Strutz_501-1_German_Verbs_Barrons - pdf

501 German Verbs (Barron's Foreign Language Guides)

The most commonly used 501 German verbs are arranged alphabetically in a table format, one verb per page with English translation, and conjugated in all tenses and forms. The book's additional features include common idioms with example sentences to demonstrate verb usage and a grammar review. This book includes a bonus CD-ROM enclosed at no additional charge. The CD-ROM presents valuable exercises for students in German sentence completion, word completion, word matching, and conversational dialogue, with answers provided for all exercises.

Product Details

Series: Barron's Foreign Language Guides
Paperback: 704 pages
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; 4 edition (November 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0764193937
ISBN-13: 978-0764193934

Customer Reviews

I really love this new edition of Strutz's text. This improves on the old version in its look and overall layout, plus it includes 27 written verb exercises with answers and explanations and a bonus CD-ROM. Granted the CD-ROM isn't extensive (hey, it's free), but it has a handful more of different types of exercises which, like the written exercises, gives you answers plus explanations. It's enough at least to let you see if you're on the right track and where you may need do more study. Like the earlier edition, it has a very nice overview of German verb tenses, plus new additional sections on prefix verbs and word order. Know that these sections are overviews and are hardly exhaustive, but that is not the goal of this book. It's main objective is to give you tools and the fundamental knowledge to better grasp and use German verb tenses. It's a supplemental text prefect for beginners and intermediate students who need the occasional reminder of what's what and what goes where, and also it's a helpful quick review for more advanced students (and perhaps a few teachers). If you need a more comprehensive grammar book, however, then get a comprehensive grammar book.

Likewise, this book contains only 501 verbs, so if you need a lexicon or a vocabulary building text, this isn't it. You'll need the appropriate text for such needs. What this book is useful for is teaching you how to conjugate German verbs properly, even ones not included in this book. In the front section, it gives you a list of 55 "essential" verbs, which if you were to take the time to study and learn thoroughly, can serve you as models for conjugating just about any verb in German. You really can't ask for a better, more applicable tool - this is basically how native speakers understand verbs.

The rest of the verbs are included because they are frequently used in general German usage, although you may not encounter some of these verbs if you are a beginner or immediate student. Bear in mind as well that this is an all-levels text, so even if you don't find some of the verbs included useful now, you may find them useful in later study.

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone seriously intersted in learning German. It's useful for beginners (55 essential verbs) to advanced speakers (all tenses, and subjunctives). The CD isn't great, but that's not the point of the product, either. This will take you all the way to fluency, if you have the discipline or have a structured method of study to use it with. Definitely helpful if you are going to study at a German University, like I am.