German for Dummies [Paperback]

Paulina Christensen (Author), Anne Fox (Author), Juergen Lorenz (Series Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764551957 | ISBN-13: 978-0764551956 | Publication Date: April 24, 2000

You’ll find German spoken all over the world – German tourists are famously intrepid – and especially across much of Europe, including (besides Germany, of course) Austria, Switzerland, northern Italy, the Czech Republic, and several other countries. Whether you’re taking a trip to Germany or just want to surprise your German neighbor with a “hi-how-are-you,” learning this language will help you see the world and yourself from an entirely different perspective.

German For Dummies uses the renowned Berlitz approach to get you up and running with the language – and having fun too! Designed for the total beginner, this guide – with dialogue and pronunciation audio CD included – will introduce you to basic grammar, then speedily have you talking about:

• Dining out
• Shopping
• The office
• Planning a trip
• Recreation
• Partying
• Trains, planes, and automobiles

In addition to the audio conversations, fun and games sections ease your way into German fluency, while phonetic spellings following expressions and vocabulary improve your pronunciation, and helpful boxes and sidebars cover cultural quirks and factoids. And, in trademark For Dummies fashion, you’ll go beyond expressions for checking train schedules or buying potatoes to learn:

• Things never to say in German
• Ways to pick up German quickly
• Phrases that make you sound German
• Holidays to remember
• Emailing and Internet vocabulary
• German TV and movie vocabulary
• How to browse and window-shop in Germany with style

Whether you’re just looking for a greeting besides “Guten tag,” or you want to host a foreign exchange student, or want to become one yourself, German For Dummies gives you what you need to learn the language – as much as you like, as fast as you like. Gehen wir! (gehn veer) (Let’s get going!)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German

From the Back Cover

Your survival guide for everyday words and expressions
The renowned Berlitz? approach with a fun and friendly twist

This unintimidating guide from the experts at Berlitz? will help you start speaking German right a way, whether you're a student, a traveler, or you just want pick up the language.

All this on the audio CD

Pick up German the Berlitz? way - through actual conversations

* Listen to the dialogues from the book
* Hear how native speakers say the words
* Practice your own pronunciation

Discover how to:

* Have everyday conversations in German
* Make sense of German grammar
* Improve your pronunciation
* Get a handle on verb conjugations
* Use idioms and popular expressions

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (April 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764551957
• ISBN-13: 978-0764551956
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > German
  • #97 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > German > Instruction

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost completely worthless, September 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: German for Dummies (Paperback)

This book fails on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. For starters, the alphabet is never formally introduced with German letter equivalents, scotching the possibility that you'll ever have to spell something over the phone. The book then attempts to vomit up all the German grammar you'll ever need, even though at this point the reader barely knows any words, let alone whole sentences. For the reader who knows no German, the sample sentences in the chapters that follow contain far too many words which are never defined. Apparently the authors believe that the beginner is better served by parroting back whole sentences instead of actually learning vocabulary. The "mini-dictionary" in the back of the book is some editor's idea of a bad joke, and contains almost none of the words I've ever looked up from the book's own sample sentences. The CD, while useful, only demonstrates selected dialogues from the book, and ignores many key phrases that might be more practical.

To put things in perspective, I consider this book even more unreadable than the 2nd edition of O'Reilly's Programming Perl.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars uh what?!, October 16, 2001

By 

lisa (michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: German for Dummies (Paperback)

If you're a beginner at learning german,like me, you will find this book totally useless. You never even really learn the alphabet,let alone phrases. The cd is of little help because it starts right off with phrases before you can even learn the vocabulary! It tries to teach you the vocabulary, but how do you pronouce it when the book provides little help? It left me feeling frustrated, scratching my head, and trying, without prevail, to figure out what it meant.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't work for me, February 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: German for Dummies (Paperback)

I have been trying to learn German for a long time. I am planning on going to live in Germany next year as an exachange student, since my school does not have a German program I thought it would be smart to get basic German down. This book is not about the basics! It just tells you the phrase, doesn't tell you how exactly it translates, just tells you an extremely rough definition. It doesn't explain grammar, it isn't 'quick and easy', it doesn't help build your vocabulary at all, and if it does, it has a table of words, and just says "memorize...". It never uses the words that you learn again. Worst of all its not consistent at all, and it's horrible at comprehending anything the author is trying to get across to you. My good friend from Germany looked at this book, and told me that it was "schiesse". Overall German for Dummies, is a very poor source of information for German.