Customer Reviews

German 101

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I teach high school German (but I'm American) so I bought this for my class to listen to real authentic German accents. I'm pretty sure these are southern accents from the Munich area. If you know Germany, you'll know the southern accent is much different from the northern accent. But if you are just starting to speak German, you won't be able to tell the difference. This DVD was a nice introduction for my students. I hope the company makes a longer DVD that also teaches grammar sometime. This DVD covers just basic words and phrases but if you are just starting or going to Germany for business this is probably all you need.

This DVD is so boring that I am not motivated to watch it at all. I thought it would be scenes of people using phrases in real life situations. Instead, it is 2 actors, 1 male and 1 female. You see a phrase in print, and you see the actors stand there and say it, and that's it. The actors are in a studio, and the backdrop doesn't change.

The actors also don't look like they were even expecting to be on camera that day - the female in particular has very messy hair, no makeup, etc. It doesn't look like a lot of effort went into the production - more like it was done as cheaply as possible.

Also, it is supposed to be in a format of see the word, hear the word, say the word, but it is slow-paced and you can easily repeat the word several times before getting to the part where you're supposed to repeat it. By that time, you're ready to move on.

I found this DVD slow-paced, dull, and not at all engaging. I would not recommend it to anyone. I have had better luck with interactive computer software. Too bad there aren't any good DVDs for German out there that I can find.

I bought this as a birthday gift for someone traveling overseas. They love this gift. I actually watched it with them and its pretty good. You'll have to practice though. So expect to spend some time on this but a lot less then say using audio recordings.