Speakeasy wrote:Update: Answer Key
The following comment has been appended to my Amazon Customer Review of this textbook, "The exercise key is freely available from Routledge, please contact andrea.hartill@tandf.co.uk" What a strange way of making the document available to students! The Routledge website does not reflect this information; rather, the user is directed to the Instructor Resources Portal where the Answer Key can be accessed only by registered instructors. Perhaps, rather than relying on my Amazon post for diffusing this information, they should think about updating their website. Obviously, since the printed publication itself is now in circulation, the mention on the back cover of the Answer Key cannot be changed, although I suppose that Routledge could always supply "stickers" to be applied to the back cover by the ultimate booksellers. Regrettably for the author, the roll-out of this long-awaited textbook "hit a bump in the road."
Goodness. Routledge have really shot themselves in the foot on this one, and are now applying sticking plaster, instead of fixing the problem properly. At least you got a response from them, so well done, and I suppose one cheer to Routledge for that.
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To be fair though, I don't criticise them for the lack of audio on this kind of book. Assuming it's like the Routledge reader for Welsh that I have, it is aimed purely at the written language and helps the beginner reader unpick that. There are plenty of sources of audio for German (just as there are plenty of written sources as has been correctly pointed out, but there aren't all that many sources of German written for natives which then go on to explain the finer points to learners, which is what this sort of book is all about. It's not a "language course").
If you want audio matched to text, there are free podcasts around with transcripts if you look for them. And of course there is no shortage of audiobooks which you can match to printed or e-books (just have to be careful to find unabridged audiobooks).