Learn German the Fast and Fun Way with Audio CDs

Rating:
Summary: A very good tool for the traveller
Review: There are a variety of basic german books and book/tape combinations available for the person who wants to learn a bit of the language primarily for travel purposes, i.e., shopping, eating out, making hotel reservations, etc. This seems to me to be one of the best of that genre. I'm not quite sure why, but it seemed to work better for me than any of the others of this ilk. The text is nicely done with amusing illustrations; and, more importantly, the exercises and tapes seem to go a long way to achieiving their desired end of teaching and implanting a bit of German. For the person who wants more than a smattering of German, may I recommend the other Barron's course, Mastering German (the old Foreign Service Insititute course) and the Berlitz, Think and Talk German, both of which are superb, but rather more demanding and pricey than any "tourist" course.

Rating:
Summary: An Opinion
Review: This is a pretty good book, for the price. It has useful language themes (travel situations, practical things) and many good sample dialogs to model your language use on. The layout is visually appealing. Its coverage of grammar is a bit skimpy. Yes, it's very simple, but they may have gone too far. There is no grammar index so it's hard to locate various grammatical explanations. The past verb tenses are not explained in the book, which I think is a deficiency. There are a few typos, too.