What is the best program for learning German?
December 2nd, 2009 | by admin |I am going to Switzerland next year and I need to learn German, what are the best programs that actually work. Other than Rosetta stone, thats way to expensive for me haha.
My recommendation is Michel Thomas’ 10-CD course. For about $50 and the equivalent of one long, hard weekend of work, you can get the basic foundation of German sentence structure and quite a few words of basic vocabulary. But make sure you get the 10-CD course and not the 8-CD course; the last two review CDs are the best ones. You can read the reviews on Amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.com/Michel-Thomas-Speak-German-Beginners/dp/0071479856/
Unfortunately, Michel Thomas glosses over some of the hard parts of German grammar, like the gender of nouns and agreement of adjectives. For an inexpensive grammar, I’ve found "Essential German Grammar" by Guy Stern to be concise and insightful. It’s available on Amazon.com at:
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-German-Grammar-Guy-Stern/dp/956291450X/
If you want more practice problems, the Shaum’s Outline of German Grammar is pretty good, too.
http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-German-Grammar-Gschossmann-Hendershot/dp/0070251347/
Since you’re going to Switzerland, you might consider Pimsleur’s Swiss German course. But make sure you read the reviews on Amazon.com before you buy that one:
http://www.amazon.com/Swiss-German-Understand-Pimsleur-Language/dp/074353848X/
Viel Glück!