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Kontakte: A Communicative Approach (Student Edition) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Erwin Tschirner, Brigitte Nikolai, Tracy Terrell
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Category: Book
Buy New: $107.00
New (21) Used (14) from $97.27
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 93040
Format: Student Edition
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 6
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 11 x 9.2 x 1
ISBN: 0073535338
Dewey Decimal Number: 438.2421
EAN: 9780073535333
ASIN: 0073535338
Publication Date: January 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
This best-selling German text is based on and inspired by the Natural Approach, pioneered by Tracy D. Terrell. Students learn German through communicative contexts with an emphasis on the four skills and cultural competence, with grammar functioning as an aid to language learning and not as an end in itself. The abundance of interesting personalized activities and a wide variety of authentic and author-written readings in Kontakte ensure that students are exposed to rich language input, critical to language acquisition. A full range of supplements, including video, audio and interactive online materials, provide multiple opportunities to practice newly acquired vocabulary and grammar and further refine developing language skills.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 NOT TOO HELPFUL AND VERY UNORGANIZED!!! November 23, 2008
Ginger_Ale
I'm actually giving this book ZERO stars. First of all, I love to learn foreign languages and I enjoy the German language and culture very much. Some foreign language textbooks that I've come across, including the German ones, have been helpful and easy to understand. However, Kontakte is very, very poorly structured. Unfortunately, it's the only German textbook that's currently being used at my college. All the grammar pages, culture sections and classroom and communication activities appear to be misplaced in the book. The vocabulary list is also placed in an awkward position in each chapter. Unlike better language textbooks that are used out there, Kontakte does not list the conjugations of most irregular verbs that it introduces. There are some irregular verbs that are introduced in every chapter. They are usually found in the vocabulary section. This weird textbook is already overly priced and you have to spend even more money on buying books that provide conjugations of irregular German verbs. Additionally, the first few chapters of Kontakte goes way into depth in the German language too soon, confusing my classmates, peers and myself even more. Some of the activities in the book, which we've done so far, are time-consuming and somewhat advanced for our introductory German course. And, even the grammatical structure of some vocabulary words are too advanced for us to learn in our class because of how kontakte expects and pushes students to learn more than what they can handle and comprehend. Our tutors are not even happy with Kontakte because they get forced into explaining things that we haven't learned in our class yet. Our professor, who is a native speaker, is thinking about switching to another German textbook next year because of the difficulties in Kontakte that has caused her to give us a couple of take-home exams. We all believe that if we were using a different German textbook (that was more well-structured), we could have been speaking and writing much better German by now. It seems apparent that Kontakte's purpose is too make the learner struggle and not too make him or her speak German any quicker as it claims it can. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who's critical of Kontakte and that there could be even more students from different schools out there who are not satisfied with Kontakte. I just can't wait to sell back this awkward and worthless textbook. I am glad that I'm even finding some people here on amazon who are critical of the Kontakte textbook. There seems to be more complaints about Kontakte than positive comments about it. The grammar pages in each chapter don't provide sufficient details on the proper usage of the language. I'll take German at another college that doesn't use Kontakte because this book isn't beginner-friendly. On one side, two thumbs up for German! But on another side, two thumbs down for Kontakte! Shame on Kontakte for making a great and interesting language difficult to learn!
 Not for self-study October 22, 2008
Peter Fellenz (Evanston, IL)
Kontakte is a wonderful book for introductory German, if it's the assigned book for the class. The book is heavy on conversation and classroom exercises. It is not intended for self-teaching. In the classroom, with a curriculum designed around the book, it is very effective.
 What the heck? October 1, 2008
Kayla Walsh
This book is strange.
I don't understand how I'm supposed to LEARN and remember new words while I'm still trying to catch old ones (listening to the dialogues online).
I just could not hear the word "frech" to save my life. lol. Their conversations were super fast. But then sometimes the dialogues totally baby you and you're waiting for the next question!
It feels like the book is trying to teach you new stuff in your written exercises too, but they never "formerly introduce" them and it gets so confusing and obnoxious and it's driving me crazy.
That's probably the most scattered review I've ever left but I'm so frazzled and I have a huge exam on this stuff in a couple hours and I can't even form German sentences. I don't know if it's the book or if it's German itself but it makes the German language seem really wacky.
I have studied many languages. I tried to teach myself German before with the German Made Simple book which was great. I didn't get very far because German is tough and I decided I needed a teacher but I just got lazy more than anything, because that book was great. I got pretty good at Latin without a teacher's help so it's all about the book. And this book sucks.
The Different Style Makes it Easy to Learn September 28, 2008
C. Scheck (Maryland)
The book's teaching method is different from other language books I have had. The book has an intuitive learning style which makes the vocabulary relatively easy to learn. The book is split up into several different sections and includes a vocabulary list and grammar section after each chapter. These pages are a different color than the other pages making them easy to find.
My only complaint would be the lack of examples for some of the exercises. Overall this is not a problem but sometimes it is an issue. Also, this book can be bought with a book key included. It is cheaper to buy the text without the key and get the book key (assuming your class requires it) from the publisher.
False advertising September 14, 2008
Randy Gardner (San Pedro, CA US & Liverpool, UK)
This information about this product stated that it was "brand new" and included everything. This book came with no interactive CD and verification code for the online supplement. I would recommend that you don't buy from this vendor because you don't get what you pay for.
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