Customer Reviews

German: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)

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

 

 

I have found this book's layout to be very clear and easy to follow. The introduction teaches in detail how German spelling are supposed to sound by providing english words that appoximate the sounds. This book seems to contain grammar lessons that are more extensive than those found in the popular "Teach Yourself" course. This book serves duly as a workbook in that you can write your answers to the exercises in the spaces provided and refer to the correct answers in the back of the book. My biggest gripe about the book is that there were no pictures. I love pictures!

I found the book extremely helpful in studying German. There are a few caveats, though. First, you probably would want to start with a simpler book, as the pace picks up pretty quickly in this one, and it can leave you behind.

One thing that annoyed me was the way some terms and structures were introduced out of the blue - not always properly explained. One such example is case declension - the meaning of "cases" wasn't defined at all, as if the book was meant for reviewing the material, rather than learning it for the first time.

As someone who's just trying to brush up on my German before I need to use it this fall, I have found this book really helpful at covering vocabulary and grammar points. It often bothers me, though, that the answers in the back sometimes directly contradict instructions in either the reading or the exercise itself. Also, there have been several times when a word used in an exercise was not in either the end-of-chapter vocabulary, or in the German-English dictionary at the back of the book.

As I said, though, for the most part, I do like this book. Just make sure you take it with a grain of salt.

Great Self teaching book if you can find the time to sit down and read it and do the activities

a good guide for the cheap price -- a little dated (still talks about east and west germany) but grammar and vocab never age -- good exercises, moves quickly, sometimes assumes you know more than has been taught in the chapter -- there are probably better systems/guides out there, but i like this publisher, so...