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German for Reading Knowledge
German for Reading Knowledge is designed to give students in the sciences, social sciences & humanities a basic knowledge of German with which they can begin to read independently specialized literature in their respective fields. The method is simple & direct, uses sound linguistic & pedagogical procedures, & concentrates on essentials for reading comprehension & for translation. The book avoids untried techniques & tricks likely to confuse students
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 8, 2015
Although the study of it was a tedious drudgery, I will admit that this was the most effective of the German language books I studied in preparation for the language examination towards the philosophy doctorate at Loyola University Chicago.
The way I studied, the surround of these studies, was far more interesting than the study itself. At Loyola, a Jesuit institution, the teaching assistantships in philosophy were preferentially handed out to collegians, that is, to members of the order in formation. With the exception of one semester, when I was assigned to co-teach a symbolic logic course, mine were research assistantships. Here I was fortunate, first in that I got a full four years of assignments; second in that I had interesting work with kindly professors, and third in that I was awarded assistantships during the summers as well.
The equation of kindly professor plus summer reasarch amounted to the kind of work which allowed me to spend most of my summers in a cabin in the woods overlooking Lake Michigan, a cabin with no distractions except nature and, yes, a radio. Entertainment consisted of hiking, splashing about and study, some of it for my own sake, some of it for the meagre pay of a research assistant.
Anyway, I did most of my reading of Jannach on a folding lounge chair, next to the lake on the cooler days, in the lake on the hotter ones, punctuating the (for me) arduous work of memorization with walks, swims and the construction of what I termed 'a pleasure dome' (not a dome at all, but pleasant enough) out of driftwood.
The way I studied, the surround of these studies, was far more interesting than the study itself. At Loyola, a Jesuit institution, the teaching assistantships in philosophy were preferentially handed out to collegians, that is, to members of the order in formation. With the exception of one semester, when I was assigned to co-teach a symbolic logic course, mine were research assistantships. Here I was fortunate, first in that I got a full four years of assignments; second in that I had interesting work with kindly professors, and third in that I was awarded assistantships during the summers as well.
The equation of kindly professor plus summer reasarch amounted to the kind of work which allowed me to spend most of my summers in a cabin in the woods overlooking Lake Michigan, a cabin with no distractions except nature and, yes, a radio. Entertainment consisted of hiking, splashing about and study, some of it for my own sake, some of it for the meagre pay of a research assistant.
Anyway, I did most of my reading of Jannach on a folding lounge chair, next to the lake on the cooler days, in the lake on the hotter ones, punctuating the (for me) arduous work of memorization with walks, swims and the construction of what I termed 'a pleasure dome' (not a dome at all, but pleasant enough) out of driftwood.
August 3, 2021
At least compared to April Wilson's German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German, this textbook is bad. Explanations of the building blocks for reading German are explained in a very in-depth but unclear manner. It goes into so much detail at once, without explaining the overall picture of what this building block is, and how it relates to others. Wilson's book does that for the reader; it is both in-depth and crystal clear.
Moreover, the exercises are not helpful: from the first chapter, this textbook throws at the reader many new vocab words, which are necessary to know in order to translate the exercises. This creates a cognitive overload; a newbie to German needs to learn grammatical and syntactical elements too, in addition to vocab, to translate. It would've been better for this textbook to introduce one building block at a time; grammar, then vocab. That is exactly what Wilson's textbook does; examples involve minimal new vocab, and the vocab are often words that resemble the English equivalent.
I initially tried reading Jannach's, and panicked; it made me think that learning German would take far more effort than I had anticipated. Then, I found Wilson's textbook, and realized that it isn't that difficult at all, and my trouble was due primarily to a bad textbook. I so wish I had encountered Wilson's first, and urge readers interested in learning German for reading purposes to ignore Jannach's and go to Wilson.
Moreover, the exercises are not helpful: from the first chapter, this textbook throws at the reader many new vocab words, which are necessary to know in order to translate the exercises. This creates a cognitive overload; a newbie to German needs to learn grammatical and syntactical elements too, in addition to vocab, to translate. It would've been better for this textbook to introduce one building block at a time; grammar, then vocab. That is exactly what Wilson's textbook does; examples involve minimal new vocab, and the vocab are often words that resemble the English equivalent.
