Rating: 
Summary: Verleumdung!
Review: I must compliment Ladywisdom on a certain flexibility of judgement seldom found amongst that species of pedant to which she most surely belongs. I would, after all, have expected the sort of lady who would condemn someone's intelligence and learning simply on account of a single flaw of spelling (as if people whose "genius" is far better attested than D.N. Freedman's have not often orthographized in the most unusually and colorful manner) to be most disagreeably affected by Kontakte's rather casual approach to German grammar. It surprises me all the more that someone who has already learned six languages would be so "marvelously" pleased with the training wheels that Terrell and Co. provides for its students. Or that someone who has studied biblical exegesis with a scholar of the ilk of D.N. Freedman (whose Bible Dictionary, Herr Adler --- a good friend of mine, I must add --- has always deeply admired, despite certain theological reservations), and must therefore be aware of a language and literature of deep-reaching otherness (I would say "radical alterity" --- but why expose myself to the charge of thesaurizing) would not find something amiss in a German book whose authors are so deprived of feeling for the language that they purport to teach that they could not even find a German word for the title.
Rating: 
Summary: German is not just for marxists and sociopaths anymore.
Review: I would just like to respond to Anthony Adler's caustic, and if I dare say, arrogant review of Kontakte. Teachers like Adler seem to believe that students are only truly learning if they are suffering. Perhaps it would make Adler happy to see students toiling away memorizing thousands of arcane conjunctions from a withered, yellowing book written during the Weimar Republic. I, however, prefer a textbook like Kontakte that, informed by the latest research in applied socio-linguistics, provides students with a relevant and pleasurable introduction to the language and culture of contemporary Germany. Adler should realize the fact that most students at today's "highly competetive universities" don't study German in order to read Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, but to prepare themselves for future careers in business and international relations, or simply for their own personal enrichment. They don't want to become depraved, melancholic graduate students, but productive citizens of world, promoting the values of the free market economy and the American Way of Life. For this, I can not imagine a more perfect textbook than Kontakte.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent for communicative, in-class learning
Review: I'm a native speaker of German and have taught first year German with this book - I love it, and so did my students. I think the communicative approach works great, the book offers a multitude of topics for interaction and communication. It explains the basics of grammar and allows the student to learn by using the language, rather than by memorizing rules. It is, as I mentioned, a book for beginners (first year) and not appropriate for any other level, and it is a book to be used in a class setting, not for self studies. It will not work for other learning situations, but there are other books for those settings. I have learned Spanish with the "Dos Mundos" book from the same series and with the same approach and found it the most effective language learning I have ever experienced. Used in a classroom applying a "natural approach" to language learning, this book is wonderful and an extremely effective way of starting with a new language!
Rating:
Summary: Kontakte --- sehr kool! sehr fun!
Review: Ladywisdom is so right. Kontakte is super-fun. Since I started taking it at UCSD (tres competitive!), I can say WHATEVER I want. I was talking to my girlfriend Uli in German(she's from Deutschland, but isn't a jack-booted, Lederhose-wearing, freakazoid like ours truly), and I wanted to get her to play the new Speers album, and it was like so cool --- I said "Spiel das CD auf dem CD-Spieler" --- a she TOTALLY knew what I meant. I love the Blickkontakte interviews, the cute pictures, and I'm learning sooo much. :)
Rating:
Summary: Kontakte --- sehr kool! sehr fun!
Review: Ladywisdom is so right. Kontakte is super-fun. Since I started taking it at UCSD (tres competitive!), I can say WHATEVER I want. I was talking to my girlfriend Uli in German(she's from Deutschland, but isn't a jack-booted, Lederhose-wearing, freakazoid like ours truly), and I wanted to get her to play the new Speers album, and it was like so cool --- I said "Spiel das CD auf dem CD-Spieler" --- a she TOTALLY knew what I meant. I love the Blickkontakte interviews, the cute pictures, and I'm learning sooo much. :)
Rating:
Summary: Very easy to understand
Review: This is a text I used when I was studying German at university, and I have found it generally well laid out book and easy to understand. Each in almost entirely written in German, and each has a theme with examples of of these themes in everday life. The book is full of pictures, which I find conducive to learning. At the end of each chapter, there are explanations of how the grammar works, and a list of vocaulary relevant for the chapter. There are plenty of pictures One review has mentioned that it is not a book for self teaching. I can not comment on this time about that at this stage, however I did have to end my course at university prematurely, and I intend to continue learning from this book. One thing this book does not address, is the new German spelling reforms.
Rating:
Summary: Kontakte book
Review: This seller was the best seller I have ever gone through!!!!!
She sent out the book within a day of purchasing it. She was very easy to get in touch with.
BUY FROM THIS SELLER!
Rating:
Summary: Let's not be so mean. German isn't about being mean! Oh.
Review: Though I may be "melancholic graduate student," I have enough sense to realize that you should all just kiss and make up. Such a tiff over a German textbook! Also, "Ladywisdom," thanks to your revelation regarding your attendence at a very competitive university and your knowledge of six (or have you learned another two or three by now?) languages, we are all safely convinced of the enormous size of your intellectual winky. Please stop trying to prove it.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: You don't get arguments of this nature over in the architecture section, where I normally do my browsing.
Great stuff.
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