German: How to Speak and Write It (Dover Dual Language German) 2nd Edition

I have been working on teaching myself German at home using a number of different courses, both in book and audio form. Although this book has no audio to go with it, and you definitely need to hear native speakers for the proper pronunciation, as no book alone can give you that, I've found this book very helpful. It covers a lot of ground with clear explinations of basic German word and grammer usage with helpful pronunciation tips and English translations of what you're learning in German so you can check yourself. It also has many illustrations to help you identify objects in German and a series of photographs of German life that are captioned in detail (in German) with complete English translations available at the back of the book. For me, being able to learn the German words and being able to see everything with the English translations is really helpful. You may not be able to actually "speak" German with this book, but this will help you learn, read and write German. So while you will need some kind of audio course to supplement this book, I highly reccomend it. As far as audio courses go, I've used the Pimsleur German 1 (which I've reviewed elseware) which is great for pronuciation and the repetive exercises help you remember the lessons, but has no printed materials available legally, and because of this you have no idea what you're actually saying, how words are broken down and what the German words actually look like. German words are pronounced much differently than they are spelled, and so you're at a real loss when you try to look up words and see that v's are pronounced like f's and w's are pronounced like v's, and so on. It's a very frustrating way, at least for me, to try to learn something. You'll never learn to spell or write German with Pimsleur although it's okay in the car for practicing. I've found the German Living Language Complete Edition much better for me. It's all written out for you so you can see what you're saying. The Pimsleur is better for pronunciation, but you'll learn a lot more and faster with the Living Language course. Obviously taking German lessons with real native speakers would be the best way to learn the language, but for now, this mixture of these several courses I've mentioned seems to work best for me, as I haven't found the perfect home course yet. If someone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I bought this book entirely on the strength of the positive reviews on Amazon. And the price made it a small investment to boot.Rather than repeat the accolades of others, I would mostly say "thank you" to the other reviewers for their accurate comments. This little volume has a lot of helpful grammar hints and tables. For me, it is like a course book which I am working through a chapter at a time.I am using it to supplement Learn in Your Car German, which assists in developing aural and pronunciation skills. Between the two I am finding that my German vocabulary and reading skills are growing rapidly -- it is hard to imagine ever speaking German fluently, but then I felt that way studying Spanish and French at the outset.UPDATE Aug 10, 2009It is now another month since my initial review and I keep finding more to like about this learning aid.The 15-page Grammar Summary near the end of the book has a marvelous compilation of how articles (der, die and das, plus so-called "ein" and "der" words, change in each declension. Seeing the striking similarities in the endings for the various words in each case has made what looked to me like an incomprehensible mess pretty comprehensible.UPDATE July 7, 2011Using this book helped me with making sense of signs and the written word while traveling in Switzerland in 2009. I put it aside for 18 months and now have another trip to Switzerland coming up so started over. Although I forgot a lot of vocabulary, the second time around the book is even better, probably because the first time around the declension of nouns and the split verbs were a complete mystery. This time, it all makes much more intuitive sense for some reason and the utility of the vocabulary taught in the book is much more evident to me this go around as well. When my Swiss grandsons understood my simple and probably grammatically incorrect sentence -- "Hast du essen gern salat?" "Do you like salad?" They and I were both surprised and pleased.

I first bought this book about 15 years ago (OMG), but I didn't stick with my German studies long enough to make real use of it. I remember thinking even then that it would be a great self-study book. When I found it on Amazon for so cheap, I ordered it again. As remembered, this book is really fantastic. Obviously, it's a little dated, having first been published in 1962. But the majority of the content is still valid and since you won't (hopefully) be relying solely on this book for your studies, the few out-of-date things shouldn't be an issue.The format of this book is pleasant to me for some reason. It has lots of quaint photos and images to illustrate vocabulary. There are exercises to test your mastery of the material, with keys to the exercises in the back of the book. In the first few lessons, example sentences have pronunciation aids beneath them. Reading sections are presented on the left side of the page with the English translation on the right. The material covered is divided into the typical sections: family, colors, greetings, numbers, the home, weather, traveling, shopping, sports, dining. And of course by the end you'll have a good understanding of grammar.At the end of the book is an introduction to German literature, which briefly covers (in English) the history of the language, as well as key influences such as Luther's translation of the Bible, Shakespeare, philosophy, war, etc. There is also a brief introduction to German customs/society, obviously very dated.