Mastering German Vocabulary (Mastering Vocabulary)

I would say that it is a book that helps you to learn most of the usefull german words, but it is build for travelers!

In this book you will find thousands of vocabulary items in German, sorted thematically. This means that you can look up words related to any topic that you may be interested in. It is particularly useful if you are learning German on your own (that is my case) and don't want to buy a school text book. Obviously, you may want to buy a book on German grammar as well, to complement this one.

The main adventage is the thematic approach. For instance, under "Living" you will find lots of sub-topics like parts of a house, buying or renting, etc. The phonetic transcription is very useful, and it has what should be a must in this kind of books: many examples. Furthermore, you are given the gender of nouns and the conjugation of irregular verbs. The only real drawback (inexplicable as it is) is that you are not presented with the plural of the nouns. Given the nature of the German language, this may be a problem, since you are required to look them up in order to ascertain the plural.

Nonetheless, this is a very good book, especially for those who have already a basic level. I recommend using it in conjunction with a notebook or flash cards, so that you may get the utmost of it.

I am living in Austria and trying to get to grips with the German language. I was looking for a book that explained the grammer a bit more and in this book I was expecting more explanation of the text presented (rather than just learning standard phrases).

If you are interested in the actual construction of the grammer I'd probably buy this book (as it does have LOTS of very useful phrases/examples) along with something like "Collins Easy Learning German Grammar" which goes into depth regarding the structure of the grammer.

Buy this book if you want lots of examples to work from..!!

This is the best book for learning intermediate and basic vocab. The best thing is that it is not just lists, rather whole sentences using virtually every word, so grammar and general usage improves substantially and very good value too. Highly recommended!