Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
great starter!, July 8, 2001
This book is great for starting out in your language learning. I use other language cassetes as well, but this helps me by presenting small amounts of information, and also giving me a visual aid. You may feel stupid and your friends might laugh at it, but put the stickers up around your house....then walk around saying: "Wo ist das Sofa? Dort ist das Sofa!" It really does help. It is also helpful that this is a very thin book, easy to throw in your bag when you are traveling and work on it. I take it on business trips and flip through and do a little bit every day. Also helpful is that this book has excercises, questions, and crosswords to keep you thinking so that you aren't just parroting it back. I definitely recommend this book if you are just starting to learn, need a small refresher or need some basics to survive for a trip. Includes tear out flash cards, stickers to label objects, and a carry along translation card for dining out experiences.
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62 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Sorry, this book is not a good way to learn German, November 8, 2004
I've been learning Russian by self study for the last couple of years and recently decided to brush up on my German as well. I've purchased a LOT of language learning products as of late, and I've found that the quality and effectiveness of learning materials can vary greatly. I bought the Russian version of this text and was incredibly disappointed. I was in a bookstore recently and checked out the German version. Yup, more of the same. This book might be okay for kids, but it's not a serious learning tool. Learning a language in ten minutes a day may be a fun fantasy, but the resources available in this series of books won't do much to help you learn German.
On the surface the book looks great - big pictures, stickers, activities, flash cards and a laminated "pocket pal" with a short list of phrases and such. The problem with these resources is that they all fall short when scrutinized individually. There aren't enough flash cards, and the words that are chosen are sort of odd. Some are obvious for the beginner, but many just leave me scratching my head as to why they picked them. The activities in the book are the best part, but as a workbook, it's only average. The stickers are a good idea in theory, but are you really going to put stickers on objects all around your house? The "pocket pal" phrasebook would be a decent idea, but it's a real pain to get out of the book (I had to cut it out with a razor knife), and it's too big to fit comfortably in your pocket when folded up. Because this book tries to be everything to everyone it falls short on all counts.
One thing you'll notice about most of the five-star reviews listed here for this book is that often it's the only review that the "reviewer" has made. I find that very suspicious, don't you? Click on them and check out their other reviews, you'll find there arent any. Hmmmm... can you say "sock puppet"?
For a popular language like German, there are many good and reasonably priced language materials available that will take you much farther than this text. The Teach Yourself series is good and comparably priced with a better book and tapes that allow you to actually hear the language. The Living Language Ultimate German isn't bad at all. Oh, and Deutsche Welle has free German lessons available on their website.
Here's a note going out on the off-chance that there are people reading this that are really serious about learning a foreign language: Buy "How to Learn Any Language" by Barry Farber. While his method is effective, it requires work and in addition you'll need to budget a bit of cash for materials. But the materials can be purchased over time and don't necessarily need to be the expensive ones.
Or you can buy stuff like this. But you won't learn to speak German well and you'll have wasted your money. It's your choice.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
German in 10 Minutes a Day, June 30, 2001
I'm an American English teacher traveling through Europe. I spoke no German before leaving the states and bought this book to learn the basics. It definately helped! I believe in "easy" learning, and the information in this book -- as well as its layout and illustrations -- made learning simple. Plus, it contains stickers bearing the names of common household objects. Placing the stickers all around my house was a painless way to learn vocabulary. Use the book along with other books or tapes if you want. It helped me survive my first months in Germany!
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