Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe

This book is written for native or amost-native English speakers. In the very beginning it uses a very nice technique to introduce German words that are spelled/pronounced almost the same way as in English and are thus easy to memorize, and gradually moves on to the rest of the Wortschatz (vocabulary). It takes a while to get used to the approach, and it takes repetition of material in order to get down all the words, but personally I was pleasantly surprized with positive results.

I am a first year German student at a local college. Initially, I was a bit shocked when I first recieved the book to realize how small the book was; however, don't let the diminuitive form scare you away. This is a great book for German students. The book is laid out in a 'Graded' fashion with increasingly more difficult vocabulary and grammer being introduced in Parts. The first couple sections of the book are fairly easy, with the introduction of basic vocabulary; however, as the book progresses the level of difficulty increased. The introduction of new vocabulary is typically done with stories and poems. At the end of each chapter, there are questions that can be answered about the stories you just read, and a review of all the new vocabulary that was just introduced. I find this to be an excellent way to pick up new vocabulary and increase my overall understanding of the German language. It really gives one a sense of accomplishment to be able to pick up a German book and start reading and be able to understand most of it.

Graded German Reader is the best reading book for a beginning German student that I have stumbled across. It starts off with short two or three sentence blurbs using opposites: dark and light, thick and thin, tall and short, etc. (Obviously all these antonyms as well as the rest of the book are in German.) There is an emphasis on using words that are similar to English, so it is possible to pick through this first section with almost no English at all. From these it builds to one paragraph stories that use the vocabulary from the opposites section. If you have read through the opposites section and followed it several times then you should be able to pick through this section too (new vocab is defined to the sides). Finally toward the end of the book you are reading short fairy tales in German. If you are taking German classes but aren't yet able to pick up a book and read then this is the perfect way to get you to that point. I read through it at various points in German 2 and I feel that it helped me greatly when I was learning German. Also helpful to get fluent at reading German are comic books and children's books in German: Tim und Struppi=Tintin, Asterix=Asterix (but try to crudely translate a specific title into German and search for it ie Asterix und Cleopatra instead of Asterix and Cleopatra), Akira=Akira(but its mostly cussing and cool art, so not so helpful for German anyway), etc Basically find a popular English book that is at your German reading level (underestimate when in doubt) and try to find the German translation here. Buy one book from a German publisher and write away for a catalog of similar books, or look through promotional info in the back pages of the book. Then when you have more money for books you will know what you are getting into better.

This is an excellent way to build vocabulary and reading skills for students and anyone else learning German. Every beginning German class should use this book! The stories, increasing in difficulty and length from the beginning to the end of the book, are fun to read. This book is well worth the [$$$] price.

I have tried without much sucess to learn German three semesters at our local college. I know one night a week for short semester classes is not enough to learn a foreign language, but I was not learning much of anything and was very discouraged. I thuoght the books we used did not really stress the beginners needs. We were taught things we would never use, and not taught basics. I bought Graded German Reader and began to teach myself. I'm doing great and having fun learning. This book is a great tool. Patricia