Description
Book SynopsisGerman
A Self-Teaching Guide
Learn German at your own pace
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Now you can learn how--quickly and easily--with a practical guide that gives you the tools you need to speak and understand German.
Completely revised and updated with applications of the newGerman spelling rules, this user-friendly guide provides you with the basic vocabulary and grammar you need to start speaking German right away. It includes more than 1,000 of the most frequently used words in both German-English and English-German lists, clear explanations of German grammatical structures, entertaining mini-dialogues from real-life situations that demonstrate modern usage, and cultural notes that give fresh insight into contemporary German society.
Like all Self-Teaching Guides, German allows you to build gradually on what you have learned--at your own pace. Questions and self-tests reinforce the information in each chapter and allow you
Table of ContentsHow to Use This Book vii
Introduction: German Sounds and Spelling 1
1 Greetings, Introductions, and Useful Expressions 11
Culture Notes 11
Dialoge (Dialogues) 12
Kommunikation (Communication) 13
Grammatik (Grammar) 16
1. Subject Pronoun 16
2. The Present Tense Form of Verbs 17
3. The Definite Articles: der, die, das 19
4. The Gender of Third-Person Pronouns 21
5. Using Adjectives and Adverbs 22
6. Present Tense of sein and haben 24
7. Verbs with Vowel Changes 25
Sprechen leicht gemacht 26
Wiederholung 27
Wortschatz 28
2 Numbers: Measurements, Currencies, Sizes, and Temperature
Culture Notes 32
Dialoge 34
Kommunikation 35
Grammatik 38
1. A Few Rules about Basic Word Order 38
2. Formation of Noun Plurals 40
3. The Accusative Case 41
4. The Indefinite Article 41
5. The Accusative of Personal Pronouns 44
6. Prepositions Requiring the Accusative Case 45
7. Negation with nicht 46
8. The Function and Use of Adverbs 48
Sprechen leicht gemacht 50
Wiederholung 51
Wortschatz 52
3 Food, Restaurants, and Eating 54
Culture Notes 54
Dialoge 56
Kommunikation 57
Grammatik 64
1. Giving Orders the Polite Way 64
2. The Function of Modals (Modal Auxiliaries) 65
3. Möchten Means “Would Like” (An Expression You Will Need) 66
4. Ordinal Numbers 67
5. Asking Indirect Questions 71
6. The Conjugation of wissen (to know) 72
7. More about Word Order 74
8. Compound Nouns 78
Sprechen leicht gemacht 78
Wiederholung 80
Wortschatz 81
4 Lodging, Hotels, and Overnight Accommodations 85
Culture Notes 85
Dialoge 86
Kommunikation 88
Grammatik 89
1. The Dative Case 89
2. Dative Ending for a Few Masculine Nouns in the Singular 90
3. Dative Endings for Nouns in the Plural 91
4. Dative Prepositions 92
5. The Dative Case of Personal Pronouns 92
6. Verbs That Require the Dative Case 93
7. Separable-Prefix Verbs 96
8. Word Order of Direct and Indirect Objects 98
9. Two-Way Prepositions 101
Sprechen leicht gemacht 103
Wiederholung 105
Wortschatz 106
5 Telling Time 108
Culture Notes 108
Dialoge 109
Kommunikation 112
Grammatik: Present Perfect Tense—an Overview 113
1. Regular (Weak) Verbs 114
2. Irregular (Strong) Verbs 114
3. Separable-Prefix Verbs 115
4. Inseparable-Prefix Verbs 116
5. Irregular Verbs Using haben as Auxiliary Verb 117
6. Regular Verbs Using sein as Auxiliary Verb 117
7. Irregular Verbs Using sein as Auxiliary Verb 118
8. Mixed Verbs 118
9. The Genitive Case 120
Sprechen leicht gemacht 121
Wiederholung 124
Wortschatz 125
6 Health Care 128
Culture Notes 128
Dialoge 129
Kommunikation 131
Grammatik 133
1. The Simple Past Tense 133
2. Reflexive Pronouns 138
3. The Use of als, wenn, wann 141
Sprechen leicht gemacht 142
Wiederholung 143
Wortschatz 144
7 Television and Radio 146
Culture Notes 146
Dialoge 146
Kommunikation 148
Grammatik 150
1. Possessive Adjectives (Pronouns) 150
2. The der words 152
3. Adjectives Used as Predicate Adjectives 152
4. Adjectival Endings 153
5. Adjectives Used as Nouns 157
6. Indefinite Adjectives 158
Sprechen leicht gemacht 159
Wiederholung 161
Wortschatz 161
8 Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation 163
Culture Notes 163
Dialoge 164
Kommunikation 165
Grammatik 166
1. The Comparative of Adjectives and Adverbs 166
2. The Subjunctive Mood 170
3. The Past Subjunctive 176
Sprechen leicht gemacht 178
Wiederholung 180
Wortschatz 182
9 Communication: Telephone, Post Office, Newspapers, Train Station, and Airport 184
Culture Notes 184
Dialoge 185
Kommunikation 188
Grammatik 188
1. Relative Pronouns 188
2. German Word Order in Main Clauses 195
3. German Word Order in Dependent Clauses 198
Sprechen leicht gemacht 198
Wiederholung 200
Wortschatz 201
10 Selbstbiographisches 204
Dialoge 204
Kommunikation 207
Grammatik 211
1. The Future Tense 211
2. The Passive Voice 212
3. Man as a Substitute for the Passive 215
Wiederholung 220
Wortschatz 221
Answers for Activities, Exercises, and Reviews 224
Reference Grammar 248
Wortschatz: Deutsch-Englisch 254
English-German Vocabulary 271
Index 278
