The Everything Learning German Book: Speak, write, and understand basic German in no time (Everything® Series)

I chose the Everything series as my entry point to the German language over other options, including the Dummies series, largely on the advice of reviews, and I was not disappointed. Beyond the high-school textbook quality illustrations on the cover and the two-tone black and green print (which I personally find attractive), you will find a well-organized text designed to bring the reader from essentially nothing to a basic understanding of the workings of the German language. It is important to note that my experience with this text has been colored by the fact that I have studied other languages before, and so knowing the basic ways and terminology of language study made me slightly more than a beginner when I picked up the book, although I had no prior experience with the formal study of German. If you have studied languages and are familiar with noun cases and verb tenses and such, you may find the ordering of chapters illogical at first, since they skip from one area of language to another, rather than focusing exclusively on nouns until they are covered and only then moving to verbs, as other language texts may do. However, I found when reading from cover to cover, the order of the chapters helped to break things up a bit, so as not to overwhelm the beginning student, although some (such as those on time and numbers) are modular enough to skip ahead to if need be. Also, the introductory section does its job well enough, with an overview of German pronunciation, which is helpful, although no substitute for hearing the language pronounced by native speakers--for this I recommend audio CD's, unless you are fortunate enough to have access to German speakers. A few notes about the pronunciation guide: The author uses a home-grown, and I think sometimes inconsistent, method of phonetic transcription which is designed to be intuitive for a native English speaker. Also, phonetic spellings of words (placed in parentheses) cease after the first few chapters. One thing I especially appreciate about the book is the author's friendly, encouraging tone. Swick has a way of disarming the language so that it does not seem too scary, and his writing projects a confidence that a beginning student should appreciate. The credentials on the back cover indicate the author knows what he's talking about, and his explanations of the language show it, including sections on English grammar which precede explanations of their German equivalents. The vocabulary the book offers, including a decent German-English/English-German dictionary in the back, seem adequate for a beginning student, and the exercises at the end of each chapter are good, although I recommend buying a dedicated workbook, since you will not get near the practice you need with the few exercises this book offers. Despite a handful of sections on ordering at restaurants and the like, this is not a book of quick travel phrases. It is an introductory German grammar, which is effective for those who want to get a handle on how the language works and who want to begin a process of study to arrive at greater fluency. Overall, I found this an excellent introduction to German language study. I personally found it useful to augment this book with a good dictionary, such as the Collins German Unabridged Dictionary 5th Edition (Harpercollins Unabridged Dictionaries) , and a good intermediate/advanced grammar, such as Hammer's German Grammar and Usage .

This book is superb! I am married to a native German speaker and need all the help I can get. I am writing as a self taught German student that is trying to learn all as fast as possible. This book starts off slow with very useful vocabulary. There is an excellent pronunciation section which is very necessary with German. I very much like how new vocabulary and workbook pages are mixed together. Everything is index so perfectly so it is easy to find help within the book. All new vocabulary have translation so there is no need for an extra dictionary with this book. The presentation is very well done. It is a basic level book (as the title mentions) so it is great for new students or self taught students. The book can be used again and again for practice. There are so many words to learn and exercises to do making this book well worth the money. I am very sorry this book was not available when I began my studies! The author is very talented. Thanks to him for such a useful book and hopefully there will be more advanced books with audio programs in the future.

I bought this book to freshen up my German skills, after nearly 8 years of not using the language at all. Before that I took German classes in high school for 3 years at a rate of 3 hours/week. This book is actually pretty good if you are looking to actually understand the German language. It isn't just a "useful phrases" book for tourists but it goes in depth about each topic it mentions. If you're a complete beginner, I highly recommend this book and if you're an intermediate learner, this book can be a good source to skim through quickly. Pros: - The chapters are ordered logically - The theory is concise and well explained, in fairly simple terms - The chapters can be read chronologically, but as there are very few references to older chapters, you can freely read whichever chapter you want to Cons: - The first 3 chapters are a bit of a bore and don't teach you much - The phonetic writing is horrible, the writer probably chose to do it this way to find sounds that are somewhat similar to words in the English language, but if you actually practice it this way, you'll just speak German with a thick English accent. - The exercises are rather limited, I don't believe beginners will be able to properly learn and understand the cases with such a limited set of exercises about the subject - It often feels like the vocabulary is just thrown in there, because they had to put in some words here in there, if you're looking to learn a lot of words, this probably isn't the right book for you All in all it is a good read, but you shouldn't use this book only to study German, consider it as an introduction or a book to freshen up old skills and improve your German by actually getting books with grammar/vocabulary drills.

Contém cd de áudio, chave de respostas, explicações simples e exercícios. Livro bilíngue: inglês e alemão

Average

Give it four out of five, because good can always get better! I Strongly recommend it for beginner German speakers!

Es el mejor libro que he probado de alemán. En el CD tienes las listas de reproduccion, que estan muy bien, sin embargo no se pausan, y pasan de una a otra rapido. La forma para repetirlo es pausarlo rapido y rebobinar.

Il testo in oggetto mi è piaciuto per la sua agilità. Esso aiuta nell'apprendimento dei fonemi fondamentali del tedesco in un modello standard, e fornisce in sintesi dei suggerimenti per capire la grammatica "first the first". Per esempio, ho trovato interessante subito la distinzione dei generi, essa non prescinde da una grammatica completa ma offre di seguito un promemoria utile da far seguire alla disamina che ne fa lo stesso Ed. Swick in un capitolo di "German Grammar Drills".