Customer Reviews

The Oxford German Cartoon-strip Vocabulary Builder

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I accepted a short-term exchange assignment in Deutschland this summer and needed to rapidly ramp up my 30 year old German. The cartoon strip book was an invaluable aid in improving my vocabulary and at the same time was quite funny (wirklich, kein Quatsch). I strongly recommend it to anyone trying to increase their German vocabulary, especially as the language is really spoken in Deutschland. It does assume a basic konowledge of German grammar and usage.

These cartoons are great--the teenagers are sullen and cranky, the characters find themselves in embarrassing situations, just like real life. I've used the French edition of this series, too, and this German version is just as good. You learn useful words such as "das Handy" (cell phone) and phrases like "im Internet surfen" (to surf the Internet. Very effective and a lot of fun.

I put this book aside because the first cartoon in the book had words in it that were not defined in the accompanying word list. For me this cartoon book is at too advanced a level of German to be useful for a beginner like me. I recommend instead purchasing "Michel Thomas German Language Builder" on CD.
This cartoon book in my opinion is not useful to anyone who has not had a least a full year of German instruction in a formal course of study.

One of the open secrets of both learning and 'maintaining' a language other than one's mother tongue is to keep the language up or it will begin to fade from memory and you'll find yourself groping for words you once knew but through non use it begins to fade away. One of the best ways to maintain a language in addition to one's mother tongue is obviously to use it and keep the vocabulary fresh even if it's just reading [and hence maintaining] the language.

I spent some years in Germany [Darmstadt and Bad Nauheim, usw.] and as much as I love the German language, it can at times be rather vexing because it's a language where virtually every part of speech can change due to sentence structure not to mention just as a very simple example the word "a" which depending on German sentence usage could be either ein, eine, einen, einem, eines or einer [!] and one can go bananas using the 'correct' tense or gender or 'ending' or what-have-you and when these endings go into not just nouns and pronouns but also adjectives, adverbs, articles, verbs, etc., or the old classic "exception to the rule" words, it can get particularly frustrating 'unless' the language is kept up and not to mention knowing and learning newer expressions and regionalisms or indeed even German slang!

This book uses cartoon-strips [AKA comic-strip narratives] but is 'not' the type of cartoon-strips for young children but rather older readers and each cartoon-strip sequence has a rich vocabulary as well as added vocabulary to the theme of the cartoon-strip and key sentence structures that can be very helpful. As one reviewer pointed out, it is 'not' an into course in German but rather a 'builder' of German vocabulary and so some prior knowledge of German would be, IMO, very helpful. In effect, if you have had no prior study or usage of German, this book would be tough going but it's a decided plus if you have had exposure to German [or, as they say, your German is "rusty"] and is an excellent way to both maintain and build-up vocabulary versus the more "I see the book" or "The book is on the table" kind of tutorial thing. So too, the cartoon-strip panels are 'not' directly translated but rather have a section called "understanding the text" but in this way you can see the 'root' word [very helpful in tracking down the 'root' word, especially a verb, in a German dictionary] and then observe in the text how these words in fact change depending on their usage [and tense] in the sentence and this, IMO, is 'vital' in German and especially with German verbs. As I say, some background in German would be very helpful and then you build your knowledge of "die Sprache" [** the language] from there but in a rather novel way and approach via these cartoon-strips. German is not easy. To read, write and speak German 'correctly' [operative word] takes time but maintaining and building vocabulary and proper sentence usage and structure therein can make a world of difference. Ahhh, the fond memories of D-Land even including, are you ready, "Nun liebe Kinder, gebt fein acht, ich habe euch etwas mitgebracht!" Who can forget the ol' Sandmännchen! ;-)

Doc Tony

If you are looking for a quick laugh, and then forget about what you laugh or learn about after you close the book, this is not the one to buy. I learn a lot of daily French talking from this book, as well as how French people think. To me, it is not just a comics book; it became my friend.