Grundstufen- Grammatik Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Englische Version. Essential Grammar of German with Exercises. (Lernmaterialien) [German]

I normally start a language by learning the rules for handling nouns and basic sentence structure, whereas Reimann's book starts off with verbs, verb forms, and tenses. This has not been an impediment to getting a lot out of this book, because the chapters are modular enough to be usable in any order you want. This is a particularly useful feature as it allows you to look up whatever it is you are having trouble with, and work on it. The exercises are excellent and progress from the very easy to the challenging. However, to really get anything out of them, you will need to purchase the answer keys (sold separately). The best thing about this book, however, is that it makes german grammar which can be dry and difficult, accessible even to those of us who for whom grammar is a painful memory from school and only speak our own mother tongues because of an intuitive understanding of the underlying rules and structures.