Audio based German for beginners (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Audio based German for beginners
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

BaronBill
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
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Joined 4721 days ago
335 posts - 594 votes

Speaks: English*, French, German
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

Message 9 of 12

09 December 2013 at 2:33am | IP Logged

Not much new to add, but I used Michel Thomas, Germanpod101, Pimsleur, and "Warum Nicht?" by DW and found them all to be great resources!

Good luck.
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KimG
Diglot
Groupie
Norway
Joined 5009 days ago
88 posts - 104 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Portuguese, Swahili

Message 10 of 12

11 December 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged

Antanas wrote:

There is also a German course by Paul Noble.
If you want an audio only course you have basically only three choices: Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and Paul Noble. Neither of them will teach you much.

If you accept using more traditional courses (books with audio, audio with transcripts) then there is a plethora of choices.

And another thing. I believe that for a native Norwegian speaker to learn German through English is a waste of time. A couple of years ago, I went through Assimil Schwedisch ohne Mühe. As far I can remember, I could, with some effort, associate almost every Swedish written word (unless it had Roman origins) with a corresponding German word that I already knew. Since Norwegian and Swedish are rather close, I think that would also be the case with Norwegian.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any audio only German course based on another Germanic (and not English) language.

That's a bit true. The grammatical differences makes German slightly more complex than Norwegian, though, since I know some Portuguese it don't look that bad. If you speak Norwegian and understand Swedish, its even closer, since sometime one language have borrowed a word from German, making it easier.
Still, even Danish-German is simpler than going trough English, just, I don't know of any Scandinavian material.
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montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4860 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 11 of 12

11 December 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged

KimG wrote:

Antanas wrote:

There is also a German course by Paul Noble.
If you want an audio only course you have basically only three choices: Pimsleur,
Michel Thomas and Paul Noble. Neither of them will teach you much.

If you accept using more traditional courses (books with audio, audio with transcripts)
then there is a plethora of choices.

And another thing. I believe that for a native Norwegian speaker to learn German
through English is a waste of time. A couple of years ago, I went through Assimil
Schwedisch ohne Mühe. As far I can remember, I could, with some effort, associate
almost every Swedish written word (unless it had Roman origins) with a corresponding
German word that I already knew. Since Norwegian and Swedish are rather close, I think
that would also be the case with Norwegian.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any audio only German course based on another Germanic
(and not English) language.

That's a bit true. The grammatical differences makes German slightly more complex than
Norwegian, though, since I know some Portuguese it don't look that bad. If you speak
Norwegian and understand Swedish, its even closer, since sometime one language have
borrowed a word from German, making it easier.
Still, even Danish-German is simpler than going trough English, just, I don't know of
any Scandinavian material.

Yes, quite. Not audio material anyway, I guess. Having it in written form is fine in
some respects, but is not so helpful when it comes to speaking.

The point about audio courses such as Michel Thomas and "You Speak German", is not
primarily to teach you vocabulary, but to teach you structures, and then you get you
using those structures with confidence from an early stage. Once you have established
those structures, and the pronunciation and intonation, etc, you can start to add in
vocabulary from many sources. You don't need a course to build vocabulary.

As for the Norwegian-German correspondence: again, yes, up to a point, at least if my
experience of beginning to study Danish, already having a good knowledge of German is
anything to go by. A knowledge of both English and German helped enormously, but it was
nothing like as good as being able to associate every single Danish word with a German
one (even allowing for the influence of the Romance languages). Then of course there is
the great difference in pronunciation, and the undoubtedly more complex German grammar
to take into account.

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daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4553 days ago
1076 posts - 1792 votes

Speaks: German*, English^C2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

Message 12 of 12

11 December 2013 at 9:04pm | IP Logged

Check out Cappelen's stuff for
videregående if you like something in Norwegian.
I would assume you can find German textbooks in Danish on the gyldendal.dk website.
Not audio based though.

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