Essential German Grammar

It's a nice end-all-beat-all grammer book. If you are learning this for the first time, you many want one that is a little thicker and full of detail, but if you're a fast learner or in your 2nd year and up, and need a quick review on how to use the word, or if you forget the Genetive form of "die", then the quick, easy to use chart is perfect. It has 11 chapters with at least 4 sections to each chapter with about 2 pages per section. One page is the table stating the words in question, the other is the examples. *If you expect this book to help you with verb forms, then you may be a little disapointed. There is a section for verb forms, but not much more.* I am middle school level german and I have 3 books to use for creating/editing my "aufsatz" and powerpoints. This book is one of them.

This book shows beautifully the power of modern typography in language instruction. Deft color coding and font manipulation, for instance, pull out key grammatical relationships in examples, allowing the student to focus on the essence of the point in question, whether or not he or she has the vocabulary to grasp the entire sentence. This is a tremendous "force multiplier" for students who wish to quickly assimilate the complexities of German. The tone of the book (both visually and verbally) is clean, light, and intelligent, and there is a delightful undercurrent of humor that sustains the reader over what might otherwise be considered forbidding ground. I can only express my deepest gratitude to an author who illustrates word order in a subordinate thus: weil die meisten Frauen nicht mit Robotern schlafen wollen. I am a dedicated amateur linguist and a professional visual communicator. This book delights me in both arenas. It travels around in my backpack, and has saved my soul in doctors' offices and junior high school band concerts (though I confess that high quality ear plugs are even more useful to surviving the latter).

Easy to understand and thorough explanations along with a clear, well ordered layout make this a stand out among the field of German grammar books. Schaum's is good, if a bit boring, but if you don't mind spending a few dollars more, this one is worth it and will probably serve you better. Since I am studying on my own, the exercises are essential. You can't really understand the grammar point until you apply the rule a few times yourself. This feature gives Essential Grammar an advantage over he pure reference grammar.

This book is about double the price of most German grammar books on the market. But it is worth every penny. I have at least 4 other grammar books at home, but they only offer one or two examples to demonstrate the new grammar in use. They are printed in one color, utilize few charts, graphs, and photos and are insanely boring to read. Grammar is not the most exiting subject, so I was thrilled to find this book that utilized multiple fonts, font sizes, colors, graphs, charts, etc. to spice it up a bit. The dual color printing adds to the clarity as well, making is easier to find topics and understand charts. In addition, the book gives you far more than one or two examples per topic. Another bonus is that the book offers both a figurative and literal translation of the German sentences in English. Most grammar books only offer the figurative. For example, the author writes the German sentence, "Ich warte darauf, dass er mich anruft". The figurative translation is, "I'm waiting for him to ring me up" and the literal translation is, "I'm waiting for it that he rings me up". Examples such as this help one understand the German sentence structure better and how it compares to English. The only part of this book that I don't utilize is the section in the back of the book with practice exercises and answer key. I find that this section just adds to the bulk of the book as I pack it back and forth to my class everyday where my teachers give me plenty of exercises to practice with. I guess that this section would add to the value of the book if you were teaching yourself German. Over all, you can't go wrong by adding this book to your collection!

I found this book to be exactly what it says it is: essential! I consult it almost everytime that I write something to my penpal, or for my german class, or for myself. I especially like the different colors and typefaces (bold, italicized) to help make sure that you don't miss what the concept in that section is trying to get accross. Another great aspect is that the book doesn't seem to be satified with just one example, it gives you at least two, or three, sometimes even four examples of the way that this concept is implemented. I have many German grammar books, and I find this one to be the best of the collection. This book is a must have for any learner of German.