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Rating: 
Summary: Recieving my book
Review: Aime was extremely quick with my purchase. The book was in great condition (like she said), even though it was used it could have passed for a new book. I would recommend purchasing from her.
Rating:
Summary: German is not just for marxists and sociopaths anymore.
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent for communicative, in-class learning
Review: I'm a native speaker of German and have taught first year German with this book - I love it, and so did my students. I think the communicative approach works great, the book offers a multitude of topics for interaction and communication. It explains the basics of grammar and allows the student to learn by using the language, rather than by memorizing rules. It is, as I mentioned, a book for beginners (first year) and not appropriate for any other level, and it is a book to be used in a class setting, not for self studies. It will not work for other learning situations, but there are other books for those settings. I have learned Spanish with the "Dos Mundos" book from the same series and with the same approach and found it the most effective language learning I have ever experienced. Used in a classroom applying a "natural approach" to language learning, this book is wonderful and an extremely effective way of starting with a new language!
Rating:
Summary: Very easy to understand
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: You don't get arguments of this nature over in the architecture section, where I normally do my browsing.
Great stuff.
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