleased.

This book was originally published in 1950 by Odhams. It was one of a series of books that covered all the GCE school subjects at that time and I still have the original one that I received as a Christmas present in 1951. I'm delighted to see that it has been republished, along with the French version, in its original form. It is one of the most logically arranged books I have ever seen, and although, understandably, the illustrations look a little old fashioned, they are still just as valid today. The annotated illustrations (eg Post Office, Station, Town, Zoo etc, mean that nouns that are associated with each other are all grouped together in one place, and the list includes the plural form for those nouns. The English key to those illustrations is at the back of the book. Fast forward 64 years: I am currently leading a U3A German study group and I am using this very book, even though it is now 65 years old! I would strongly recommend it to anyone learning German. It may be old, but it has never been bettered.

La versione Kindle è un disastro. Parte del testo viene trattato come immagine e parte come testo. La leggibilità ne risente. I rimandi non sono dei link ma si riferiscono alla pagina del libro (quindi praticamente impossibili da raggiungere). A questo si aggiungono errori dovuti al trattamento OCR (per esempio, 1st invece di Ist).

この本は文法よりは実例がドイツ語の学習には効果的 という方針で書かれている。 実際、ドイツの風景や日常生活の写真や絵が ドイツ語と英語で説明されており、 独学者がたのしみながらその両方の言語が学習できる ようになっている。 国内で出版されている同種の学習書よりも数段上の内容が あり、千円以下の価格で購入できるので、英語に抵抗感の ない方にはお勧めの本である。

Livro para aprender alemão com muitas ilustrações e ampliação do vocabulário,método para auto estudo,exercícios variados. Ainda mantém o mesmo formato da edição original dos anos 60. Importado dos Estados Unidos. Inglês/alemão. Não há traduções em português.

This is a good book for learning German although there are some old fashioned words. Besides, its pictures helped me to understand complicated words.