This series teaches all the skills needed to understand and speak basic German. Focusing on major attractions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, these episodes are perfect preparation for anyone who wants to experience German-speaking culture firsthand, from conversing with locals to reading signs and menus to navigating the railways and Autobahn.
Learning German: A Journey through Language and Culture
Explore German cultures as you master all the skills needed to understand and speak basic German.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
stmv from
core understanding of German Grammer
I have tried different classes and mediums for learning German. This is so far the best course I have taken. The main reason is that the focus is on German grammar, and German is a tightly structured language. Having a clear explanation was so key to making future progress on frankly a difficult language to learn.
Date published: 2024-10-09
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Ant profanity I am Ant from
Learning German: A Journey through Language and Cu
It is too early to comment - I am only on part 3 - so far it's very good but ask me in a month
Date published: 2024-10-05
Rated 5 out of
5
by
James Sparks from
A very good beginning to the German Language
I purchased this course in order to revise the German language which I studied over twenty years ago but haven't really used since. I found it to be very well structured and presented, with good illustrations and explanations throughout.
I will most probably go through it again sometime in the future to "revise my revision", and to pick up those things that I missed the first time through. This is a great advantage of a video course - just pause, rewind, and do listen and watch again.
I admit that I was "helped" in that I have studied German before, and thus cannot give a complete beginner's viewpoint, but I would recommend this course to all who desire to learn the language.
Date published: 2024-05-08
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Luise from
Not all teachers/students are the same!
Complaints about the level of instruction must be from those who did not read previous reviews delineating just what was offered and how. Having been a TA at a major U.'s German department SIXTY-FIVE YEAR AGO, this is probably perfect for me. If I have not seen, heards, or thought of a German word in over half a century, I just need to see/hear it to recognize it. Jumping from L1 to L3 will be fine for me and others with a solid background to race through. "Rusty is real!" but easily cured. Other above complaint: taught by an American. Teachers need to be attractive and relatable to "sell" courses - if the gentleman is delightful, job well done! Teaching people how and what they want to learn is useful.
Date published: 2024-01-17
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Andrew421 from
Detailed with excellent explanations
I have been trying to learn German for several years using a variety of methods. However, I have struggled to develop beyond the basics. This course provides a detailed and well presented explanation of how the German language works. There is good coverage of German grammar and this (for me!) complex topic is well explained. To master the content of each lecture I have had to rewatch the lectures several times and work through the course workbook as each lecture has a lot packed in.
I don't think this course alone will allow you to master the language, in particular listening and speaking the language are limited, but it does provide an excellent foundation on which to build.
Date published: 2023-10-31
Rated 5 out of
5
by
viktor zyrotsk from
Incredible Course
The professor, Doctor Pfrehm is loveable and his habilities to teach the language is amazing, he makes it very easy to undestand. This course definitely need a second part, professor Pfrehm was a part of my days while i studied with this course.
Date published: 2023-04-19
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Bookwormom from
Replacement workbook?
Is there a way to order a replacement workbook for this course!
Date published: 2023-02-16
Rated 5 out of
5
by
wbg88 from
This course brings home the importance of language instruction that steps away from foreign language immersion where only the language to be learned is used for instruction. This course explains the grammatically concepts in the language of the learner, in this case English. Over the years I have taken a few German language course, including courses given by the Goethe Institute, and this course has been the most valuable. The clear explanations on points of both German grammar and the structure of German syntax has been very enlightening. To someone new to German, the pace may be a bit brisk, and you may want to adopt my strategy where with a few of the lessons, I did half a lesson in one sitting.
Date published: 2022-12-28
Overview
About
James Pfrehm is an independent scholar who taught German language, literature, and culture at the university level for more than 20 years. He has a PhD in Germanic Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition to studying and conducting research in Germany and Austria, he has taken dozens of students on trips to both countries. As an associate professor at Ithaca College, he was recognized for his outstanding teaching and commitment to his students. He is the author of the book Technolingualism: The Mind and the Machine.
Trailer
01: Willkommen!
