That said, linguists disagree on certain points of grammar or diacritics, and believe it or not there are running orthographic disputes in the Germanistik field the continued use of the "esset," for instance or "double S" thing that looks like this ("ß") is being debated by the Keepers of the Words (or whoever decides this in a post-Brothers Grimm/Martin Luther landscape). I didn't notice it in that book (which I rated 5 stars), but I did notice it here. Someone in a review of the more comprehensive "Complete German Grammar" noted that the editors/authors made a handful of mistakes in the answer key there. The book has "drill" in its title, so I'm not complaining that the work is repetitive and sometimes close to drudgery (nobody likes doing sit-ups but a six-pack looks good), but I was still a little confused about why some exercises were long and others were short, especially when the ones on what I considered simple topics were long and ones I needed refreshing on were cursory. Certain exercises, for instance, dragged on for a couple of pages, while others were only two or three items long. The one-size-fits-all stuff doesn't work, naturally, for everyone. If I had to guess I would say students and teachers are polled and assessed for those areas where they're weakest, and the contents of workbooks are skewed toward that. I'm not sure what goes into selecting the length of each exercise, or how they determine which facets of grammar should be emphasized. to bone up on your Deutsch (plus whatever Germans you actually know) this is a good tool to keep in one's box. One will neither achieve nor maintain fluency with this book alone (unless they have prodigy-level retention skills), but if you're stateside and can only use German television shows/movies, etc. I'm not sure what goes into selecting the length of each exercise, or how they determine which facets of grammar This is a solid supplement to other German books by Herr Swick from McGraw Hill. This is a solid supplement to other German books by Herr Swick from McGraw Hill. However, if you were to do 5 problems during one session, then another 5 on a different revision session, that might make it more useful.more This is not an efficient way to explain a point. Exercises are mostly composed of lists of very similar problems, in which the first 5 problems drive the point home, and the remaining 20 problems are almost exactly the same. Nevertheless, judging this book as a 'drill' book, I would not recommend it. The context will help it stick in your mind far better than the exercises ever will. Instead, I'd recommend pairing this book with lots of German texts so you can see how it all works in real life. I recommend reading through the entire book, then revising the content with a spaced repetition system, and to do some of the exercises but not to worry about completing them all. However, many of them are tedious and repetitive and are more an exercise in patience than of grammar. I haven't completed all the exercises yet. For example, it wasn't explained how to use indirect speech when the speech is already in the subjunctive mood. However, it would have been nice to see everything in the book. Some of the last chapters are heavier than most chapters, and some ideas are left out, but nothing that a quick Google search doesn't solve. The book is organised pretty well and the explanations are clear. I haven't completed a Took me 39 days to power through this book, making lots of notes along the way. Took me 39 days to power through this book, making lots of notes along the way.
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