Learn German with Stories: Dino lernt Deutsch - German Short Stories for Beginners: Explore European Cities and Boost Your Vocabulary

by André Klein

Get ready - it's time to start traveling and learning! Step into the shoes of Dino once again, explore 4 cities in 4 different countries and learn German—the way it's actually spoken—along the way!This collector's edition comprises episodes 5-8 of the Dino lernt Deutsch German learning series for Ahoi aus Hamburg, Plötzlich in Palermo, Walzer in Wien and Zurück in Zürich.With a fistful of German learning experiences under his belt Dino follows his heart's desire, visits friends and family back in his home country only to delve right back into the beautiful and bewildering world of Switzerland and Austria where German suddenly seems like a completely foreign language again.Follow Dino on his adventures through four different European countries, immerse yourself in North Sea breezes, a Sicilian wedding, Viennese coffee culture, Swiss mountain air, and improve your German effortlessly along the way! This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying) naturally flowing German short stories.Learning German Doesn't Have To Be A ChoreJust got started on your German learning journey? Memorized a few words but struggle with longer texts? We've all been there. This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying!) authentic German fiction. Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary, this story series is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to boost their confidence and speed up their German learning journey.Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary, with a special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and expressions. By working with these “building blocks” instead of just single words, learners can accelerate their understanding and active usage of new German language material and make the learning process more fluid and fun.What You'll Find In This Book40 German short stories about 4 cities in 4 countriesa balance between cozy vocabulary and introduction of new wordstons of phrases and expressions you will actually use in daily lifefun facts about German music history, Sicilian cuisine, Swiss architecture and Austrian coffee culturea detailed German-English dictionary after every chapterenough support to make following along easy, without spoiling your own effortsfun short quizzes to check your text-comprehension (including answers)a relatable protagonist and other fun charactershand-drawn illustrations by the authora border-crossing European adventureRead, Learn & Collect Them AllOnce you're done reading the four episodes contained in this collector's edition, you'll have traveled half of Europe and picked up more German than years' worth of expensive courses. Learning German has never been more fun.What You WON'T Find In This Bookparallel translations that may seem convenient but don't teach you anythingdull characters designed by academics and committeesinterspersed English sentences that take you out of the reading flowarchaic German words and phrases nobody uses in real lifea jumble of unrelated places, people and events

Genres: German Literature, Language

541 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2017

About the author

André Klein was born in Germany, grew up in Sweden and Thailand and currently lives in Israel. He has been teaching languages for more than 15 years and is the author of short stories, picture books and non-fiction works in English and German.

Reviews

[Emily Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read and good practice

My whole family reads this series together out loud to practice for our trip to Germany... It is a step up from duolingo and easier than the Momsen & Baumgartner series.

[Jeremy Kong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading the earlier books in this series (1-4) when I was first learning German (around A1). Since then I passed my B1 exam and would say I'm towards the tail end of B2 now; this edition of the book was more challenging, though by this point it was very light reading. Nonetheless, it's good for slightly more advanced beginners (probably A2 or low B1?) and I also learned a few interesting words and phrases, such as Chuchichäschtli, Papierkram and Jedem das Seines.

I don't know how accurate "simple short stories for beginners" is as the series definitely gets harder with each book. I'd have had a lot of difficulty with this book if I read it at A1, I think.

The plot took an interesting and more unexpected turn in book 6 (discussing refugee smuggling and the plight of asylum-seekers); it was a fair bit darker than what I remember was in books 1-4. This only seems to last for one book though, and things become lighter again in books 7 and 8. Having visited both Vienna and Zurich before, these were also interesting as I could picture what Dino and his friends/companions were getting up to fairly easily.

[Matthew H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. My reading speed and comprehension improved a lot by the end of it. Does require a bit of googling simple grammar rules and translating words as you go along (I recommend reading an ebook version for this reason), but that is to be expected. You will increasingly be able to accurately guess new words’ meanings from their etymology and context with a bit of patience.

[DavidO · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but...

I love the stories. Not sure how useful it is to throw in regional dialects when I haven't learned "proper" German. I wish it were written a bit more simply as I generally have to look up about 1 word per sentence, which gets exhausting.

[Vadym Ozarynskyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting enough for me to read. And this was the first book that I’ve read auf Deutsch
So recommend if you search something to read to learn German.
I learn German from 0 so it was complex enough for me