Guten Tag! Your first lesson in German introduces you to useful expressions and some of the distinctive sounds of the language. Professor Pfrehm shows how to turn u into ü (u with an umlaut) and how to transform ch, spoken in the front part of the mouth (as in ich, meaning “I”), into German’s back-of-the-throat ch (as in the composer Bach). And, you’ll discover why German is worth learning.
29 min
02: Definite Articles, Gender, and Nouns
Meet German’s three definite articles—der, die, and das—which correspond to masculine, feminine, and neuter grammatical genders. Get tips on how to predict the gender of nouns. Learn the names of the letters of the alphabet and their pronunciations. Survey the countries where German is an official language. And add to your growing vocabulary—from der Arm (arm) to die Zeit (time).
29 min
03: Personal Pronouns and the Verb sein
Warm up with Zungenbrecher (literally, “tongue-breakers”). These are phrases that add fun to learning German pronunciation. Then study the singular and plural forms of the personal pronouns. Practice conjugating the most important verb in the German language, sein (to be). Finally, discover how to make singular nouns plural, looking for patterns that will aid memorization.
23 min
04: Regular Verbs in the Present Tense
Begin with the greeting, Wie geht’s? (more formally, Wie geht es Ihnen?) Rehearse responses, such as, Es geht mir gut and Es geht mir Ausgezeichnet. Practice conjugating present-tense regular verbs, and discover the wonderful utility of the indefinite pronoun man. Finally, learn the German names and nationalities for European countries. Along the way, encounter a new sound: the a-umlaut, ä.
25 min
05: Indefinite Articles and Numbers to 100
Indulge your appetite for German by learning the protocol for ordering drinks in a pub and treats in a bakery. Dip into the relevant vocabulary, focusing on the indefinite articles and the numbers from 0 to 100, which are pleasingly like numbers in English. Get a taste of German’s famous system of word endings, known as inflections, which are packed with useful grammatical information.
27 min
06: Eine Reise nach Wien und Salzburg
Travel to two cities in Austria, Vienna (called Wien) and Salzburg, to practice your fundamental skills in German. Learn useful expressions for giving directions. Then investigate the beautifully simple word gern, which expresses approval or enjoyment. Find out how to negate a statement with a well-placed nicht. And along the way, you’ll drool over Vienna’s multitude of delicious coffee libations!
26 min
07: Asking Questions and Numbers above 100
Start with another satisfying Zungenbrecher. Then get acquainted with the different ways of asking questions—both open-ended and close-ended questions. Survey the interrogative pronouns, focusing on the special uses of wo, wohin, and woher, which all mean “where,” but with distinct implications regarding motion and place. Finally, learn to count to a billion! (Without saying every single number on the way.)
32 min
08: The Nominative and Accusative Cases and kein-
Plunge into German’s grammatical case system, covering the nominative and accusative cases, which correspond to the subject and direct object. View a declension table of nominative and accusative endings for articles, and practice them in a tour of a typical house, learning household words. And discover how to negate a noun phrase with kein, and the supreme utility of the expression, es gibt.
26 min
09: Time in German and Possessive Pronouns
Wie viel Uhr ist es? (What time is it?) Learn to tell time and how to read a railway timetable. Rehearse using the prepositions um, von, and bis in a temporal context. Also discover that German has three distinct words that cover our English term, “time.” Then dive into possessive pronouns—in singular and plural, as well as nominative and accusative—picking up new vocabulary along the way.
29 min
10: Coordinating Conjunctions and der- Words
Coordinating conjunctions—such as aber, denn, oder, sondern, and und—allow you to link two dependent clauses in expressive ways. Get the hang of these simple words that let you say complex things. Then unlock the secret of German syntax with the Word Position Model. Finally, study a handy class of noun modifiers, called der-words, that have endings patterned after the definite article.
28 min
11: Modal Verbs and More Accusative
Use the public service messages on German Bierdeckeln (beer coasters) to launch into modal verbs—a two-part verb construction that expresses desire, necessity, or possibility, as in Ich möchte Deutsch lernen (I would like to learn German). Review the months, seasons, and days of the week. Also, see how the accusative case is used with certain expressions of time and after specific prepositions.
