Conversational German : In 20 Lessons (Cortina Method)

Rating:
Summary: An incredible resource
Review: I grew up with German, and my live-in girlfriend wanted to learn some German to impress my parents. I went to my local bookstore to search through the German resources, and after quite some time of looking I came to the conclusion that this book was the best value available. True, some of the vocabulary is outdated, but the explanatory notes and illustrations of sentence structure are flawless. True, this book does not feature German spelling changes, but most Germans are still ignoring them. I fully recommend finding a course with tapes so as to get sound patterns down (the free tape offered by Cortina for this book is a brief promo that doesn't help at all), but just the grammar section alone is worth twice the price of the book. I've had success with the French version of this book, and now that I've seen the German version I know why. Heartily recommended for self-study, or even as a classroom text. A phenomenal value.

Rating:
Summary: Good but Outdated
Review: In need of a thorough revision because it doesn't take into account the recent spelling changes and changes in usage over the past 10 and more years. The grammar summaries are well organized and useful. If you need a place to quickly look up German grammar, the second half of the book is excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Easy & Fun way to learn German!
Review: Just glance over the vocabulary a few of times & then go for the dialogue. (Of course, read over the translations to help you out). You'd be amazed how quickly you'll begin to pick up vocabulary and sentence patterns. After reading each lesson over a few times -- here & there -- in a matter of two to three days, you'll be ready for the next lesson. I became hooked, because it was fun to look forward to what the next lesson would be about. The dialogues are interesting and, meanwhile, you'll be gaining a wealth of knowledge in vocabulary, and also how Germans form their sentence patterns (not quite the same as English)! Read and enjoy!!