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Simple German Books for B1 | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| warriorfan808 Newbie Germany Joined 4060 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 11 28 March 2013 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi guys,
I finished a B1 class in German about 6 weeks ago. I was supposed to take the B2 class, but the school decided I wasn't a student and I wasn't allowed to take classes at the local University anymore. Of course, they didn't mind the last two semesters or the extremely high tuition I was paying in comparison to the other students. Who knows, probably has something to do with someone new in the admissions office. Well, now I'm here trying to step up my German skills. I do live in Germany, so I'm able to practice from time to time. My only problem is that Germans in my area all speak English really well and tend to get irritated if you attempt to speak German to them. To get to the point, I'm looking for some books to practice German. Nothing too easy, but not too difficult. If you guys have any ideas, I would be grateful. warriorfan808 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5885 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 28 March 2013 at 10:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi warriorfan808,
You're in Germany? What about magazines? The advantage with magazines is you can always find something you're interested in that will keep you motivated to learn more words. Magazines also have a lot of slang and phrases that you can use that will make people say, "hey, how do you know that?" There's plenty of materials out there for foreign speakers. Google "Deutsch als Zweitsprache" or "Deutsch als Fremdsprache" and maybe "Lektüre". That should give you a few leads. If you don't mind Krimis, try Compact Verlag. The vocabularies are limited to the CEFR levels, which is helpful. Maybe others here have some more helpful ideas... I'm sorry no one has the patience to speak German with you. Keep trying. They're probably just so happy to practice their English that they run right over you. Don't let them do that. Keep speaking German, or try to arrange to speak half German, half English. That way, everybody gets a turn to speak. If you can, don't limit yourself to university. Get out with the train and explore. The more you speak, the faster you'll improve. edit: link works now! By the way, check some of those book titles with Amazon.de. Amazon sells them, too. "Der Mann Ohne Gesicht" is available there. edit2: Cornelsen Verlag also has Krimi books. Some with CDs.. Edited by Sunja on 28 March 2013 at 11:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4333 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 11 28 March 2013 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am somewhere around the B1 level too, and live in Berlin.
Have you tried reading with a Kindle? With the Collins German dictionary installed, it's much easier to read than with a paperbook and dictionary. I am just working through the third book of the Hunger Games trilogy. I am finding I am getting much more out of reading than trying to talk with people. I have heard the Hobbit is quite good too. Edited by patrickwilken on 28 March 2013 at 7:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| warriorfan808 Newbie Germany Joined 4060 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 11 28 March 2013 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey guys,
Thanks for the advice guys. I might look into some magazines. Hunger games is actually a good idea. I already ready the original versions, in English, and I figure it will be a little easier to read the books in German if I have an idea of what's going on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5332 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 11 28 March 2013 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Some random ideas based on my personal experience back around B1. Take these with a grain of salt. :-)
This is a fantastically good idea. If you have, say, 5 books that you really love to re-read in English, see if you can find the German translations on Amazon.de. Bonus points if you can find Kindle editions and use the pop-up dictionary on a portable device. Also, check out your local German bookstore and just browse around. If something looks really fascinating, read the first two pages and see if you can understand most of it. Once you hit B1, there's no real reason why you shouldn't be able to more-or-less read 50% of the books in the average bookstore, provided that you find the subject really interesting. Don't feel obliged to look up every word. You can a faint pencil or those miniature Post-It arrows to mark interesting words, and maybe look up a few of them later. A big chunk of your reading should be fast and for pleasure, not for intensive study, because by reading quickly, you'll learn (and automatize) a lot of vocabulary that's just out of reach. If you can make it through one book, you'll see a big jump in your reading abilities. If you can make it through 20 books, you'll read quite fluently and comfortably, and you'll only get stuck on obscure words and really tangled grammar. Edited by emk on 29 March 2013 at 4:48am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4333 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 6 of 11 29 March 2013 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
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The cool thing about living in Germany is you can rent out lots of German language DVDs very easily. At B1 level you should be able to start watching movies without subtitles and follow things OK. Watching dubbed TV series is probably the easiest to start with: dubbed shows are usually easier to understand; and if you watch a series the language is more constrained so you can start to understand things better. The Breaking Bad dubbing in German is very good; some of Jessie's translated expressions are particularly fun. Edited by patrickwilken on 29 March 2013 at 12:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6397 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 11 29 March 2013 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
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No offence meant but you may not necessarily be at B1 just because you've had those classes.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| warriorfan808 Newbie Germany Joined 4060 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 11 29 March 2013 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Don't worry Serpent, I'm not offended. I know a number of guys that have passed the DSI
Exam that I feel I spoke better than when I was A2 and I was far from being the best in my B1 class. I guess I was more near the top 1/3 of the class. The Polish people in the class spoke extremely well, but they sort of grew up learning German. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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