complete german. by paul coggle, heiner schenke

I am working my way through the book (Chapter 8 so far). I like it because each chapter takes on one topic and works it pretty thoroughly. I notice that as I advance I am challenged with generally higher tasks in reading, writing, speaking and listening. I was able to link to the free online audio clips without too much trouble, and use them them easily now. The speakers in the audio clips speak clearly and with good emotion.

The Complete German book was very informative and thorough, just as every other teach yourself book I bought. The dialogues are engaging and the online audio is a big help to comprehend spoken German. I love the overall setup of this book and would highly recommend it to anyone wanted to learn German whom has little time to study for large portions every week. Just 10 minutes a day makes a big difference!

I wish I could compare this book to the pre-2010 editions, but this is my first time using Teach Yourself. From what I've seen on other polyglots' videos, the German Teach Yourself books have gone through some major facelift in 2010, and the 2013 edition has inherited the paper quality, colors and pictures. Personally, those are no more than frills - all these pictures take up space and add nothing to the content. However, by comparing to a video review I saw from the 2010 edition, I could see that they removed the full-page pictures, which is a "step back in the right direction", and either added content to those pages (tips about the culture) or, less likely, just reorganized the content. I'm looking forward for other opinions on this, as I don't have another edition at hand. Now, Amazon advertises it as if it came with two Audio CDs, but it comes in fact with a single MP3 CD. Not a problem at all in my opinion, but it should be advertised accordingly - the box comes with the correct information. Regarding the method itself, I like it so far. It doesn't try to take you by the hand and explain everything, and you often come across phrases that aren't explained in the book, but that you can infer meaning. So far, I can easily recommend this. I just wish they got rid of all the useless pictures.

I was extremely disappointed when I started to flip through this book. It's essentially a miniature version of a standard German textbook. I was excited to receive it because I had purchased this publisher's teach yourself Norwegian and I LOVED the formatting because it wasnt the same old thing that you find in literally every single college textbook about foreign language. It felt fresh. This one? Not so much. The gaudy colors and overabundance of the pictures, the excessive amounts of exercises, and the lack of breaking the information down into manageable chunks of information are a bit of a letdown. It's all about perspective, I know. If you're just getting into German, this will probably be a useful resource, but for someone who already has a university textbook on the subject, save your money. You already have pretty much the same thing. It comes with a CD, which is the same thing as what you can download for free through their app. I'm being generous with my rating because I know this book will help some people.

Really good place to start especially if there are no classes around you

I didn't know a word in German, today I have quite a solid basis to go further into the language. I didn't know "Teach Yourself" either, I had never heard of it, but while making a research I found some good reviews on it on websites talking about self-learning methods. So, I got myself this pack and I completely fell in love with it! I loved to see how I was making progress day after day. Sometimes I found its pace a little too fast, but it's not a problem at all. There's good balance between listening, reading, grammar, exercises and so on...! And everything seems so well thought, it's very precise! But, I do think this course is just a beginning, one has to get immerse in the language learning process, and find other sources to practice what you learn and to learn more in different ways. But I am sure: Teach Yourself is a great beginning! Now I am anxious to learning French, Italian and Russian! See you Teach Yourself in a near future! Thanks! ;)

This is a very good book. The quality of the material is excellent and the audio recordings as well. However, although it covers content from B1 and B2 it is VERY SUPERFICIAL. A exemple: It only talk about Nebensätze (subordinate clauses) on the last 2 chapters while this is an topic for A2 level. Not to mention that it is limited to the use of "dass...". No "deshalb", "trotzden", "damit", "dafür", etc... So, if you are a newcomer and has no purposes such as proficiency exams etc... This book will be great for you. You will be able to read and understand a lot of things. But, if you ALREADY studied German, and need to be prepared for the B1, I strongly recommend this one: http://www.amazon.com/Gehts-Noch-Besser-Goethe--Osd-zertifikat/dp/3126758541/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1431205100&sr=8-2&keywords=so+geht%27s+noch+besser

The book description states "This pack includes a full-colour book and one MP3 CD of audio material". It does not include a CD. Required is either an app (which works on an IPad but not properly on MacOS) or the online playing of files that, after some effort, can be found on the company website. Sound is available through online streaming; however the interface is inept. Let me explain. The reader is presented with a scrolling list of audio clips, labeled by chapter section numbers: 1.01, 1.02,... in very small print. Select a section and click play. The audio starts *immediately* giving the reader NO time at all to locate their place in the book. Even worse, at the end of the clip (15 - 20 seconds long), the audio immediately starts on the next section. The people who put this junk together clearly never used it and/or have no experience in teaching. For the record, this is a start on how it should be done: 1. Press play on the section that has been selected. After a 2 or 3 second pause, the audio should start. At the end of the audio you go back to the *start* of the clip you have just listened to and the player is paused. You can then continue to replay that section or choose the next section. 2. The material needs to be presented by chapter. That is, choose a chapter, view the list of sections in that chapter: 1, 2, 3, etc., then make the selection of the section. Unfortunately this type of poorly tested interface is typical in the online world. EG Try booking a train on one of the UK train company websites. After websites are "upgraded" they tend to be largely unusable for many months until the bugs have been sorted out. I can't speak for those who are using the app, but I strongly do not recommend this book as a good way of learning German.