Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe (World Languages)

I love this book and have bought multiple copies. It is great if you have even just a little background in German to build skills and confidence in your ability to read and learn. I love that it has an adequate amount of definitions at the bottom of the pages, especially in the beginning of the book. I go back to this book time and time again to help reinforce what I have learned. It is great if you set German aside and need a refresher of the language and just to help jog your memory and review structure without having to go to a textbook or learning program.I would highly recommend this book and it may be a great book even for the classroom to use.

This really is quite good. The Crossgroves clearly put a lot of thought into Erste Stufe and it is instructive to note how carefully and well the four famous folktales from the Brothers Grimm were simplified. The fables were all new to me and I find they both invite and reward re-reading.I want to add that the vocabulary the authors have chosen seems aimed at highlighting how similar the basic vocabulary of English and German can be. You cannot go through this book without forming the opinion that the basic vocabulary of English and German must have had a recent common ancestor. This is good because it allows native English speakers to quickly build a useful German vocabulary. While the vocabulary presented is good German and instantly recognizable to German speakers, the vocabulary does not seem to reflect contemporary German as it is written in Der Speigel and Das Bild. However, when you look-up an unfamilir word up you often find that the Crossgroves have provided you with a perfectly acceptable synonom. The feeling I get is that I already speak a dialect of German and that I am moving on to standard contemporary German. Keep in mind it is "Erste Stufe" and that you will have do a lot of work in German grammar.

Because this book is very small, I was a bit concerned about the purchase when it first arrived. But this book has proved very valuable to my understanding of the German language. It is about 185 pages full of material that you would read through, with another forty or so pages of vocabulary. Being an intermediate German student, I still would go slowly over the text, and would have to frequently look at a dictionary, but over time I have been understanding the words without looking them up. This has been such a great way to learn how to read German, and I'm very happy that I purchased this book. I just wish there were more of them, because it would make my studies much easier. >>> I just finished reading this book recently, and have learned so much thanks to this book!

This is the easiest way to learn to read German that I have ever come across. It starts with related words that anyone can easily recognize. You are reading and comprehending the text from the very first page. Then it slowly and consistently builds vocabulary, and teaches you common idioms. The exercises help you to learn to answer questions in German about what you've read. Each page builds on what has come before, and by the end of the book, I was reading German really well. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.

Excellent German reader! Easy to use for personal language growth or as a classroom add-on. Wonderful, and very helpful book. Uses native stories and phrases to slowly build vocabulary and comprehension. Starts with short paragraph descriptions or comparisons with lots of cognates, then builds to more difficult sentence structure and vocab. Excellent product. Well worth the money. I would purchase this book again.

So far I'm enjoying reading from this book. The fables in particular are fun to read. Select vocabulary is listed on the bottom of each page, and the book also has an index. Has some questions at the end of some reading sections to check for understanding as well.

Not much to add to all the other reviews. Starts very easy and works it way to harder material. All the vocabulary is listed so you don't have to spend hours looking up every word. Look for a good used copy.

THIS BOOK SUCKS.I hate German classIf you like German, buy it.If not, don'tCRAP BOOK.1/5 would not bang