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B2, enough for these German books? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6429 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 16 08 May 2013 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Have you considered LR? The German audiobook for "The Tin Drum" is fairly good (it's read by the author), and there's a parallel text floating around. Kafka is also quite approachable, as others have mentioned, and there are some good audiobooks of his work as well.
I've LR'd two of the books you mentioned; if you want to, there's no reason not to do it tomorrow, rather than next year. It's very likely to be more pleasant than waiting a year and using a dictionary extensively. If you do use a dictionary, I second the recommendations to use a pop-up one. Good luck. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4726 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 16 08 May 2013 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I read some literature when I was A2-B1 in German, looking up 3-5 words per line. I'm not
sure I'd have the patience for that now, and I can't say it's the most efficient means of study, but it sure didn't hurt anything. Personally, I don't believe in saving literature or films until I'm at a higher level. If I enjoy them that much, I'm happy to read them over and over, discovering new language and new themes each time. If you find it too tiring to work through some of your chosen works at your current level, set them aside and come back to them in a few months. There is a wealth of language to be assimilated in even the simplest books. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4818 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 16 08 May 2013 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally I haven't found Kafka particularly approachable, and it wouldn't be my first
choice, but each to his own. I do second the idea of L-R though. I find books much easier, and more pleasant, to get through, if I have an audiobook to go with them, even if I'm not L-R-ing in the strict sense. Heinrïch Böll is often considered to be reasonably accessible for learners, and I'd go along with that. He is also a classic writer of the post-WW2 period. On a lighter note, there is also Erich Kästner. He wrote a lot of books for children, including the famous Emil and the Detectives, but also some for a more general audience, including "Drei Männer im Schnee" and "Der kleine Grenzverkehr" which are quite fun, and "Fabian" which is a bit more serious. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4575 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 12 of 16 11 May 2013 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
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It's interesting, people are asking questions I was asking a year ago when I started learning German. I'm learning it for the same
reason as you: I really like German literature. I started Assimil late May 2012 so I think I could be of some help. Right now I'd say I'm around high A2 right at the edge of B1 or probably B1. I had a lot of trouble with German, everyone kept telling me I'll finally get it which was much help but they were right. As German is my first foreign language (other than my pathetic school system's Spanish program) it took me around 3-4 months to finally get an efficient system down but I eventually got all the basics down pat. If reading is your primary goal, I can't recommend enough buying (or downloading the PDF) or Karl Sandberg's German for Reading. Save all new vocab into Anki/Memrise and follow along with a course like German with Ease (there's not audio in Sandberg's book) and it should take you very far. Put it this way, by Chapter 4 you read excerpts from Kafka and Nietzsche (very basic but still), Chapter 8 & 9 your reading Freud and Marx, and by the end of the book at chapter 24 you read the opening dialogue from Faust. It's gotten very expensive so you might want to download it somewhere: Approach-Graduate-Undergraduate/dp/0133540197/ref=sr_1_2?ie= UTF8&qid=1368243560&sr=8- 2&keywords=karl+sandburg">German for Reading I've heard German Quickly by April Wilson is good too but I've never used it. Günter Grass - the tin Drum (die Blechtrommel) -- Read this in English, I don't think the German would be THAT difficult but you'd have to take it very slow. Hermann Hesse - the Steppenwolf -- Hesse is pretty easy, you shouldn't have a problem. Franz Kafka - the Trial (der Prozess) -- Kafka's language is very simple but his word choice is VERY particular. He also extensively plays with features of German grammar such as word order that can be confusing. I still find Kafka to be a chore in German so I just read him in English until my German is better. Franz Kafka - the Castle (das Schloß) Franz Kafka - the Transformation (die Verwandlung) Goethe - Faust -- Faust is a whole other ballgame. Again, you'd probably RECOGNIZE a lot of words and understand the meaning, but it'll hardly be that enjoyable. Goethe is probably my favorite writer, but he's too hard for me to read in German. His language is very precise, playful, unorthodox, and complicated. I'd hold off on literature until you reach the very advanced stages. Stick with Harry Potter and Hunger Games and work your way up. Works like Faust - which Goethe spent most of his life writing - shouldn't be read by a reader who cant't yet grasp the many shades of meaning by each carefully chosen word. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4818 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 13 of 16 11 May 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||
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If anyone likes the idea of reading books that were originally written in German, rather
than translated from English, then an alternative (or addition) to Harry Potter might be the Tintenwelt Trilogie (Or Tintenherz Trilogie, after the 1st in the series) by Cornelia Funke. There are English translations available. If looking on Amazon be careful how you search or you might be inundated with hits for inkjet cartridges. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 14 of 16 04 June 2013 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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My girlfriend has read and presented "Die Blechtrommel" at a film/literature art
symposium at university (but the presentation was in English), and she is at about my level of German. My level of German is not above B2 (except maybe in comprehension somewhat owing to my being a Dutch speaker). If you speak B2 German then you should be able to read these kinds of books in my opinion. Holding a full discourse in German on them may be too much to ask, but would be good practice, of course. Edited by tarvos on 09 June 2013 at 2:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4549 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 15 of 16 04 June 2013 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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EDIT:
Looks like I entirely forgot about OP's question. Sorry. I'm roughly a B2 in terms of reading skills and find Kafka quite difficult. You could certainly get through those books, if less than perfect comprehension and/or looking up some words aren't a problem to you, but I think you might not enjoy the experience as much as you're hoping to. Then again, there's nothing stopping you from rereading them later, so don't feel obligated to wait. It comes down to your own preferences.
I third it. This listen-while-you-read approach (L2-L2 LR, in other words) has turned out to be the silver bullet for me in getting my comprehension skills from intermediate to advanced. I find that the listening component both makes the experience more engaging and pushes the pace just enough to prevent me from overanalyzing every unknown word I come across. The only downside that I can think of is that—in my experience at least—it doesn't do much for your conventional reading speed. You still have to slog through the slow phase at some point, and that can be frustrating if you're used to getting through a book or two a week. Edited by sans-serif on 04 June 2013 at 3:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 16 of 16 09 June 2013 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would also recommend reading more contemporary authors. I for example read Juli Zeh,
which was a big help in boosting my German (580 pages of German does the trick). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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