Workbook/Lab Manual to Accompany Kontakte: A Communicative Approach

by Brigitte Nikolai, Tracy D. Terrell, Erwin P. Tschirner

This introductory German text emphasizes communicative proficiency. The method, called the natural approach, stresses the use of activities in a natural and spontaneous classroom atmosphere. Grammar... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072309725
• ISBN13: 9780072309720
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Langua
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Kontakte: The gateway to fine German

This very detailed book is a perfect solution for a textbook in German. The format and layout is easy for one to navigate through the book. As studied through many German texts and this one stands out for being so clear on the subject.

Kontakte --- sehr kool! sehr fun!

Ladywisdom is so right. Kontakte is super-fun. Since I started taking it at UCSD (tres competitive!), I can say WHATEVER I want. I was talking to my girlfriend Uli in German(she's from Deutschland, but isn't a jack-booted, Lederhose-wearing, freakazoid like ours truly), and I wanted to get her to play the new Speers album, and it was like so cool --- I said "Spiel das CD auf dem CD-Spieler" --- a she TOTALLY knew what I meant. I love the Blickkontakte interviews, the cute pictures, and I'm learning sooo much. :)

Simply marvelous

Having attended a highly competitive university (so competitive, in fact, that I know how to spell the word... unlike A.A.) and taken six other languages before my study of German, I found that the approach of my teachers and the text made the German language immediately accessible to me. The method allows me to draw my own connections to my previously acquired languages (for example, some parts are similar to Greek... others French... others Spanish...). If we choose to ignore the gains made by postmodernism, we might note that this German text's language mimics the inductive approach to language learning taken by my notable Professor D.N. Freedman (who has been safely heralded by his peers from Harvard to Oxford as having 'genius'). For those of the populace NOT attached to a thesaurus as A.A., I think you will find this text a happy medium between immersion/induction (which leaves one stranded without grammar) and rote learning (which delays fluency).

German is not just for marxists and sociopaths anymore.

I would just like to respond to Anthony Adler's caustic, and if I dare say, arrogant review of Kontakte. Teachers like Adler seem to believe that students are only truly learning if they are suffering. Perhaps it would make Adler happy to see students toiling away memorizing thousands of arcane conjunctions from a withered, yellowing book written during the Weimar Republic. I, however, prefer a textbook like Kontakte that, informed by the latest research in applied socio-linguistics, provides students with a relevant and pleasurable introduction to the language and culture of contemporary Germany. Adler should realize the fact that most students at today's "highly competetive universities" don't study German in order to read Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, but to prepare themselves for future careers in business and international relations, or simply for their own personal enrichment. They don't want to become depraved, melancholic graduate students, but productive citizens of world, promoting the values of the free market economy and the American Way of Life. For this, I can not imagine a more perfect textbook than Kontakte.

Very easy to understand

This is a text I used when I was studying German at university, and I have found it generally well laid out book and easy to understand. Each in almost entirely written in German, and each has a theme with examples of of these themes in everday life. The book is full of pictures, which I find conducive to learning. At the end of each chapter, there are explanations of how the grammar works, and a list of vocaulary relevant for the chapter. There are plenty of pictures One review has mentioned that it is not a book for self teaching. I can not comment on this time about that at this stage, however I did have to end my course at university prematurely, and I intend to continue learning from this book.One thing this book does not address, is the new German spelling reforms.