Customer Reviews

German in 30 Days

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

 

 

1. There's no basic pronunciation and alphabet lesson - at all - anywhere - especially not on the CD.

2. The pronunciation guide is about 4 sentences long, and again there is no audio accompanyment.

3. All that's on the CD are the mini conversations at the begining of each of the 30 lessons - one at normal pace and once at a slow pace.

4. Lessons include many words that are not introduced through the audio conversations, and absolutely no pronunciation guidance is given.

5. It's actually fairly riduculously set up - no one can learn a language in 30 lessons that take a max. of 5 minutes each (or about 2.5 hours total), especially when spread over 30 days and with little review.

Basically this is a crappy way to learn German - or to speak and audibly comprehend it. You might come out reading a little. So save your $20ish and buy some weinerschnitzel instead.

I learn langauges by listening and repeating, as well as by reading, but grammar comes more slowly to me and I'm finding this book difficult. I think there's too much grammar too quickly for someone trying to get comfortable in German for travel. I think the lessons also get too long too quickly. However, the CD dialogues are well-paced, repeated, and clear. I'm not convinced this was the best choice for me, but it may work better for others.

Follow the adventures of Suki...

Suki is a Japanese girl whom is visiting Germany. As she meets new people along the way in different situations, one learns phrases and words. Practical and easy to understand, if you went through the book and CD an hour a day you would learn enough German to get by with.
The 30 day thing is subject to ones learning ability?
I would highly recommend Rosetta Stone in conjunction with this as well. I have had German people ask me where did I learn German I tell them a book and cd, they look at me in astonishment. It has served me well.

I've taken a German class before and I bought this to review and continue my study of the language. I was actually expecting a quality textbook since it's from Berlitz, but the translations are way too loose to actually be of any to use to me.

Now I have another "Learn German in 30 days" book, in French, from the 1960s. The translations inside that book are exact. Apart from a few places where German syntax is vastly different than the French, you can be sure that every noun, every adverb is translated exactly as it appears in the German text. Not so in this particular book. For example (and I'm picking a random dialogue in the book) the phrase "Da kann man günstig einkaufen" is translated as "Things are reasonably priced there". The German text doesn't contain the words "things" "are" and "priced". In fact what I think is being said is "There can people buy favorably". Although their translation sounds better in English, it clearly isn't the same sentence when the subject and the verb are completely different. I realize translations can't always be 100% accurate, but we're talking about another European language here (and not Japanese for instance) it shouldn't be so vastly different from English.At least translate it literally and have a "better english" translation in parenthesis.

Another example of crummy translation, taken from their vocabulary section is their definition for "glauben" in chapter 6 to "to think". In chapter 11, they introduce the verbs "denken" and "meinen" which are also translated "to think". They don't really clarify why one should use "glauben" over "denken" over "meinen". They don't mention that "glauben" actually means "to believe". If you don't know German beforehand, I think all these sloppily translated words would end up confusing you quite a bit down the road.

The workbook portion is good, glad it has an audio CD. Overall pretty good.