The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German on Your Own

by Alicia Müller and Stephan Müller

Book Overview

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? This guide covers the essentials of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and conversation. This new edition has been updated to reflect world events that have occurred over the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0028639251
• ISBN13: 9780028639253
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Review of "Learning German"

It came exactly in the condition it was promised. It did not take long either which is always a plus.

Great Book -- Still No Pimsleur, Though

I was shopping for German instruction books the other day at the book store and this was the first one I found. I had looked at German for Dummies as well, but wasn't as impressed. All of the other products were on CD, which I didn't bother with (unless it's one of those audio-only listening disks) since I'm more comfortable with books here. So I bought it. So far it's proving to be a great book, for the price. It's the same case with the Idiot's Guide to Spanish I bought a year back, so it looks like these people may have just earned themselves a new customer. And I say "for the price" because I tend to compare these products to Pimsleur's, which are, in my view, the best of the best in DIY language training. However, 690 dollars for their complete two box set (I wish I were kidding) seemed a little steep for me at the time, to say the least.

Great for me!

All errors aside, this book is great for me! The only way to get around the errors are to have a suplementary book and a supplementary class, but I really like the "We are Family" exerpts where they draw relations to German and English. This stuff goes really deep, as it often relates between Old and Middle english with German. Its nothing like most books that state, "Many words from German are in English like 'Kindergarten, and kaput!'" They explain, for example how the Old english the suffix "e" or "lic" was added to make adjectives; "friendly and homely" are modern remnants. This helps you understand the German suffix "lich," which is very similar to the Old English "lic". Very helpful, I think. Anyone with a slight knowledge of Old and Middle English will really appreciate it. It also gives a very rapid presentation to the Grammar unlike many textbooks where you don't understand why things change the way they do untill much learning. With this book you are almost never presented with something that isn't expained first or soon after. I like it because it expains the things that I won't get in the textbook for many weeks simply. For instance, it simply explains the contractions like zum (zu dem) which isn't explained in most text books until much later. You are always asking yourself "why does it change?" Now I know. This book is a great supplement for the beginner. I don't know much German yet, but I do recognize the errors. I do believe that for the most part the conceptual explanations are very good and helpful. Use this book to give yourself a broad, conceptual base to the detailed specifics you'll be learning in a textbook. This book is everything that a textbook lacks in terms of giving broad conceptual meaning to the strict memorization of a textbook.

Fair book for beginners

This book is helpful for someone who knows very little-nothing about German language. It touches on culture, and is a nice source book for learning German. However, if the reader knows basics of the German language, I would recommend a different book. This is a nice great book for the clueless. :o)

Helpful for the absolute beginner

This book has one *MAJOR* thing going for it that I had not seen in many other books related to learning German. This is that nearly every phrase/saying/word and sentence has the pronunciation of the German words in English phonetics. This is perhaps the most helpful and useful thing that an absolute beginner in learning German needs to have in order to get the pronunciation right (well...nearly right)and develop a feel for the actual sounds of the words. The book is definately aimed at people who have never studied a language before and has perhaps the best explanation of german grammar for such people. Having said that, it is probably not a good idea to base your German on this book, but used in conjunction with a good basic german grammar course book (such as a student of german would recieve) it provides an invaluable asset in this regard.However, if the reader has never studied german before then they will be a bit daunted by the complexity of the sentences that they are given for examples and many of these examples will be overly complex. For people who have a basic to good knowlege of german then this book is very good and provides many useful phrases and excercises to increase your vocabulary and understanding.Overall, a good book