Becoming fluent in German: 150 Short Stories

After 2 years on Duolingo, I was looking for something outside of Duolingo to complement my progress. I initially looked at children's books on the Internet, but found most of them required more language skills than I possessed, requiring me to constantly Google for the meanings of words and then to sort out the syntax. And it was discouraging to think that I didn't have enough language skills to read and comprehend children's stories! This collection of short stories uses both vocabulary I learned on Duolingo, as well as vocabulary outside of the application. The stories are credible, describe situations and events one might experience, and seem to be geared to adults, young and old. The accompanying audio downloads also help in presenting a speaker outside of the Duolingo app, with a different voice, speaking speed, etc., to help the learner's ear become more flexible to hearing a different voice. An excellent complement to one's "regular" language lessons.

I’m a new German-learning person and I’m so glad I came across this book. I’ve been looking for a couple months now to find and buy my first ‘extra’ book to learn from and I’m glad this is what I chose. I hope to read full books in German some day! I personally learn best by getting to see ‘the full picture’; getting to see these stories helps me learn how things go together and are formed. From there I work on learning the ‘why’; why structure is the way that it is. The audiobook download is great, I repeat out loud what I’m learning to help learn to form the right sounds and it’s a HUGE help to train the ‘voice in my head’ to speak correctly as well. I was pleasantly surprised by the flashcards as well, I didn’t even realize there would be any! I have read great things about Anki so I’m extra happy the cards go through that program. I’ve only made my way through the first couple of stories so far, but I feel very confident this book will continue to be a very valuable tool for me to learn with. I’m excited to read them over and over! Thank you so much for all of your hard work Philipp, I can’t wait to get your dialogue book next!

So far, the stories themselves look better than other beginner's German books I've read; they're simple enough for beginners (as the cover suggest, level A2), but complex enough that it doesn't look like a children's book in disguise. The first stories give you a bigger word list to reference to if you don't know the meaning of a word or phrase, and as you progress that word list gets shorter, so I assume the author reinforces these words through some repetition, though I can't confirm. In the texts they write out a number as well as putting the numerical version in parentheses, like this: vier (4); this is especially important since not all learners know their numbers, and oftentimes I've seen other books only use the numerical form. However, the downside is the formatting. You have the short story up top (basically just a paragraph), questions directly below, and then the word list below the questions. It's not very visually pleasing, and I personally find it better to have these on the other side of the page or at the end of a chapter so I can try using context clues and/or comparing it to English then checking on how accurate I was. The questions are all in German, which is a plus, and having them below the story isn't a huge deal. There also aren't any pictures (which also isn't a big deal, but some people do like them for assistance). The size of the book also would've been better smaller, as the size it is now leaves a bunch of white space at the bottom of the page. Maybe you could add your own doodles or make some notes, who knows. Overall, the book is worth a read if you're just starting out, so don't let the formatting get in the way if you're picky like me.

This was exactly what I was looking for. It's practical german with common phrases that I can read to practice the things I learned but, have not used in a while. My one serious suggestion for the book would be to give the pages a little more margin. I have the paper back edition and I have about destroyed the binding trying to read the words in the center fold. I also like that there is space on the bottom of each page for my notes.

This book helped me improve upon my German immensely! The short stories are great for improving your ability to read German in real life situations. All the stories are relatable and are easy to understand. At the end of each story, there is a list of vocabulary words that you may not have known. There is also questions at the end of each story that relate to what you just read so that you can make sure to understood everything. This book has helped me improve my German in indescribable ways! Would def recommend reading! 10/10!

This is the book you need to perfect your German language skills. I have been learning German for almost one year now through various platforms like YouTube channels and online courses but I reached a point where I felt I was stuck. That is when I came across this book here at Amazon and I bought a kindle version of it. So far I am really improving and I have come to learn a lot of vocabulary in sentences which has more impact to language learning as opposed to just craning the words. So get this book if you need to take your German language learning to the next level.

This book has helped me significantly! The stories reflected every day life events and were easy enough,, but also had a generous sprinkling of new words to increase my vocabulary. This was important for me as I was getting bogged down just trying to memorize words. The context allowed me to increase my vocabulary easier, learn and recognise conjugation more and have fun stories to read. This book gave me confidence to continue learning and not give up. Learning German was a special project. I am retired and have a son, daughter in law and granddaughter in Munich., who do speak English, but the mother of the daughter in law parents in Germany does not speak English. She is a specially nice woman and I want to be able to understand each other. Your book is helping me get there. Thank you!

I like the stories and included questions and vocab lists. There is a wide variety of topics. I am disappointed in the typos. Sie and Ihnen aren't capitalized in the stories I've read and there are occasional other grammar errors, such as verb endings.

I'm yet to read it, but I was disappointed with the printing. It looks cheap, and the text is cramped and the font size is somewhat small. Included is a link for an Audio version, but the tracks are not separate for each story, rather the whole book is divided into 4 audio tracks, unpractical. After reading it I may come again to review the stories themselves.

Kitapta günlük dilde sıklıkla kullanıldığını düşündüğüm fiillerin kullanılması, metinlerin kısa olması, kalıp cümlelerin kullanılması , ses kaydının mevcut olması, kelime listesine yer verilmesi güzel özellikler.

This book is just what I needed. It comes with audio files available on the webpage of the Creator. It is a nice selection of comprehensible short stories with vocabulary aid on the bottom of the page. Strongly recommended.

I just received this book and it turns out the ideal book that I've ever met for German learning. If you want to give it a try to the theory of comprehensible input on German language learning I would highly recommend this book for your learning material. Combined with videos on the internet and reading books, I think this would be a great combination for any language learning.

El tamaño y material del libro es de buena calidad, sobre el contenido, un poco de edición ayudaría a una presentación visual más agradable de las lecturas , pero es sólo eso, visual. Los textos son variados y adecuados en longitud para un estudiante, me gustó mucho el audio, su velocidad es casi normal y permite escuchar cada sonido. Lo recomiendo ampliamente si estás interesado en acercarte al alemán con textos adecuados a tu nivel de aprendizaje.