501 German Verbs with CD-ROM (Barron's Foreign Language Guides)

My German teacher told my class to pick up a copy of this and I am so glad I did. It has saved me so much time and I never get stuck on a conjugation! This book is a life saver!!!

I really love this new edition of Strutz's text. This improves on the old version in its look and overall layout, plus it includes 27 written verb exercises with answers and explanations and a bonus CD-ROM. Granted the CD-ROM isn't extensive (hey, it's free), but it has a handful more of different types of exercises which, like the written exercises, gives you answers plus explanations. It's enough at least to let you see if you're on the right track and where you may need do more study. Like the earlier edition, it has a very nice overview of German verb tenses, plus new additional sections on prefix verbs and word order. Know that these sections are overviews and are hardly exhaustive, but that is not the goal of this book. It's main objective is to give you tools and the fundamental knowledge to better grasp and use German verb tenses. It's a supplemental text prefect for beginners and intermediate students who need the occasional reminder of what's what and what goes where, and also it's a helpful quick review for more advanced students (and perhaps a few teachers). If you need a more comprehensive grammar book, however, then get a comprehensive grammar book.

Likewise, this book contains only 501 verbs, so if you need a lexicon or a vocabulary building text, this isn't it. You'll need the appropriate text for such needs. What this book is useful for is teaching you how to conjugate German verbs properly, even ones not included in this book. In the front section, it gives you a list of 55 "essential" verbs, which if you were to take the time to study and learn thoroughly, can serve you as models for conjugating just about any verb in German. You really can't ask for a better, more applicable tool - this is basically how native speakers understand verbs. Plus, in the section for each of these 55 "essential" verbs, there is additional attention paid to prefixes. Naturally, it's not an exhuastive account of all the prefix verbs for that root verb, but it gives you the necessary basics.

The rest of the verbs are included because they are frequently used in general German usage, although you may not encounter some of these verbs if you are a beginner or immediate student. Bear in mind as well that this is an all-levels text, so even if you don't find some of the verbs included useful now, you may find them useful in later study.