Learn in Your Car German: Level One

Rating:
Summary: Learn German in your Car with Cds
Review: An excellent overview of introductory german concepts. Covers basic phrases as well as important verbs and vocabulary in an excellent format (The amount of "fluff" between sections is kept to a minimum. Those familiar with other audio learning tapes will greatly appreciate this.). Great for the beginner, I've found it to serve as an excellent supplement to my German course.

Rating:
Summary: Ja Vol!
Review: An excellent overview of introductory german concepts. Covers basic phrases as well as important verbs and vocabulary in an excellent format (The amount of "fluff" between sections is kept to a minimum. Those familiar with other audio learning tapes will greatly appreciate this.). Great for the beginner, I've found it to serve as an excellent supplement to my German course.

Rating:
Summary: Ja Vol!
Review: An excellent overview of introductory german concepts. Covers basic phrases as well as important verbs and vocabulary in an excellent format (The amount of "fluff" between sections is kept to a minimum. Those familiar with other audio learning tapes will greatly appreciate this.). Great for the beginner, I've found it to serve as an excellent supplement to my German course.

Rating:
Summary: Learn German in your Car with Cds
Review: I bought the excellent audiocassette version of this course some time ago, but now I want to get a CD-based course for greater convenience in rewinding and better durability than marginal-quality normal bias cassettes can provide. I was very disappointed in the publisher's attitude toward conversion to a CD format for a number of reasons. 1.) The cassette class has 3 levels of material, but the CD only comes in Level I. 2.) The 3-level cassette class actually costs less than just the single level available on CD. What a rip-off! 3.) They use 3 CDs to cover the information on 2 cassettes even though CDs can hold much more information than cassettes. Other companies put 60 minutes of language lessons on one CD typically. But this course also arbitrarily divides the lessons in a way that makes it much less convenient for someone wanting to use a CD player in their car (many CD's are loaded in the trunk, so the driver would have to pull over to skip to the next lesson, which should have fit on 1 CD in the first place.) I am very disgusted in the way an excellent language program has been marketed to inconvenience users unnecessarily while charging them triple the amount at the same time. I am now looking for another German language program I can learn in my car that is available on CD. The cassette version of this program is excellent (at least for those who have no choice but to use 30-year-old audio technology in their cars or prefer to study the language while walking with a portable cassette player), so that would be a better place to spend your money. Shame on the publisher!

Rating:
Summary: Stop listening to radio commercials, start learning German!
Review: I just bought and started this set yesterday, and it is *exactly* what I wanted. After reading numerous reviews of this set and the same series in other languages, I was convinced this was the way to go. My only regret is that I didn't buy the complete 3-level set. I can tell I am going to want to continue once I've mastered level 1.

There is an accompanying CD that features an interview with a laguage expert about how to learn languages, but I couldn't wait and started on disc 1. Right away, you are learning German like children learn their native language -- one word, then two words, then short sentences.

I do recommend starting by sitting with the book once. It helps to see the spelling of the words as you listen to the German speaker say them. Not every word's spelling is apparent in my head as I listen, so I found this much more helpful for remembering the words and for overall understanding and pronunciation.

German and English are both Germanic languages, so the language makes sense. It's a very descriptive language and you already know quite a few words from watching war movies or Hogan's Heroes on tv. (Achtung, bitte! Das ist verboten.) The most difficult part will be pronunciation, so I will practice a lot to avoid having a bad American accent as much as possible.

When I was a kid in the early 70s, my family moved to Brazil for a year. There was no system to teach kids Portuguese and my brothers and I really suffered from not speaking the language. Now that I anticipate moving to Germany for a few years, I will do whatever I can to teach my children German as well. I plan to purchase Learn in the Car German for Kids, so we can all learn together. Then we'll go from there.

Bottom line: If you want to learn German easily on your own and maximize the value of your time in the car, get this set!

Rating:
Summary: A nice set to ease into German with...
Review: I really enjoyed this set. The tape presentation was clear, giving opportunity to hear and practice pronunciation. The booklet was a handy reference and explained some of the basics. This is a useful set for either just dabbling in German...or used as "extra practice" in conjunction with a beginner's book such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German." It's a nice way to ease into German before spending mega-bucks for an in-depth course. Great as a refresher, or for drill and practice while driving, exercising or working around the house.

Rating:
Summary: A nice set to ease into German with...
Review: I really enjoyed this set. The tape presentation was clear, giving opportunity to hear and practice pronunciation. The booklet was a handy reference and explained some of the basics. This is a useful set for either just dabbling in German...or used as "extra practice" in conjunction with a beginner's book such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German." It's a nice way to ease into German before spending mega-bucks for an in-depth course. Great as a refresher, or for drill and practice while driving, exercising or working around the house.