Customer Reviews

First German Reader: A Beginner's Dual-Language Book (Dover Dual Language German)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The introduction claims that "First German Reader is truly a beginners' book. It may be started after two or three weeks of experience with an introductory book to German." I couldn't possibly disagree more. You really should have a few years of classroom experience under your belt before attempting it. The reading passages are highly academic in nature, with a very strong focus on philosophy and poetry. They are often very dense and difficult to understand, even reading the English translation. Furthermore, to fully appreciate many of the passages, a great deal of context is often required. While the notes at the end of the book do help somewhat, they are woefully inadequate in many cases. Last but not least, I personally found most of the content to be pretty dull. These factors can easily combine to make for a very frustrating, and not necessarily productive, reading experience for a beginner. A few short sample passages:


"Large industries have already introduced a system of profit-sharing with their employees. But what is much more significant: in all industrial concerns the workers enjoy the legal right of having a voice in matters that concern them. They get a third of the seats on the boards of directors of joint stock companies (one half of the seats in the mining and steel industries)."

"Act in such a way that the maxim of your will may at all times also have validity as the principle of a universal law."


The texts are also outdated. Besides the lack of any material from the past forty years and the use of the old spelling throughout, I suppose this fact mostly only matters for the "Über Deutschland" passages, which are intended to paint a broad picture of modern Germany. One of these essays states that "West Berlin is a part of the Federal Republic, while East Berlin belongs to the 'German Democratic Republic.'" Hmm. This edition was published in 2007, but it's clear that none of the content has changed since it was originally published in 1964.

On the plus side, the translations are generally very good for the purpose they serve. They are literal enough that it is farily easy to compare the English and German versions, but (mostly) natural enough to be comprehensible by themselves. There are also a fair number of endnotes that explain references to particular people and places, as well as unusual word usage and grammar. The passages are of just the right length that the reader can maintain a sense of accomplishment and not get too bored, even reading very slowly and carefully.

Despite the blatantly false advertising of the title, if you have a fair amount of experience with the language and a strong interest in German philosophy and poetry, you might find this book to be rewarding. Otherwise, save yourself the frustration and steer clear.

This book is not a first German reader, do not buy it if you are new to German! (Try Asterix comic books in German). To me it's a waste of money, a year ago it was far to too hard to read in German, and now after a year learning German and living in Germany it's still too hard and irrelevant to modern German. The root problem is that it was written in 1964, probably for school German lessons. The material it draws from are very deep and would tax most native English English speakers in English! (e.g. 'Now I am many an hour's distance from that place....', '....descends into the fearful arena....','...man must meet nothing with resolution....' and so on). The corresponding German is equally academic and complex.

If you could learn even some of this German, imagine the laugh when you said in conversation 'Vor dem Handeln, im Handelm hat er alle Ursache, den Versatand beweglich zu erhalten', which in English is 'Before acting, in acting, he has every reason for keeping his intelligence mobile....'.

This is a very well thought out first reader for adults - simple and easy to understand, especially with its the English translations, but at the same time interesting and informative. Really enjoyable to use.

I don't claim to have great knowledge of the German language, which is why I purchased this book. I was expecting stories at say the middle school range of language. But this is definitely college reading level (in English) and therefore much more difficult than I expect for the German.

Love the concept, but to try and read text from German philosophers (in german) as a FIRST reader, is very challenging.

Ilo

Wie man schon mehrfach in den anderen Rezensionen beschrieben hat, sind die Texte, wenn auch hoher Qualitaet, recht anspruchsvoll.

Wenn man seine Sprachkenntnisse mit einem heitereren Text vertiefen moechte, empfehle ich das Buch Der, die, was? So lernt man eine Menge ueber die deutsche Sprache und hat viel Spass dabei!

I was hesitant to buy this after reading the other reviews. Now I have it, and I honestly don't know what the other reviewers are talking about. I ordered four dual-language books at once, and this was by far the best and most accessible for beginners. After only a week of German study, I can easily make it through (with some reference to the parallel text) the first 8-10 stories and poems, and they gradually increase in difficulty so that I'll be able to comfortably read more as my German improves. The selections are cute and interesting, and most are by famous German authors and poets, so you get exposure to real German literature as you develop your language skills.

As a First Reader, the content is somewhat challenging. It is comparable in content and vocabulary to literature text for 8th or 9th grade classes in most US schools. There is also no progressing order of difficulty so that you need to search for readings that you can master. It is however well translated and there is a great variety of reading selections within the book for a wide range of language skill and vocabulary levels. So, for those looking for a true First level reader, I would not recommend this book; a Second - yes.

Although there does appear to be a concise accompanying translation of each item, I would not call this a "beginners" book. The text and language is for the most part esoteric and complicated making translations of little value to the beginner reader. A beginners book is one tht begins with simple langage and concepts and slowly grows in complixity, terminology, tenses, and cases. Such is defintely not the case here. But if you like German literature and/or are at a more advanced stage in your study, then its okay.

This little book fulfills its promise to provide the beginning reader of German with a sampling of original writings from the language, roughly arranged in order of increasing difficulty. Unlike many bi-lingual readers, there is quite a wide variety of reading choices: poetry, short stories, and non-fiction essays are all part of the mix.

Indeed this book was what I was looking for, for I'm fond of and have some knowledge on philosophy and poetical mind, yet if you are not into that kind of field, you might find this marvelous book merely boring, I guess.
In short, your command of German might not matter, but you have to be sophisticated to some extent.
In that sense it is not wrong to say that this book is for "beginners", in terms of language skills.