Living Language German, Complete Edition: Beginner through advanced course, including 3 coursebooks, 9 audio CDs, and free online learning Unabridged Edition

This is a really good and thorough course in the language that presents in conversational form all the major concepts: verb tenses (present, past, & future) & moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, & imperative), idiomatic phrases, and other grammatical structures. It looks about equal to two college semesters of Italian (maybe three, depending on how different schools structure their language programs; it's essentially first-year Italian). I've been using this course for two weeks now and am halfway through it. I wouldn't recommend this pace, but I mention it so you can interpret what complaints I have in light of it.This course consists of 3 books: Essential, Intermediate, and Advanced, and includes a blank notebook and 9 audio CD's that correspond to the lessons in the books. There is also an online language lab for quizzing knowledge. The whole course comes in a cardboard slipcase. The lesson books are about the ideal size: lightweight paperbacks, between the size of a trade paperback and an average college textbook; they're big enough to spread out and work with, but small and light enough to use nearly anywhere. The English type is in black, and the Italian in blue, which aids learning. The course is 46 lessons in all, and seems built around language immersion, emphasizing conversational phrases and language that you might use when travelling to/studying in Italy. From this use, of course, you could go anywhere with the language. This course's grammatical explanations are clear and comprehensive, though I might want many more examples to really understand the concepts from a variety of angles and in a variety of situations. (My learning style is more analytical than intuitive, and I don't mind poring over grammar & verb charts to drink in concepts.) This course does a good job of introducing new vocabulary and grammatical concepts "on the fly," by which I mean it throws these things in without formally explaining them beforehand. The reason I find this a good thing is because that's how one would encounter the language in Italy or with a fluent speaker, and this course trains you to be always attentive to new words, phrases, and grammar. I might like a vocab. list at the end of each lesson for new words introduced in that lesson, rather than the glossary for the entire course at the end of each book. But that LL omits vocab. lists does encourage active learning. The notebook that LL provides seems to be for the purpose of writing down new vocab. as one encounters it, and new idiomatic phrases and verb conjugations, etc. The "Unit Essentials" sections in the Intermed. and Adv. books are useful for summarizing key grammatical concepts; likewise the general language summary at the end of each book. I also might like a comprehensive table of contents to help me review what sections of the course I might need to as I use the language once completing the course. The unit outlines along the top of each page are detailed enough for this, but require more flipping through from unit to unit than would a table of contents. Quizzes come about every 4 lessons to reinforce material. They seem a little short for really testing full knowledge, but that they are short and a little easy does keep you moving through the course, rather than getting bogged down on concepts that you will pick up anyway as you keep using the language. LL points out further resources for using the language, such as Italian newspapers and message boards, and one could even find on Youtube Italian news broadcasts and other audio-video resources. I find the online language lab to be moderately useful: I'm glad it's there, but it doesn't clinch my grasp of new concepts. (The book and CD dialogues do that for me.) Some of the games in the language lab seem distracting, like the word search and "pop the bubbles," but they do lighten the mood a bit. The online flashcards and sentence completions are useful exercises beyond the exercises in the books.Overall, this is a solid course that will teach you Italian. I think the best learning will result from using all the course's materials, as LL suggests, including practicing with the CD recordings, filling up the notebook with vocab., idiomatic expressions, and verb conjugations, and reviewing these regularly. The whole course (Complete Italian) is a good value for the price, though the Essential might not seem so for being so basic. Once I master Italian, I plan to use other Living Language Complete packages to learn other languages.

I really enjoyed how nicely paced this course was, I would recommend this course to an absolute beginner or just someone who wants to go back and review their Italian. I took a risk getting this course because I have never tried a Living Language course before. What I have to say is that this course really helped me improve my Italian and even build upon it. As someone who likes to move at a fast pace this course really helped me, although there were some days I was lazy, this course was also great to move at slow pace with the audio. I personally did not use the audio CD.s because I had an exam in a month so I had to move at a really fast pace, but I did listen to them from time to time. The CD's were great to just listen to, although I would not just listen to the CD's to learn Italian. They are just a great way to go over and practice your listening skills.Now on to the course overall physical wise. The books are not very big and thick so they are great for someone on the go. They can easily fit in a bag and lightweight to carry. Honestly this was an added bonus for me. The books are separated into 3 parts: Essential, Intermediate, and Advance. Easy to carry and easy to look back at any material. Although I would have preferred if the CD's came with an MP3 for easy listening. Overall I enjoyed the course and have bought Living Language Brazilian Portuguese since I loved how well this course was put together.

I took a German course 15 years ago, but I didn't remember much. So I bought this Living Language set (3 books, 9 CDs), and, spending maybe 5 hours a night, finished the course in 3 weeks.This was a really good course, and I can hammer out basic, clunky sentences now, and understand German YouTube comments (with the help of a dictionary). I'd say the amount of grammar this course teaches is a really good amount -- enough to understand real-life German, but not enough to overwhelm the learner. If there's one thing that's keeping me from understanding everyday German now, it's not grammar, it's vocabulary! And you just have to pick that up from reading, and watching movies. (Google Translate is good, too: type in the English, learn the German.) But for a course that teaches German grammar, this set does a good job.For those who've used Living Language's old courses (from the 2000s), this course (copyright 2011) is less formal, less structured, and less grammar-heavy. The old books feel more like college textbooks on the theory of a language, while this new course just gives you "enough" grammar to build your foundation. I like the structure of the old books, and I like how EVERY chapter started with a listening passage. But this new course is probably better for most people, because it's more approachable and personable.That being said, I wish it had more listening practice! What it does have is good -- the two actors are nice to listen to, and a lot of the dialogues are surprisingly hilarious! But there's just one male actor and one female actor for the whole course, and I would have liked to hear more accents and voices, just to get used to the sound of it. It also didn't have any all-German reading practice, like the old books had. And whereas the old books gave instructions ("Translate the following sentences....") in German, this course gives instructions in English, which seems like a wasted opportunity.Some smaller comments: There are quite a few typos in both English AND German! The use of "ß" versus "ss" is VERY inconsistent, which is frustrating for a new learner (for example, one line has "groß", and the VERY next line has "gross"). The vocabulary lists are scattered all throughout each chapter, instead of being in one place. MOST of the audio tracks are completely useless, as they're just reading the exact same thing that's written in the book, in a very slow, patronizing voice. A lot of the quizzes test you on things that they...whoops! forgot to teach you (nothing major, just slightly frustrating). And there aren't any reading- or listening-comprehension questions, which seems basic for any language course (although you can just listen to the German dialogues and then read the English, to see how much you understood).I'd say this course is good for most people, because it's more approachable and not as grammar-heavy as the old books. But personally, I'd prefer the old books for the structure, formality, and extra listening practice. Both are good though (especially for $30 to $40!!), and give you enough grammar to build on, and enough vocabulary to start speaking and listening.