Learn a Second Language

To start with I didn’t have any particularly keen interest in German. While browsing through books in the library I chanced across Ms Wilson’s book and started leafing through it. I was really impressed by the flowing, homely style of presentation and I decided to learn the language seriously.
Here are some of the salient features that make the book so helpful for beginners (this is the first foreign language that I have started learning, other than English which I learned as a kid):
1. Well chosen exercises after each chapter. To get the full benefit from the book, one must do all the exercises. I personally found that I could easily manage a chapter a day for the firsr few chapters, and then a chapter per two or three days for the later ones.
2. Sense of humor. Yes, in this regard it is doubtlessly one of the best textbooks that I have ever read in my life. And this is in sharp contrast with some of the other texts that are available in the market (for instance the texts that are used for the beginning German courses at Stanford. Oh, why are those books SO devoid of humor?)
3. Using proverbs to teach German. This is a great idea that should be used in teaching any language. Proverbs are those little simple sentences that somehow stick in our minds more than other things do. That’s why they survive so long. Now Ms Wilson smuggles the German vocabulary into the reader’s mind in packets of these proverbs.After reading the German for”When there is fire in the heart, there’s smoke in the head”, it is hard to forget that Rauch means smoke.
4. No language book for beginnerscan be expected to be full of real examples of great literary value, since those will be above the level of the average reader. But still the author creates the wonderful feeling of “real German” by quoting sentences and passages of famous German authors. This is in sharp contrast with the (popular?) German textbooks … with examples churned out by machines to show the use of some grammar rule.
5. The book is well worth the money. I don’t know why, but some German teachers at US univs prescribe textbooks that are written only to extract money out of student’s pockets. The books … force you to use manuals and workbooks that are sold separately, and are often full of silly pictures that do not help you to learn anything, but only serve to increase the price of the book. Ms Wilson’s book, on the contrary, is full of serious information, and acts as a good reference book even after you through with it.
6. Finally, the book does NOT teach you how to speak German or how to comprehend spoken German. For that a good resource would be the book+CDs set from the “Living Language” series.

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Product Description:
German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German is a thorough, straightforward textbook with a sense of fun. It teaches the fundamentals for reading German literary and scholarly texts of all levels of difficulty. It can be used as an introductory text for scholars with no background in German, or it can serve as a reference text for students wishing to review German. The grammar explanations are detailed and clear, addressing common problems students encounter while learning to read German. This book includes thought-provoking and entertaining reading selections consisting mainly of aphorisms and proverbs. There are also twelve appendices, including a summary of German grammar, descriptions of German dictionaries, a partial answer key, strategies for learning German, and a humanities vocabulary section of about 3,800 words.

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