Customer Reviews

Learn In Your Car: German: Level One (Language Tapes Series)

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

 

 

I found the first set, "level one", of the Learn in Your Car German series to be an excellent refresher to basic German travel and shopping words. Years ago I had two years of German in my US high school, but I struggled with the language. I bought this first CD in order to relearn enough German to get around Germany and Switzerland, and ended up listening to the CD both on my 1-hour weekend commutes and while jogging (after ripping the CDs into mp3 format and adding them to my work out setlist).

The CD really does start off with very basic words and phrases, focusing a bit more on travel related words like bus stop, train station, how much does it cost, etc. I honestly think that people whom have not taken German will be able to pick up on the basic phrases, but that people whom speak some German already will find these first 3 disks rather slow.

There are some words included in the lessons that I've never had the chance to use. Furthermore, some of the words are a bit out of date, such as references to the Deutsch Mark. It would have been nice for that track to be updated to talk about the Euro. I also found that the disk and my German language background did not prepare me for situations such as a local offering to buy me a drink!

The CD set comes with a nice, small book. Sadly, while I've found it easy to listen to the CD again and again while jogging and to a lesser degree while driving, I've never found the time to read the book while listening to the CD. I do feel it would help both my ability to speak German and more importantly, my ability to read the language.

I liked this set enough to buy the level 2 set. Furthermore, I found the way the lessons were broken up very useful in skipping tracks and focusing on the vocabulary I felt I'd need.

I really enjoyed this set. The tape presentation was clear, giving opportunity to hear and practice pronunciation. The booklet was a handy reference and explained some of the basics. This is a useful set for either just dabbling in German...or used as "extra practice" in conjunction with a beginner's book such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German." It's a nice way to ease into German before spending mega-bucks for an in-depth course. Great as a refresher, or for drill and practice while driving, exercising or working around the house.

An excellent overview of introductory german concepts. Covers basic phrases as well as important verbs and vocabulary in an excellent format (The amount of "fluff" between sections is kept to a minimum. Those familiar with other audio learning tapes will greatly appreciate this.). Great for the beginner, I've found it to serve as an excellent supplement to my German course.

I bought the excellent audiocassette version of this course some time ago, but now I want to get a CD-based course for greater convenience in rewinding and better durability than marginal-quality normal bias cassettes can provide. I was very disappointed in the publisher's attitude toward conversion to a CD format for a number of reasons. 1.) The cassette class has 3 levels of material, but the CD only comes in Level I. 2.) The 3-level cassette class actually costs less than just the single level available on CD. What a rip-off! 3.) They use 3 CDs to cover the information on 2 cassettes even though CDs can hold much more information than cassettes. Other companies put 60 minutes of language lessons on one CD typically. But this course also arbitrarily divides the lessons in a way that makes it much less convenient for someone wanting to use a CD player in their car (many CD's are loaded in the trunk, so the driver would have to pull over to skip to the next lesson, which should have fit on 1 CD in the first place.) I am very disgusted in the way an excellent language program has been marketed to inconvenience users unnecessarily while charging them triple the amount at the same time. I am now looking for another German language program I can learn in my car that is available on CD. The cassette version of this program is excellent (at least for those who have no choice but to use 30-year-old audio technology in their cars or prefer to study the language while walking with a portable cassette player), so that would be a better place to spend your money. Shame on the publisher!

Decent content, well organized. Unfortunately, the audio level is so low that you have to crank the volume way up. Forget that you did that (or fail to react fast enough when the track ends) and you blow your ears out when the next track starts.

Don't buy this CD. I just bought it used for cheap but it still wasn't worth it because it is outdated with lessons on German Franks, etc. It also spends way too much time on individual words instead of basic conversations. I was looking for a CD that would prepare me enough for a two-week trip and these lessons are over the place. I felt there were too much train and train station phrases, they even had the phrase "I'd like a room with a bathroom," which I feel is highly unnecessary these days. I've tried Pimsleur's CDs and they were more practical.

We like to listen to the tape in the car. We also listen to it if we are sitting around the house doing nothing. I was suprised that the tape didnt teach the alpahbet just because thats what you always learn first when learning a 2nd lang. but over all its good

I used the Penton Overseas LIYC series for French last year, and it was extremely helpful. I was able to have conversations with people we met in France based on what I learned using the CDs. I bought the German version this year in advance of a trip to Germany. The CDs are very helpful to pick up some useful words and phrases, particularly those related to travel and dealing with merchants. I do not have the time or ambition to spend hours infront of my PC trying to learn a language, so the format of this program was optimal for my objective. I spend around an hour and a half in the car each day and using these CDs for a few weeks helped me learn what I needed to know for the trip. I've never spoken a word of German before, and it is definitely a tough language to learn, but this product is a good way to start.

Take a blast to the past. I thought they were CD's... no, they are tapes. So I have no idea how the actual tapes are, but just wanted to let everyone know that they are not CD's.

I found this product unsatisfactory. The Learn German In Your Car Audio Book does not provide an effective avenue to learning German in your car, or any other environment. The Program is essentially an endless vocabulary list. It provides a spoken word in German and then repeats it twice in English. It then moves on to another word without explanation or pronunciation instruction. The speaker never returns to review past material or reinforce a previous lesson. Unless you have a photographic memory and are able to memorize thousands of words after hearing then only one time and have no interest in learning the grammar and syntax of the language, I would suggest that you do not purchase this product.