I initially tried reading Jannach's, and panicked; it made me think that learning German would take far more effort than I had anticipated. Then, I found Wilson's textbook, and realized that it isn't that difficult at all, and my trouble was due primarily to a bad textbook. I so wish I had encountered Wilson's first, and urge readers interested in learning German for reading purposes to ignore Jannach's and go to Wilson.
August 16, 2021
This is a helpful book on learning how to read German. I read it in conjunction with a Summer course I took on reading German texts in the fields of Theology, Biblical Studies, and Church History, but it would also be helpful for learning German on one's own. It covers all of the necessary grammatical and syntactical topics, and provides helpful practice translations at the end of each chapter. I do think the dictionary at the back of the book should be expanded to include all of the words used in the reading/translation exercises at least.
August 4, 2025
Ich studiere Deutsche für lesen.
Read
July 25, 2021does the trick. Sehr gut! ich lerne gern diese Sprache !
May 27, 2008
This was my textbook for my "learn to read German in a month and a half and cross off that pesky requirement" class. It is OK for people who are trying to read German and don't care about speaking it, but the exercises and passages always throw in grammatical concepts that haven't been introduced yet, and that makes it hard on readers with questions. I was thankful that I had some previous knowledge of the language from a slow semester of spoken German. A year later, my vocabulary is small and I would definitely need a dictionary and grammar to work my way through a passage in German, but that's why they call it "reading knowledge," right?
January 21, 2016
Wanted to review my German. This text is perfect as it briefly covers the grammar and vocab I had previously learned and then provides lots of practice readings. If you are looking to self-study German, this might be a rough way to start. Although comprehensive, the explanations are brief. The focus is definitely on application/ reading comprehension. If you have a solid foundation of German grammar, then this book is great!
July 25, 2018
This book does as advertised: it teaches you how to read German. Not speak. Not write. Thus, while grammar is covered, there are no drills and the emphasis is on recognizing features and translating them accurately (if not always with great stylistic flair) into English. Probably this means the explanations will be frustrating for a non-native English speaker, since the book assumes a native-like proficiency in English grammar and does not explain English features very thoroughly.
The focus is on academic, non-fiction texts of an analytical and descriptive nature. This makes it insufficient for those who will be reading literary or colloquial materials (or anything, really, that isn't in the 3rd person), but nonetheless lays a good grammatical foundation. The explanations are clear, the vocabulary helpful for academic purposes, and the texts progressively harder. Still, only in the final one or two chapters does the German used approach the kind of writing students will encounter 'in the wild,' so I recommend supplementing the book with paragraphs from works in your field to stretch your reading capacities and to get away from the overly manicured example sentences. I'm not sure it's precisely worth the high cost--there are a small number of typos, as well as some repeated mistakes in the explanations and in the vocabulary glosses--but overall this is still a very useable and effective book.
The focus is on academic, non-fiction texts of an analytical and descriptive nature. This makes it insufficient for those who will be reading literary or colloquial materials (or anything, really, that isn't in the 3rd person), but nonetheless lays a good grammatical foundation. The explanations are clear, the vocabulary helpful for academic purposes, and the texts progressively harder. Still, only in the final one or two chapters does the German used approach the kind of writing students will encounter 'in the wild,' so I recommend supplementing the book with paragraphs from works in your field to stretch your reading capacities and to get away from the overly manicured example sentences. I'm not sure it's precisely worth the high cost--there are a small number of typos, as well as some repeated mistakes in the explanations and in the vocabulary glosses--but overall this is still a very useable and effective book.
July 5, 2018
Without an instructor this book is really unhelpful. With an instructor, it is mildly helpful. Tip, have a firm foundation in English grammar before beginning this course of study.
Read
July 29, 2020It’s a textbook, but I gotta keep those numbers up,,,,
January 12, 2022
Not perfect, but gets the job done.
September 11, 2012
This book is much too simple for the topic. It doesn't really go into dept as much as it should on some topics. It's also wrong sometimes. At the end of each chapter there's a small German section for the student to work on. Sometimes the glossary that's supposed to help you doesn't at all and is wrong in the translation or at least slightly off. It's not that great of a vocabulary builder. A good dictionary will help if you're using this book. If you're using the book without taking a class, you're not going to learn as much.
