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I've been learning German with Rosetta Stone which is an immersion method and doesn't go into explaining the grammer (at least not yet anyway). This book was very helpful in explaining the German grammer, and easy to understand. I could see how this would be a very useful book for anyone in a German class.
This book will really help anyone learning the German language because most of us have forgotten [or never learned] proper grammar in English. It shows you how English and German sentences compare grammaticaly. They do offer this book for other languages as well.
Since I couldn't tell you when to use my or mine in English it is even harder to know when to use mir, mich, and mein in German, but this book really helps. I may have learned as much about English grammar as I did German grammar. I take English grammar for granted so this book helped me understand many things in German. However this book will not teach you German (it does not claim to either) but it is a great supplement while learning German. I would recommend it.
It becomes difficult to relate Nominative vs. Rather then giving you a couple great examples for weak and strong verbs or other complex examples, it will tell you to "consult your text book," which makes this a secondary booster-pack of information to a mysterious second book. This book is very direct and to the point, exactly what I needed. This book calls out many of the basic holes in your knowledge from participles to dangling prepositions and after teaching you the English concept it goes through the German structures to show you the differences or commonalities. I found one on amazon for $9 and the binding hadn't even been bent yet. Dative and all the information about direct and indirect objects and possession.While most people know their grammar in typical speech, without being able to break down your English language into a structure it is extremely difficult to learn German's structure for proper sentence creation. I'd give the product 5-stars but it leans on the "German Textbook" phrase a few too many times.
I'd also like to see charts on der/die/das with their cases/functions and such, which I've not found present yet. I've been taking German language classes for six years and, at 33, but I've lost a lot of the "younger years" in terms of English grammar. Although it might be a bit redundant with other text, repeating the information benefits the reader. We "just know" English because we've learned it as children and understand what is right/wrong in speech by hearing it -- not as easy in German learning it as a second language. The book almost presumes you may have once know much of the parts of speech, cases, functions and tense and really is a refresher course to bring back some lost knowledge. I guess, for the price, you can only ask for so much.I suggest looking for an unused Used copy on Amazon from students that took courses but were too lazy to actually crack open this valuable book. Such is life with school books I guess ;-)
I've been making a little progress but I kept getting hung up on the grammar and realized my biggest problem is my weakness in English grammar.Based on some of the comments here and the title of this book, I decided to give it a try. I'm just learning German for the fun of it. I find the book an easy read that helps me understand why German sentences are structured as they are. Until now, I've just been reading books and working on the Tell Me More. course. In addition, it has brought back some of the things I learned as a kid in Catholic school.I'm certain that this little book will be a great addition to the study materials I've been putting together. I'll be taking an Introduction to German class at the local public school and I think I'll be well prepared to understand the instruction.If you are like me and just learning German for the fun of it, read this book and I'm sure your understanding of the language will improve no matter what other materials you've studied.
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