Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, Mondadori, and Angus & Robertson
Conversational German Diaglogues*
Translations Lack, Format Poor
I have already reviewed the books of a similar title by this company for French, Italian, and Spanish. Unfortunately, this book had the same types of errors and issues that the other books have. First, the English sections have so many mistakes that I would be leery of using the German sections for fear that they would be filled with the same. Here are a few examples of some very awkward English that no native speaker would say. “You find the best pieces in the beginning when nobody snagged them yet” and “Then I would rather prefer, you keep on watching TV.”
Some topics are ones you would expect from a book aimed mostly at travelers and language students, like how to order food or ask directions. But other topics actually seem quite bizarre for a casual visitor to Germany, like a clothing exchange party and discussing animals of Australia. Neither would be an everyday or even common occurrence.
The book uses some unusual and incorrect capitalization in the German sections. The format of the eBook makes it not suitable for beginners or near beginners to learn from (even if the German translations are okay) as it is tricky to flip between the English and German versions of the dialogue for every line. I think it would be better to have the translated lines right next to each other, perhaps one bolded and one italicized, for easier assimilation and comparison. I took German in college, but I have forgotten most of it, so I found it frustrating to flip between the English and German sections for each dialogue sentence. I certainly do not remember enough of the language to say if the German translations are truly good or bad. It would be helpful to have at least an intermediate understanding of German to know if these are accurate dialogues and phrases that would actually be used in conversation with native German speakers.
