Acquiring Reading Knowledge of German and Spanish

[thesaurus]

Can anyone recommend good texts that I could use to acquire a reading knowledge of German and Spanish? I have no experience in either language.

I'm interested in learning these languages in addition to the classics. Since I don't have the freedom to take proper language classes at the moment I thought I may as well study these without the spoken element. I need the reading comprehension for grad school, and I assume it wouldn't be too difficult to proceed from reading to aural comprehension when I have the time to practice. Ideally I would like to be able to read academic and literary works (e.g. comparative/historical linguistics texts, Goethe, Cervantes, Garcia Marquez, Borges, Nietzsche, Unamuno, etc.).

For any of you who have tried this, how do find learning modern languages in this way in comparison with Latin and Greek? Do you study it in the same way? My fond wish is that Spanish and German will be much easier after tackling the classics for a while...

[Kynetus Valesius]

Hey friend,

I recommend the "Ultimate" language series. There is "Ultimate German" and "Ultimate Spanish". The approach is the traditional (sometimes boring) conversational one but you will learn to read, listen, and respond as well as acquire the basic grammar necessary for moving on to more advanced materials. I like these courses because they are systematically designed for self-learning and because of the emphasis placed on oral comprehension. They are available at the big books stores. The same approach has been implemented by many other vendors.

Good luck.

[thesaurus]

Thanks, those books look interesting.

Do you think the oral element is necessary for modern languages? Will it be harder to learn them without it? For now my primary interest is in reading proficieny, and I thought that if I skipped the conversational/spoken aspect I could make quicker progress. Many linguistic and philosophical works are written in German and I'd like to be able to pass the Master's qualifying language exam in it. (These tests usually involve translating a ~300 word text in about two hours, with the help of a dictionary).

[Rindu]

There is also a text called "German for Reading Knowledge" which is the standard text for reading knowledge courses in graduate school. I don't know if there is such a text for Spanish.

[Kynetus Valesius]

I had previously responded about about the advantage of including the spoken elements in your study but neglected to submit it. So now I respond again ..........

German for Reading Knowledge, which I own and use, assumes that if you just want to read, then hearing and pronunciation are not important. I suppose this is so especially if you JUST want to read. I like German for Reading knowledge and would recommend it - especially to people wishing to read social science material. However, I believe personally that learning can be accelerated through the education of the ear and would only use such a text in conjunction with something else. Moreover, for aesthetic reasons I can't imagine trying to read this famous song (Das berühmteste Gedicht Heinrich Heines) without VOICING the WORDS:

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein. ETC

For me it makes no sense just to silently read - it's like just having a mind with no body. Ken

[spiphany]

I was going to make a similar suggestion about the German -- I learned German in a high school setting, but I've been using the "Living Language Ultimate German" course with a student I'm tutoring. What appealed to me about it is that it treats the student like a mature, intelligent adult who is seriously interested in the language, which is a nice alternative to courses which are either aimed at a school-age audience and full of silly activities, or intended for tourists.

Certainly I think it is best to acquire at least a sense of the sound of the language fairly early on in your studies, even if you don't take it past the point of a very basic comprehension/speaking knowledge. It makes learning much easier, for one thing -- even memorizing vocabulary, as I'm finding with Russian at the moment, is much more difficult if you lack that sense.

There's also a text by Dora Schulz and Heinz Griesbach called "Deutsche Sprachlehre" which is somewhat similar to Lingua Latina, if that approach appeals to you. It's entirely in German and uses readings followed by grammar and exercises based on the readings. I don't know if it's in print anymore, but it shouldn't be to hard to find a used copy.

[chad]

hi, in addition to courses, read the same news article each day (and listen to dubbed video) in your chosen euro languages at:

http://euronews.net/

i've also bought the oxford CD-ROM instant pop-up dictionaries for french, italian and german (which all work together in one little window on your screen), which make reading much quicker, i'd recommend them, pretty cheap too.

[Bert]

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten
.....

Do you have a German keyboard or is the Eszett a unicode character?
(The only unicode fonts I have been exposed to are Greek.)

[Kopio]

Two words for you...Spanishkit!

Jeff has another website just like textkit for spanish learners...check it out.

[thesaurus]

Two words for you...Spanishkit!

Jeff has another website just like textkit for spanish learners...check it out.

This is amazing! I can't wait until some more texts get uploaded.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm currently looking into "German Quickly" by April Wilson; the amazon reviews are extremely positive.

[swiftnicholas]

Thanks for the link, Chad. I try to read Le Monde online regularly, but I'm hoping to get myself some German soon, and that site will be great.

For writing practice, or just for asking questions, you might find this forum interesting:

http://www.jump-gate.com/forum/index.php

I know you asked about German and Spanish, but there is also this wonderful online dictionary for French. It's especially nice for the conjugation and synonym features (and I think that "style" feature is new, and it seems interesting):

http://dictionnaire.tv5.org/


~N

[Kynetus Valesius]

Two words for you...Spanishkit!

Jeff has another website just like textkit for spanish learners...check it out.

This is amazing! I can't wait until some more texts get uploaded.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm currently looking into "German Quickly" by April Wilson; the amazon reviews are extremely positive.