January 2, 2015
I found this to be an excellent resource for beginning to understand German, though I would recommend using this in conjunction with a class. Some of the pitfalls can be that the translation sentences are quite obviously written with the aim of only testing what you know and not pushing you to discovering new words, as will inevitably be the case with reading in a foreign language.
January 16, 2022
2 stars [Reader]
Not very well organized.
And if his chosen topics are indicative of anywhere near the cutting edge of modern composition, German will be dead sooner than its stagnating population.
Edit: This is now in a new, 5th edition. I do not know whether the update improved the score, because I have not read it.
Not very well organized.
And if his chosen topics are indicative of anywhere near the cutting edge of modern composition, German will be dead sooner than its stagnating population.
Edit: This is now in a new, 5th edition. I do not know whether the update improved the score, because I have not read it.
October 16, 2011
Excellent (albeit pricey) guide to reading academic German. Really enjoyed the reading samples too, and also the fact that the last few chapters were a nice, down-hill slope compared to some really difficult ones just before.
September 22, 2014
Easy to use and effective.
July 20, 2010
This book was very thorough and helpful. That doesn't mean I liked reading it...
April 21, 2011
Yes. It is as exciting as it sounds. It is what it is I guess, only we spent a lot of time in class discussing how wrong it was on some translations.
May 2, 2017
Though this book was five-star excellent for my casual self-study, a general caveat applies: always consider the reviewer's situation and circumstances! Indeed, if you are completely new to German, this book would likely be a poor staring place (a hunch supported by other reviewers' comments).
That being said, the book has been an excellent fit for ME PERSONALLY. My background is as follows: I have never taken a formal course in any Germanic language, though I completed Duolingo German and all 5 levels of the Rosetta Stone software before reading this book (both within the past year). Jannach's has been extremely useful for filling in the many gaps that such an approach invariably leaves behind; in particular, it explains the grammar rules that one can only infer from Rosetta Stone et al. and it gives lots of reading practice through exercises that focus in on each grammatical issue, introducing new vocabulary along the way. Note too that I relied on google translate pretty extensively throughout, just to clarify my understanding of certain words (plus, seeing the synonyms etc. suggested by google is quite helpful).
The book itself contains thirty short, readable chapters with minor glosses on grammatical topics interspersed with example sentences. At the end of each chapter, some (newish) vocabulary is presented that will appear in the practice sentences that follow. There are also six more extended reading exercises (Wiederholungen) that appear every five chapters or so. Finally, there is an extensive set of appendices ranging from grammar and vocabulary to German vs. Roman script.
In short, if you are trying to learn German on your own and you are looking to take your casual language learning a bit further beyond Duolingo and Co., you stand to benefit greatly from this book, especially if your goal is to improve your reading skills.
That being said, the book has been an excellent fit for ME PERSONALLY. My background is as follows: I have never taken a formal course in any Germanic language, though I completed Duolingo German and all 5 levels of the Rosetta Stone software before reading this book (both within the past year). Jannach's has been extremely useful for filling in the many gaps that such an approach invariably leaves behind; in particular, it explains the grammar rules that one can only infer from Rosetta Stone et al. and it gives lots of reading practice through exercises that focus in on each grammatical issue, introducing new vocabulary along the way. Note too that I relied on google translate pretty extensively throughout, just to clarify my understanding of certain words (plus, seeing the synonyms etc. suggested by google is quite helpful).
The book itself contains thirty short, readable chapters with minor glosses on grammatical topics interspersed with example sentences. At the end of each chapter, some (newish) vocabulary is presented that will appear in the practice sentences that follow. There are also six more extended reading exercises (Wiederholungen) that appear every five chapters or so. Finally, there is an extensive set of appendices ranging from grammar and vocabulary to German vs. Roman script.
In short, if you are trying to learn German on your own and you are looking to take your casual language learning a bit further beyond Duolingo and Co., you stand to benefit greatly from this book, especially if your goal is to improve your reading skills.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews