I've been neglecting this group a bit in the last few years, last updates of resource list and member list ended many pages ago. I will get back to it.
After all, German is no longer so traumatising with a B2 certificate
But the part is far from ended.
Just a few messages that I think might be useful to other German learners:
-You don't need to love it. Many people in Europe are learning it out of obligation, social pressure, or simply for money. It's ok. You can approach it as a tool. Either you'll grow to love it, or not. Both options are fine.
-In German, you are free to choose resources because there are so many. There are so many coursebooks up to higher levels and similar tools, that you can take a less native input and "fun" oriented approach. There are tons of good dubbings and translations, or you can opt for tons of originals (but some genres are less served than others).
-I will perhaps add some resource reviews, if anyone is interested. Very shortly:
I think the best Germany published resources for the A1 and A2 is
Themen Aktuell, with the bilingual workbooks (in spite of some smaller issues mostly due to the books being already a bit old), the books go well beyond just A1 and A2, if you really learn the content, and will prepare you well for the B levels too, so that your plateau or learning curve after A2 will be much less painful. It doesn have a B1 volume, but it feels weird and worse done than the previous ones.
The best resource for a "false beginner", someone with partial and uneven knowledge either from school, duo, or something like that:
DaF kompakt. An extremely good, intensive course, with a bit differently ordered grammar than many, tons of vocab (with also overlaps a lot with for example Sicher B1+ and Sicher B2). The exercise book is great too, the listening and reading bits are appropriate challenge. however, I wouldn't recommend this book to a true beginner, it might be too much of a challenge.
For B1+ (a German particularity is the amount of coursebooks with this label) and B2, I've barely used my Sicher books, as I simply had no time. But the vocab is really less scary than I had thought, the activities look good, I will go back to these.
As far as the big brands go:
Assimil is very good, but the learning curve can get steep somewhere around lesson 20, if you don't accompany it with a grammar workbook or something.
FSI is in some ways very outdated, but the first few chapters gave me an amazing pronunciation drill, that I've profitted from ever since. A big Czech brand Leda
pro Samouky (we get a Czech member from time to time afterall): Excellent, intensive and a challenge. Gives probably the best grammar and vocab base out of all the German coursebooks, but not too suitable for exam preparation on its own.
Some books I didn't like and decided not to buy (or they catch dust on the shelf)
Menschen: I don't think it is too self study friendly, it felt a bit diluted for a false beginner too. But some of their complements (such as the wordlist books with example sentences) are good.
Schritt für Schritt: again, not that much for intensive individual studying. However, they have Austria and the Switzerland oriented editions, which might be useful.
Studio D is probably the worst organised widely used coursebook in schools, not self study (or self review) friendly. And a bunch of others.
Grammar books: I've partially, nearly, or totally completed several.
Klipp und Klar is rather friendly, easy to use, teaches a lot but won't overwhelm a beginner.
Grammatik Aktiv is similarly good, useful, well organised. I didn't like the
Hueber grammar exercise books of the traditional style. They may be valuable, but they are in my opinion too dry for the value they give. Again a Czech one
Cvičebnice německé gramatiky is absolutely awesome, intensive, makes you work, gives a lot of translation based drills, can be used very creatively (I used it while teaching my sister) and reviews stuff at various places to really make you put the whole puzzle together. Funny thing: most people would find it more dry looking than the Hueber books I didn't like
Franky, I think Hueber is now doing two types of grammar books (sorry, not adding all the names now). The intensive but dry old style books, with just a new cefr label on them, and new ones, which I found not intensive enough. Like from one wall to another. Not sure whether my explanation is clear
But the best is the series
A Grammatik and
B Grammatik (I am yet to get to
C Grammatik) published by Schubert. Well organised, self study friendly (the A part even has English translations of the explanations for the true beginners), with tons of good examples, much more varied example texts (not just the usual boring touristy stuff) right away from the A book, even CDs, if you want. I have near completed A and half completed B. The book is answering so many questions the other books leave unanswered or pretend not to exist!!!! I am like "oh, finally! This is why! and this is how I do it!"
END OF PART 1, PART TWO TO BE WRITTEN LATER