German: How to Speak and Write It

This book was originally published in 1950 by Odhams. It was one of a series of books that covered all the GCE school subjects at that time and I still have the original one that I received as a Christmas present in 1951. I'm delighted to see that it has been republished, along with the French version, in its original form. It is one of the most logically arranged books I have ever seen, and although, understandably, the illustrations look a little old fashioned, they are still just as valid today. The annotated illustrations (eg Post Office, Station, Town, Zoo etc, mean that nouns that are associated with each other are all grouped together in one place, and the list includes the plural form for those nouns. The English key to those illustrations is at the back of the book. Fast forward 64 years: I am currently leading a U3A German study group and I am using this very book, even though it is now 65 years old! I would strongly recommend it to anyone learning German. It may be old, but it has never been bettered.

この本は文法よりは実例がドイツ語の学習には効果的 という方針で書かれている。 実際、ドイツの風景や日常生活の写真や絵が ドイツ語と英語で説明されており、 独学者がたのしみながらその両方の言語が学習できる ようになっている。 国内で出版されている同種の学習書よりも数段上の内容が あり、千円以下の価格で購入できるので、英語に抵抗感の ない方にはお勧めの本である。

Livro para aprender alemão com muitas ilustrações e ampliação do vocabulário,método para auto estudo,exercícios variados. Ainda mantém o mesmo formato da edição original dos anos 60. Importado dos Estados Unidos. Inglês/alemão. Não há traduções em português.

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.

This is a good book for learning German although there are some old fashioned words. Besides, its pictures helped me to understand complicated words.