Resource for German grammar

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lavengro
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby lavengro » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:00 pm

zenmonkey wrote:Hammer's Grammar.

The book and the various workbooks. Top notch.

Top notched priced as well, at least in Canada:

$299.89 for a used hardcover text
$4,409.10 for a new paperback version

Fortunately, priced at an attractive $0 to rent from my library!
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby zenmonkey » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:37 pm

lavengro wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:Hammer's Grammar.

The book and the various workbooks. Top notch.

Top notched priced as well, at least in Canada:

$299.89 for a used hardcover text
$4,409.10 for a new paperback version

Fortunately, priced at an attractive $0 to rent from my library!


Want to buy my copies :D ?
I’m sure one can find them for less. It’s not a rare book.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing ... ition=used

Less than $10...
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby sirgregory » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:54 pm

Cavesa wrote:-Duo has been lowering the amount of the useful (=translation) exercises. It has moved them to the later crown levels first, and those are now being shortened (it is a recent change), while the dumb exercises from the early crown levels are left there. The review (a sort of SRS is being reintroduced) at the crown level 5 is based on the early levels (=the dumb exercises), not on the late ones. It is clearly a part of the dumbing down process that cares about having as many clicking people as possible (to better sell ads), not good results.


The early lessons are definitely easier and shorter. And they have you translate into English pretty much exclusively. I think the intention is to give new users a sense of rapid progress. Personally, I didn't really mind the gentle introduction. By level 2 I started getting a lot more translation into German and I have found those exercises to be pretty worthwhile on the website/keyboard version. Typing out the sentences in German without mistakes is pretty challenging.

Cavesa wrote:-Duo German has been one of their best courses but that is going to change. The new volunteer tree failed the testing (that's what we were told), and a professional one, like French and Spanish, is being made. The professional trees are much slower and much more focused on vocabulary than grammar. Yes, it is there, but chaotically spread over the tree and very slowly introduced. Targeted practice of individual grammar features is almost impossible, as they are chopped in pieces and hidden behind skill names based on vocabulary. The huge and fast grammar section at the end of the changed Spanish tree is just a relict from the previous phases that they didn't erase, otherwise the learners are being taught the grammar very slowly and with some catches (in case of Spanish, the overuse of personal pronouns, too slow introduction of some verb forms which can lead the learner to learning something wrong, etc. Hard to tell, what will the German problems be). But they've made it clear, that hiding the grammar from plain sight is the goal.


That's too bad. As mentioned, I have been using the German course for targeted grammar drills and, looking at the French tree, I see you are correct that this would be essentially impossible to do with the French course.
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lavengro
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby lavengro » Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:14 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
Want to buy my copies :D ?
I’m sure one can find them for less. It’s not a rare book.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing ... ition=used

Less than $10...


For reasons unknown, in Canada we do not get to hop onto opportunities like these - not available for delivery in Canada. The best we can do for used paperback copies through amazon.ca is the following:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/1444120166/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Almost $77 bucks Canadian including shipping. Frankly, I could buy a moose for less, though not a German-speaking moose.
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zenmonkey
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby zenmonkey » Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:42 pm

lavengro wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:
Want to buy my copies :D ?
I’m sure one can find them for less. It’s not a rare book.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing ... ition=used

Less than $10...


For reasons unknown, in Canada we do not get to hop onto opportunities like these - not available for delivery in Canada. The best we can do for used paperback copies through amazon.ca is the following:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/1444120166/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Almost $77 bucks Canadian including shipping. Frankly, I could buy a moose for less, though not a German-speaking moose.


Less than $10 Canadian (delivered) at ... https://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/0340501294

Or the 4th edition for less that $30 Canadian https://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/0071396543

Or go to abe books and find it for even less....
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lavengro
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x 1994

Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby lavengro » Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:41 pm

Vielen Dank zenmonkey, aber ich habe schon einen elch gekauft und ich habe kein geld mehr!

(Blame google translate for the above; I have no idea what it actually means.)
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Cavesa
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby Cavesa » Sun Sep 08, 2019 9:03 am

sirgregory wrote:
Cavesa wrote:-Duo has been lowering the amount of the useful (=translation) exercises. It has moved them to the later crown levels first, and those are now being shortened (it is a recent change), while the dumb exercises from the early crown levels are left there. The review (a sort of SRS is being reintroduced) at the crown level 5 is based on the early levels (=the dumb exercises), not on the late ones. It is clearly a part of the dumbing down process that cares about having as many clicking people as possible (to better sell ads), not good results.


The early lessons are definitely easier and shorter. And they have you translate into English pretty much exclusively. I think the intention is to give new users a sense of rapid progress. Personally, I didn't really mind the gentle introduction. By level 2 I started getting a lot more translation into German and I have found those exercises to be pretty worthwhile on the website/keyboard version. Typing out the sentences in German without mistakes is pretty challenging.

I definitely agree. The problem is, that the "give them a sense of rapid progress" attitude has overgrown its usefulness a bit. Some of the changes look more like "let's hide all the difficulties and just focus on their good feeling". I have no problem with the early levels being easier, that's what the Test Out button is for. It's up to every user to know, which levels they want to do fully and which ones they want to skip right away or after a few lessons.

However, the later levels getting shorter means less of the useful exercises in the whole mix. And Duo has also been testing various other kinds of exercise, therefore further diluting the course. One learner has been counting the content of the lessons (per exercise type) and has come to not too positive results, especially at the level 5 practice, which is logically supposed to be the hardest. If I remember correctly, they found only 40% of the most useful (translation to the target language) exercises in the mix.
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Re: Resource for German grammar

Postby ymapazagain » Tue Sep 10, 2019 12:30 am

I heard that Duolingo were decreasing the number of lessons at level 4 and 5 though I am yet to encounter this. For example I am currently working on level 5 of Conjunctions and there are 20 lessons to get through. I actually think this is too many as it becomes incredibly tedious, but in general I find levels 4 and 5 to be incredibly helpful as a large number of the questions are either listening comprehension (write the German you've just heard) or translating from English to German which does require a good understanding of the grammar to get correct.

I use the app (on Android) and the lesson outlines are available there too, it's just quite hidden! When you click on the lesson there is a little light bulb that you can click on for an explanation of the grammar used within the lesson.
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