Customer Reviews

Ultimate German Beginner-Intermediate (CD/Book) (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is great for learning German with or without the CDs.
(Note: If you are learning on your own, I would definitely recommend that you purchase the CDs since words are not pronounced as you may think! If you want to learn in your car as well, you can substitute the Living Language's "All Audio German" CD set for the one you can get with this book, which has about 75% of the material in the book covered in a very quick manner.)

The book covers numerous topics you are likely to encounter in German-speaking countries. Unlike most textbooks, this book has an answer key in the back. Each chapter includes a reading, the translation of the reading, details on the grammar points introduced in the reading, an extended vocabulary list, problems and finally some cultural notes.

Each chapter covers a particular topic. Topics cover everything from arriving, ordering food, buying and returning items, and getting medical help. Depending upon how much time you have and how fast you learn, this book could keep you busy for a couple of months to several years.

The only book I'd recommend more for complete beginners is the PONS "Beginners' Course German" with audio CD, though I have not seen this outside of Germany. The PONS course offers less material, but the colorful format and slower speed may be better for those new to the German language. However, the Living Language book does offer so much more material for the same (or lower) price.

If you are only intersted in speaking (and comprehending spoken) German, then the Pimsleur Language Program is better (though MUCH more expensive). However, if you want to read and write German as well, I would definitely recommend this book with the CDs.

I moved to Austria some years ago and this is what helped me to learn German. I had taken some classes before at a German school in my hometown, and even though it was a good school I didn't learn much. This set and the advanced were real lifesavers for me. You'll still need much more than this, and a lot of time and practice, to speak good German, but this course will give you a great start. It teaches you a lot for the price. Intensive courses in a German speaking country are surely better, if you can afford them! But if you can't, or you live far away from a language school, this set is a great choice. There were several mistakes on the previuos edition; hopefully not in this one. The program is great anyway. Good luck!

I wanted to learn enough German to translate Schubert Lieder and Mozart librettos. After reading the reviews here on Amazon, I bought this set, and am thoroughly glad I did. This is not a perfect product, but what you get for your $50+ is simply amazing. I sampled quite a number of similar courses at our public library, and none of them came close to covering as much material as this one did. The progression of lessons is well thought out, building the student's knowledge at a reasonable pace. (Assuming you know something about languages already, that is. If you don't, this product may present too steep a curve.)

The actors reading the dialogs range from adequate to truly excellent, with most falling at the high end of the scale: clear, well-formed speech with enough dramatic skill to make the little skits easy to follow. Whoever determined the size of the chunks in the listen-and-repeat exercises sometimes misses the mark, however. There is a lesson, for instance, in which all the relations in 'ein Familienphoto' are read off in a single run. The goal is to drill the student in gender and number in noun phrases in the accusative case, but there is no time to think about that when you're trying to remember if the list included 'Vettern' or 'Schwägerinnen' or God knows what else. The point, I should like to remind the editors, is to study grammar, not develop memorization skills.

That said, this is a really extraordinary product. I transferred the CDs to my iPod and listen in my car, while doing chores, etc., always with great pleasure and profit.

Finally, this is not really a standalone product. (Nothing in this price range could be.) A good dictionary (I bought the Collins) and a good grammar ('Essential German Grammar' is excellent) are required if you want to develop a useful level of skill. 'Ultimate German' is a great way to get started, though.

I was terrified when my 8th grader elected to study one of the few languages that I don't speak, but the Ultimate German program has since relieved most of that anxiety. The comprehensive grammar sections and easy to introduce dialogues make learning beginning German both effective and fun. The set includes 8 CDs for both classroom and homework use, and provide for plenty of practice time. I recommend moving more slowly than the lesson a week standard with younger students, as each lesson includes A LOT of grammar, but this program is an effective tool in introducing a modern language into your curriculum.

I took German as the 2nd foreign language course in college and dropped it after one month after being told by the teacher that one had to be able to vibrate one's tongue in order to learn German and that one should train one's tongue with water in the morning till it starts vibrate, which meant that I was doomed to learn German because the physical limitation of my tongue.

This was more than 20 years ago.

Recently, I decided to take another look at learning the German language, partly due to my curiosity about the German culture, and partly due to my fascination of being able to read the original writings of those great German thinkers.

After an extensive search on the internet and on [...], I found this course and bought it after some hesitation about its price tag.

It's been several months since I received my book and cd's.

I am taking my time on this German course, progressing at about one lesson per week, and keeping going back to review previous lessen(s) before starting a new lessen for the week.

First, I am surprised to learn that my college German teacher was incorrect. I don't seem to need a vibrating tongue to learn and to speak German.

During this time, I have had ordered a bunch of books on learning German, as well as other course material some of which also include cd's. But none of which has the same quality as this course, either in the mixture of new words, verbs, grammar and usages, or in the dialogs and word pronunciation.

So far, this is the best German course for me. And it's $[...] well invested.

If any one knows a better one, please tell me about it.

I have listened to this beginning CD set while I was driving long distances. It is wonderful! This set is well thought through and words are grouped according to the category in which they are most used. It allows you to figure new words out without really knowing.

The speakers have different dialects which give you a real listening ability for how the sounds are made differently in the areas of Germany.

This is one of the best CD sets I have ever used. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn quickly, easily, and effortlessly.

I must start off by saying that I have never had a German class, neither at any formal institution nor with a tutor, friend, or the like. Therefore, I cannot judge this text against any formal course of German.
But, I am very interested in learning languages, and have used many textbooks in the past, even some made for use in a school environment. So, I feel that I can give a fairly good critique of this book.
Out of any foreign language textbook I have used, I find that this book is, if not THE best, one of the best I have had the experience of learning a language with. I am self-taught in all of the languages I have been learning, except for three years of Spanish I took in school. Therefore, I know that textbooks need to have certain aspects to be able to be used sufficiently for self-study, and this book has them.
Although there is no CD, many resources can be found online for the pronunciation of German, and the pronunciation notes in the beginning of the book, I find, are very good ones. Therefore, I do not feel that pronunciation should be much of a struggle to learn.
I very much like the structure of the chapters in this book, and find that it works very well for learners. Each chapter begins with a Dialogue or two, and their translation(s). These are not too difficult and not too long or too short, and they are written to be able to be mostly understood based on knowledge from previous chapters. Following the Dialogue, there is a section for Grammar and Structure, which teaches material a reader has not yet learned from a previous chapter. There are then vocabulary lists and exercises, to reinforce the material. By the end of a chapter, a reader should be able to understand the dialogue, or at least almost all of it.
The book also provides review quizzes after every ten chapters, as well as practice readings written like articles one might see in the news or on a blog, et cetera.
Overall, I find that this book is a very good introduction to the German language for anyone interested, whether a student, or just a casual learner such as myself.

This book is useless without cd's, and for beginners you should get the beginner book with 4 cd's, and then when you go thru that, get the next level.. its not worth getting the beginner-intermediate... because mine didnt come with CD's and it dosent go into alot of details as much as the actual beginner book...

I am a native German and I teach German classes to adults, I am using this book the 2. year and I think it is a good book to learn the German language.

I am living in Germnay, so I decided to take a German I class. I have just finished German I and have found the book and especially the CD's of great help. I listen to the CD's everyday and find that this is very helpful for pronunciation.