I hardly know where to begin. First, I'd like to ask kopio if there are particular resources from spanishkit that he can recommend and which ones might offer the best value for the dollar? I spent more than a few minutes browsing through the site and connecting to the various commercial links. I am familiar with many of the names, who wouldn't be, of the firms linked to: Berlitz and Rosetta Stone for instance. The links to the foreign language schools sound appealing especially if I can ever afford to combine a vacation in an exotic locale with some course work. Now please understand me well: I am not opposed to money or even people making it in abundance. However, when I am looking, for ONLINE language learning resources I am looking for - to put the matter very bluntly, is FREE STUFF or stuff that is very reasonably priced. I personally wouldn't need an outfit like spanishkit to help me find the resources linked to through its homepage because I can use google as anyone who ever was.

Thesaursus' original question related to recommendations for quick introductions to Spanish and German - especially for reading knowledge. For that I would suggest that he simply buy a standard course such as available in any book store. The "Ultimate" series (Living Lanuage) has been mentioned and recommended. Why not? These courses are not too pricey. If there resources on spanishkit that might be more cost effective, they escaped me entirely.

Kopio said that spanishkit is "just like textkit" while Thesauarus mentioned that the site was amazing and that he couldn't wait till more texts got loaded. I have SEVERE ADD so sometimes things completely pass me by. But you know, guys, I looked in vain for the fora for the exchange of ideas and the pdfs of the old out-of-print spanish grammars and readers that would be comparable to the excellent materials available to us on this site. I looked sine exitu for an online community similar to the one that textkit sponsors. Did I miss these resources? When I sought out spanishkit, my goal was to find FREE online resources and support - such as those that are offered at textkit. I found none. Oh well, maybe that stuff is buried in some remote corner of the site.

Now ONE link at spanishkit really did catch my attention - the one that advertises itself with the banner "LEARN SPANISH FOR FREE" which pops up at the TOP of the results page when clicking from the main page on the button marked "language courses". Like Pu smelling honey, I blithely clicked on and was directed to this page which I have tinified (I had to as the URL link was like really really really long) for your convenience:

http://tinyurl.com/yzytql

The site initially seemed interesting because it promises a complete course on CD and CD ROM for free. You only have to pay for the shipping. But then I started to grow suspicious and started wondering about the outfit making the offer, a group called "Language Advantage". What's the catch, I wondered? And who is Language Advantage? I wanted to know! I could find zero contact information (at the link I was directed to from spanishkit) about this firm nor anything specific about its "breakthrough, multi-dimensional approach." Hmmmmm... no contact information! Malum! Let me see.... and I should give me credit card info for the shipping to this mysterious, unknown-to-me-at-least commercial outfit POSSIBLY hiding its own contact information? I don't think so! So.... I went directly to google to find the link to their main page which I couldn't find. But I did find something else that didn't entirely surprise me: accusations of fraud and scamming ! Voila......

http://www.ratetheoffers.com/offer_profile.php?id=127

If you read the page you will see words like "ripoff" "scam" "stay away". Now of course all of this proves nothing nevertheless after reading that stuff I could never even dream of using Language Advantage - which is the top result returned under "courses" at spanish kit and which is the only link that is touted as being FREE.

I found other aspects of the spanishkit site disappointing if not so troubling. The "English as a Second Language" button on the spanishkit main page at first seemed promising. People often ask me where they can find resources on the net to learn english at little or no cost so I am always eager to find to materials to refer them to. What I found via spanishkit were more pricey commercial offers - some for learning English and others for obtaining an ESL teaching certificate. I have nothing against these outfits and I am sure the folks connected are all honorable. But I was disappointed because I didn't find links to the BBC - which has an excellent program for learning english - or to ESLPOD. In fact, I didn't find links to any of the free or low cost sites that I personally deem best on the basis of my extensive searching for useful materials for my friends. Both BBC and Voice of America have excellent listening programs for intermediate students but where are the links under the ESL button at Spanish? Answer: they are either not there or are invisible to me due to my severe add.

Here are some useful sites ESL sites that are free and which spanishkit may want to consider including under its ESL banner:

http://www.mansioningles.com/
http://www.aulafacil.com/CursoIngles/CursoIngles.htm
http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/
(the last of these three may be the best and all are designed for native Spanish speakers)

www.eslpod.com
(designed for advanced beginners through intermediates speaking whatever native language)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
(truly EXCELLENT)

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/index.cfm
(this is also EXCELLENT but assumes elementary knowledge)

I could go on but now I am tired and need to turn to others matters like some latin study. But considering how far I have drifted from the original topic our moderator may wish to break this off into a new theme. I don't know. Nor does it matter to me terribly because I will not comment on this thread again. That is a FIRM PROMISE from me, Vester Servus Fidelis Kynetus Valesius

[swiftnicholas]

Perhaps you were looking at spanishkit.com rather than Jeff's site, which is: http://www.spanish-kit.net/

[thesaurus]

Perhaps you were looking at spanishkit.com rather than Jeff's site, which is: http://www.spanish-kit.net/

I made this same mistake, and was confused until I googled it.