Customer Reviews

German for Reading Knowledge

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This standard college text for acquiring a reading knowledge of German is monumental in scope and demanding in design. This is a serious book for serious learners only.

Now in its fourth edition, this warhorse is a solid, no-frills approach that builds on the old-fashioned principles of incremental vocabularly and grammatical precepts, followed by complementary readings using that controlled vocabularly and grammar.

The 30 chapters are short but dense, interspersed with several review chapters and additional readings, along with several useful appendices and a German-English glossary and index in the back.

Learning German for the sole skill of reading is much like learning a dead language such as Latin. The joy of the spoken word is not part of the process. But this book helped me conquer the thorny and difficult German language and adequately prepare for a graduate examination in the language.

I ordered this book because it was on the syllabus for a German class I'm currently taking. I'm not sure that outside of this class the book would be of much use. It's really nice as a supplemental tool, but not as a main teaching tool. In fact, we cover a lot more in our class than the book does. For instance, our teacher will gave us more information on the use of prepositional phrases than what is provided in this text. I would not recommend it for people who are trying to learn German on their own. Plus, I think it's a little too expensive.

This book is not a great value. It does not explain German grammar with the clarity found in April Wilson's "German Quickly" or even Sandburg and Wendell's "German for Reading." It is particularly weak when explaining prepositions and the extended adjective construction, and it does not give pragmatic advice about figuring out the various crucial elements in a German sentence. Moreover, the exercise sentences are dull, and not worth the effort needed to translate them. This book is a classic mainly because German teachers are too lazy to seek out substitutes.

This is a great book to use in conjunction with a course, not on your own. FIU is offering a course that goes by the same title, which makes the understanding of the grammer easier to digest. If you are serious about learning to decipher German text, or just want to become fluent in another language, I suggest you enroll in a basic German I course, so that it all comes together. With this book I have moved forward in my knowledge faster than I did when I just took German I for a full semester. If you are serious about learning, this is a great handbook.

Though I have heard this text being used for German reading courses at Boston University and am currently taking a course with this text at Duke University, there are better options available. I used April Wilson's German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German on my own and found it much more user-friendly and systematic. Wilson teaches German reading courses for University of Chicago grad students.

In the very first lesson of German for Reading Knowledge, there are a number of words that are untranslated which you have to look up in the back of the book or another dictionary - not exactly a warm welcome.

The chapters cover more than one grammatical concept. They don't have titles which would indicate what the chapter covers. The practice sentences do not cover all of the material presented in the chapter. The reading selections don't cover things related to the chapter at all. For example, in the first chapter, past and present tenses are used when those have not been covered yet.

Both this book and Wilson's are broken up into 30 lesson programs. (Wilson's book has 36 chapters but she recommends a 30 day program on page 265).

Professors, don't require this book. You can do better. Look at the reviews of the hated technical Reading German: A Course Book and Reference Grammar, the out of print but useful German for reading;: A programmed approach for graduate and undergraduate reading courses and the encouraging German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German.

Students studying on your own, go with German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German. See the reviews on it at Amazon including mine. Or go with a totally different kind of CD-Rom resource that teaches you how to hear, speak and write German in addition to just reading it such as TeLL me More German Premium - Complete Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced.

Students who are required to use this book, hang in there. It does the job. Be glad you are not using it on your own. There are flashcards available that other people have made at http://www.flashcardexchange.com/search?t=2&q=german+for+reading+knowledge&search=Search

I used this book for an intensive (4 week) summer German course specifically geared toward graduate students who require reading knowledge of German for research purposes. It stresses grammar and mechanics without the frill of pronunication and vocabulary memorization or of composition. Stress on the recognition of forms and simple explanations of their uses make this text a very efficient intensive, beginner's guide.
For learners who would like to be able to pronounce the words that they are learning in order to compliment your memorization and recognition skills, you might want to buy/rent audio recordings to supplement your learning, esp. if you do not intend to take a class with an instructor to guide you.
I am a native English speaker, but have also learned French, Latin, and (ancient) Greek- so I have had some language learning experience which helps me to rate this particular book. Hope this helps!

The 5th is virtually exactly the same as the 6th edition--just the page numbers are about 2 pages off. Save some money and buy a 5th edition.

This book was our main text at UC Berkeley in a Graduate class. It is not a typical language text book, it is for those who want to learn how to read German...not recommended for those who wish to speak the language. If reading is what you want than this is THE book.

I'm halfway through a graduate course for German reading knowledge, and unfortunately I'm using this textbook. I have some experience with languages so the dry, bare-bones format doesn't bother me, although I can certainly sympathize with those who wish the book had a little more variety. My complaint with this book is the preponderance of undefined words in the chapter sentences, exercise sentences, and review sentences.

I don't know how many times I've come across a word that isn't listed in the chapter vocabularies, then looked for its definition in the short glosses below, only to find that it isn't there. I've then turned to the glossary in the back of the book to discover that the word isn't listed there, either. It's unbelievably frustrating. What is the purpose of including words that are not defined? Of course, I could look up the words in a dictionary, but that isn't the point. This book is supposed to teach me to read German, not send me on a scavenger hunt. It's rude to students and shows a complete lack of attention by the authors. How has this book made it to a sixth edition?

If you're interested in German reading, I suggest you pick up German Quickly, unless you enjoy hunting down words to complete your assignments.

I found this book to be well organized and easy to navigate. Occasionally there would be a random section added at the end of a chapter that didn't really relate to the rest of the chapter's material, which was odd. And sometimes they'll cover something again that was already covered, but all in all, I thought the flow was great and think it will be a great resource for the future when I need a refresher or to look up a grammatical concept.