Easy Ways to Enlarge Your German Vocabulary

by Karl A. Schmidt

Although there are many books that cover German grammar and syntax, remarkably little modern attention has been given to the practical problem of acquiring a German vocabulary. Yet building up or enlarging a basic vocabulary can be one of the most time-consuming and most difficult tasks for the student, if he approaches it by the conventional method of word lists or reading notes. As the present book, by Karl A. Schmidt, Assistant Professor of German at the University of San Francisco, shows, there are modern techniques for building vocabulary efficiently.
Professor Schmidt's work builds upon the close relationship of German to English, as well as upon the easy and rational processes that are used in German for word formation. Cognates and words of common foreign origin between English and German are covered, as well as the creation of new words by compounding, by affixes, and other modifications. Concentrating on useful, modern vocabulary, this book is remarkably clear in its presentation and will (in addition to its specific considerations) leave the reader with a sense of the patterns of word formation, so that he can go farther on his own.
This book can be used as a supplement to any language course, for self-study by a student who has already had grammatical basics, or as a refresher. The extensive practice examples that are included (with a key at the rear) will enable the reader both to increase his knowledge and to check his progress.

Genres: German Literature, Language

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1974

Reviews

[Irena Pasvinter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book popped up on my screen as I was looking at German dual language books published by Dover. I decided to give it a try and downloaded a free preview to my Kindle. I'm glad I did.

Everybody with a minimal interest in linguistics has heard about Grimm's law, and it's hard not to mention similarities between many German and English words which seem like the same word with a slightly different spelling. But somehow none of the German textbooks I've seen before contain the application of Grimm's law to correspondences between German and English vowels and consonants. This books shows these correspondences in a few clear concise tables and then gives examples and practice exercises. Transforming "Diebe" into "thieve" and "Distel" into "thistle" in one easy mental action is not only highly satisfactory -- it feels like pure magic, even if you had long ago become indifferent to "gut" versus "good".;)

The rest of the book deals with the different kinds of word formation in German: from compound words to suffixes and prefixes. All this information is very useful, even though it's rather on the dry side. Each section is accompanied with practice exercises which provide a bit of welcome distraction.

All in a all, a short but very useful no-nonsense book with some magic thrown in. Well worth my time.

[Thom Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oriented toward general reading rather than travel.