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Rating: 
Summary: Good book - but not to be used by itself...
Review: I am currently enroled in begining German. This book is not the kind of book you can teach yourself from. You need lots of help along the way - which is fine. But the book does not stand on it's own. Also - the labs were horrible. I think you can do better for the money.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful book, easy to use and learn from
Review: I have taken two semesters of college German using this book and so far, pretty good! We are in Kapitel 7 right now. I like the pictures and the realia. But I feel it gives enough grammar, too. The explanations are really clear. The accompanying materials are good, too.Unfortunately, I don't think it is a self-teaching book. It really demands a classroom, and a TV/VCR. Though it is expensive, it is worth it!
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book, easy to use and learn from
Review: I have taken two semesters of college German using this book and so far, pretty good! We are in Kapitel 7 right now. I like the pictures and the realia. But I feel it gives enough grammar, too. The explanations are really clear. The accompanying materials are good, too. Unfortunately, I don't think it is a self-teaching book. It really demands a classroom, and a TV/VCR. Though it is expensive, it is worth it!
Rating: 
Summary: Completely Useless, unless it's all you have.
Review: There's really no point to owning this book if you're enrolled in a German class, and there's absolutely no reason for a self-learner to pick this up otherwise. There's a lot of people who say this book "is great if you're in a class / using video / using audio / great teacher / etc etc..." and the truth is, when you have that much enrichment anyway, you don't need a very good book (which is the only time when using this book is acceptable). And the "listening comprehension" CD? It's much more useful as a coaster. A coaster that might cost you a whole paycheck.
Gripes:
-Never provides ANY blocks of words/pronunciations in chapters (even when it does, it tends to have whole phrases translated, not word-by-word breakdowns like you need, especially in the beginning). You have to learn 90% of your words on your own, and then try to figure out what's going on in the book based on your own knowledge. This is an almost absurd problem considering the price.
-Randomly tosses around different dialects of German with little division. Without a professor keeping you informed, you might not even notice some of the differences. My fiancee was dismayed to learn that I wasn't learning the same dialect that she knows (and her dialect is High German, which is the one you're "supposed" to learn in an introductory class). I think I'm learning a more Southern or Austrian dialect. Is that the book's fault or my professor's? Since the book doesn't help, I have absolutely no clue!
-The CD is truly worthless. It barely follows the book, and doesn't provide ANY quick access to any necessary elements. It doesn't have access to very much in the way of pronunciation at all- nearly all of the CD is composed of text application of the words with little or no motivation except as practice for what you should have learned before (except there is no "learning before"- in the book or CD). Inexcusable.
-No answer keys. The book might have you learn new phrases with something like "figure out which of the following phrases are greetings or goodbyes", and unless you ask a professor, you might never know. Again, it's just amazing that a book would cost so much and not contain something like this.
-How can you learn a language when the book never really teaches anything new, and just keeps expecting you to apply knowledge that it doesn't give? It makes no sense!
Counterpoints:
-It's... kind of pretty. If you don't mind that a lot of the pictures aren't properly explained. And those pictures are example exercises in the chapter... yeah, you'll mind.
If you HAVE to have this book for your class, just hope it's a good class. This book seems near-worthless for trying to teach yourself, which as any student knows, is critically important to ANY language class. Listen in class, and don't expect the book to be of much help.
So what do I reccomend?
Even if you class doesn't reccomend it, try to find the two workbooks/lab manuals that go along with the book. Frankly, I've found that they sometimes do a better job of teaching than the book does. AND they have answer keys to help you check your progress. Sadly, however, the manuals don't come with the necessary listening CDs, so you're still going to be left out in the cold for most of the experience. Again, just ridiculous.
Overall:
-If you're taking a German class, and this is the book, you don't have much choice anyway.
-Which is to say, if you're not taking a class and you're learning on your own, virtually any other book does a better job.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful College Text
Review: This is a textbook for classroom use as opposed to self study. My two semesters of german at Penn was quite enjoyable; the textbook introduced a lot of grammar points clearly and you build vocabulary through studying themes for each chapter. I can't wait to go to Germany this summer. If your instructor chose this book for you, it is worth the price. The workbook and lab manuals are pretty easy to keep up with, so you won't feel too lost learning a new language.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful College Text
Review: This is a textbook for classroom use as opposed to self study. My two semesters of german at Penn was quite enjoyable; the textbook introduced a lot of grammar points clearly and you build vocabulary through studying themes for each chapter. I can't wait to go to Germany this summer. If your instructor chose this book for you, it is worth the price. The workbook and lab manuals are pretty easy to keep up with, so you won't feel too lost learning a new language.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad!
Review: We use this book for german 1 and 2 here at duke. Let me start off by saying that I've never been very skilled in learning foreign languages. As such, I have a tendency to lash out at the books that are assigned the job of teaching me in this area ;) This book, I think, gives the reader every possible advantage in terms of learning the language, I think. The grammar is explained clearly, and in a logical order. I'd give it a 5, but as I said, I don't like having to learn foreign languages ;)
Rating:
Summary: Not bad!
Review: We use this book for german 1 and 2 here at duke. Let me start off by saying that I've never been very skilled in learning foreign languages. As such, I have a tendency to lash out at the books that are assigned the job of teaching me in this area ;) This book, I think, gives the reader every possible advantage in terms of learning the language, I think. The grammar is explained clearly, and in a logical order. I'd give it a 5, but as I said, I don't like having to learn foreign languages ;)
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