Thanks
So I'm starting a thread looking for peoples recommendations for german books to read to help with developing and learning german at all levels. I would like recommendations for all types/genres of books, not learning resource books but actual novels, fiction, crime etc....
If your goal is really to improve your German in the greatest hurry possible: trashy fiction, the kind they sell in the largeish Kiosks. Prosaic, conventional, overuses the same adjectives so you learn them. Also you don't waste brainpower following the plot.
(Choose your genre with some care though. Do you wish to commit irrevocably to memory the German for "dewy-cheeked maiden", or "hardboiled ex-copper"?)
One or two literary steps above that, the Winnetou series (Western novels, written at a great remove). German not too difficult, and always good for a laugh.
You might want to start with books that were written in your native tongue and translated to German. Thus, gain speed and vocabulary without being slowed down by German phrases that don't make sense. Once you get comfortable reading the language then venture out to German authors.
I'm just learning German myself, but when I was learning Dutch this helped tremendously. Good luck!
I tried children's book at first, but had trouble keeping it up. I could not read more than a page or two before I was overcome with tiredness. It's just too hard to get into the story. I thought it would work, since I did that when I firt learned English (the difference is that I was 12!).
But I've found something great: recent Krimis (short for Kriminal Roman)! It has to be recent, otherwise the language might get complicated. What's great about Krimis, is that there's something going on, but it's not usually trying to be great art.
When I learned English, my first grown up novels were Mary Higgins Clark. Entertaining and easy to read. I suggest you look for the same kind in German (or maybe even their German translation, as sugested above).
There are books with limited vocabulary (e.g. 1000 words, 2,000 words, 3,000 words etc.) for people who are learning a language. I've seen them in French and English and have indeed used them in English when giving private lessons.
I suppose if you asked at a good book-store they would also have/be able to order them in German too
There is a collection of books for beginners that my teacher recommended, they are called "Felix & Theo" and have a red cover (see attached) They are not very long, simple, and cost around 10 CHF per stuk at Thalia .... or you could order them from UK (3.5-4 gbp)...oh and they came in 3 different levels according to your knowledge of German
My Italian teacher recommended us to start with reading comic books (Donald Duck etc). Stories are not too complex and from the pictures lots of times it's possible to guess the meaning of unknown words.
I remember, I drove to Ticino to buy an Italian DD pocket, I was very dissappointed to find they only sell German ones there for the tourist. Had to cross the border into Italy to find a proper italian version
I would highly recommend starting with books that are written in both English and German (so, German on one page and the English equivalent on the next page.) This is definitely the best place to start, as you have an example of the way English and German correspond (or don't correspond! ) in the one book.
Although the content of the books can be a bit boring/simplistic, I found it incredibly helpful when I first started out with German to have the English equivalent of the German text on the adjacent page.
Go to Orell Füssli in Zürich and take a look at the "dtv" book collection.
Although not books, I would also highly recommend reading "20 Minuten" and "Blick", as the articles are short and therefore easy to follow, and simply written. When I was learning how to read in German, I began with the "dtv" books, then with "20 Minuten" and "Blick", then I read "Die Kleine Hexe" (I would recommend this book more for girls than for guys!) and then I started reading books with compilations of short stories in German - once again, while short stories are... well, short and much easier to follow at the beginning than a lengthy novel. (I began with Stephen King's collections of short stories, translated into German. You could do the same with any author of your choice who has written short stories.)
Once I could read the short stories with ease (and with the absence of a headache!), I took the plunge into novels. I highly recommend the Harry Potter series in German, by the way! A (Swiss) author I also recommend is Martin Suter. His novels are relatively short, very simply written and the plot is generally interesting (although he has a way of stuffing up the endings, in my humble opinion!) "Die Dunkle Seite des Mondes" made for a highly entertaining read.
I practised the above steps at the beginning and recommend the same to my students (I am a German language teacher). I can now read 1,000 page novels in German without any problems and see the above as quite a logical sequence to learning how to read in a foreign language.
Hope my ideas are of use to you... let me know how you get on. Good luck!
I liked the "Der Kleine Nick" series by Jean-Jacques Sempe; they are easy and fun to read and beautifully translated to German.
I second SemAms suggestion of "Der kleine Nick"... love reading those again and again. Actually, I used them to learn French, but the German translation is also good.
From a German author, try "Emil und die Detektive" by Erich Kästner, or some of his other children's books - for example "Das doppelte Lottchen", "Pünktchen und Anton", "Das fliegende Klassenzimmer". "Drei Männer im Schnee" is for grownups, but also fairly easy to read and fun. Obviously, Kästner is not a current author, but still a very good read.
From a Swiss author, try "Mein Name ist Eugen" by Klaus Schädelin - similar to "Der kleine Nick", the adventures of a young boy.
Thanks guy's I am going to try some of these out. I have some online vouchers for thalia.ch so perfect way to use them.
Gut Gegen Nordwind is a really good novel if you're German is up to it. It's all written through emails, and not too complicated text.
I second the suggestion to read short stories: at first reading a full novel took so me long that by the end of a crime novel, I really didn't care who had dunnit. I just wanted to finish the thing and read something different.
I also found it useful to re-read a few books in German that I'd read years ago in English. At least then you have an idea what is going on even if you don't understand every word. Just make sure they're good books that are worth re-reading. Doesn't work too well with crime novels....
And lastly, but really useful for me was membership of the local library. Loads of choice and great value. At first I just looked at the width of the spine and decided that anything wider than a couple of centimetres was too 'advanced' for me and would take too long to read, but anything less was maybe worth a try.
Why not learn German while learning Swiss culture at the same time. Wachmeister Studer is written in good decent German, the plots are easy to follow and not overly sophisticated but still entertaining and at the same time the books transmit a lot of local Zürich culture and numerous items of trivia that will soon make you a local expert.
As well as the normal Easy Readers (of which there are many in German, a few of the series have been mentioned above and they often come with the book on CD also) and dual texts (tend to be a little harder) I find comics to be a good help.
I used to read a lot of TinTin as a kid so I now read Tim und Strupi in german - you should be able to read these without dipping into a dictionary too much as the pictures help the story along.
Also Asterix but watch out where you buy them, according to my German teacher in Heidelberg (just come back from a two week school), Asterix books are often translated into local dialect German throughout Germany.
I would also recommend "Momo" by Michael Ende. After reading this book, I was totally headover heels in love with the German language... it really is beautifully written.
I would also second the idea to read German books that you read in English some years back.
I am afraid I will not be much help. I can read German as well as English and have spent the last couple of years catching up on the German classics. books from Kafka or Thomas Mann and also quite like those from Siegfried Lenz, but not exactly ideal to begin with. Perhaps an ideal book to begin with would be something from Martin Suter, a successful Swiss author and some good story lines. I just make a point of reading a book in the original language that it was written in.
I was in Stauffacher in Bern a couple of weeks ago, and found a series of books that are targeted at the various levels of German proficiency, A1-B2. Here is the complete catalogue of books. I have only read one so far, Die schwarze Spinne, targeted at niveau 3 (B1), and found it good.
(Note the website doesn't allow filtering of specific levels, but this Google search helps.
-Wayne
I noticed on the list was Die Verwandlung by Kafka and I can only recommend this book. I didn't find it difficult to read and I thoroughly enjoyed the book - sort of appealed to my black sense of humour. Also some good aspects of human reactions to someone being different.
Thanks, I might buy that one next then.