26 min
12: Eine Reise nach München und Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Prost! Open with toasting customs at Oktoberfest in München (Munich). Your visit to this vibrant city and to charming Rothenburg ob der Tauber introduce you to stem-vowel changing irregular verbs—those that undergo a simple vowel change in the present tense, second-person familiar, and third-person forms. These verbs are generally so common that the irregular forms are quickly memorized.
28 min
13: Present Perfect and da- and wo- Compounds
Learn to form compounds with da- and wo- plus a preposition, as in dahin (to there) and wohin (to where?). Then leave the present tense to meet your first past-tense form, confusingly called the present perfect. Concentrating on verbs classified as weak, discover that their present perfect forms are satisfyingly regular. Finally, practice getting these syntactic elements in the right order.
25 min
14: Ich hab’ mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren
Via a love story, encounter irregular strong verbs in the present perfect tense. Along the way, find out where the terms weak and strong come from (hint: the same scholar who compiled a famous collection of German fairy tales). Then explore vowel changes, known as ablaut, which characterize strong verbs. Cover all seven ablaut classes. Also, learn about model verbs and mixed-class verbs.
22 min
15: Separable-Prefix Verbs
Open with a tutorial on the refuse recycling system in Germany, leading to final pointers on the present perfect, which for native speakers is the most widely used tense for expressing past events in everyday speech. Then tackle another widely used grammatical feature, separable-prefix verbs, seeing how they fit into the Word Position Model introduced in Lesson 10. Finally, go clothes shopping!
26 min
16: Subordinate and Infinitive Clauses
Meet two German superstars—singers Herbert Grönemeyer and Annemarie Eilfeld—in a dialogue that covers subordinate and infinitive clauses. Together with indirect questions, which are formed just like subordinate clauses, these constructions take your German fluency to a new level. Then, use the Word Position Model, plus fresh insights into word order, to build a classic long sentence in German.
25 min
17: More Infinitive Clauses and the Dative Case
Sankt Nikolaus (Father Christmas) sings a holiday song and introduces the useful dependent clause, um…zu + infinitive. Also learn how to deal with the dative—the case used for indirect objects and that answers the question, “to whom or for whom?” Practice fitting this form between the subject and direct object, and see how it relates to the case forms you’ve already learned.
24 min
18: Eine Reise nach Zürich und Zermatt
Visit two attractions in German-speaking Switzerland: the charming city Zürich and the Alpine resort Zermatt. Featuring a chocolate factory and other delights, the dialogue brings up the dative forms of possessive pronouns, which follow the pattern of ein-words. Next, learn the dative endings for der-words. Finally, discover an interesting exception to word order rules presented earlier.
23 min
19: Reflexive Verbs and Pronouns
Learn parts of the human body from two unusual experts: male and female Schaufensterpuppen (mannequins). Then, visit a German doctor in a dialogue that introduces reflexive verbs and pronouns. These verbs involve actions that refer back to the subject of the clause, such as sich fühlen (to feel; or literally, to feel oneself). The examples you cover take pronouns in the accusative case.
21 min
20: More Dative and Subordinating Conjunctions
Continue your study of reflexive verbs and pronouns by looking at constructions that require the pronoun in the dative case. One example is the very useful sentence Das ist mir egal (I don’t care). Then step back and consider the four major uses of the dative. Also learn how “The Blue Danube” waltz by Johann Strauss II is the key to learning some of the most common prepositions with dative objects.
29 min
21: The Simple Past
Delve into the checkered past of Professor Pfrehm as you learn about ... the past—the simple past, that is. This tense is different in form from the present perfect you learned in Lessons 13–15, but its meaning is the same, though it is mostly used in formal writing. Cover the simple past forms of the verbs sein, haben, and geben, and the modal verbs müssen, können, mögen, dürfen, wollen, and sollen.
24 min
22: Bäuerin Bärbel und die rotbärtigen Zwerge
Enter the world of fantasy with a Märchen (fairy tale) designed especially for this course to present verbs in the simple past tense. Featuring a widow in distress, strange little men with red beards, and a gruesome plot twist, the story is so thrilling that the seven classes of simple past endings for strong verbs, plus the much less complicated paradigms for weak verbs, will go down like candy.
34 min
23: More Simple Past and Relative Pronouns
Reach the exciting conclusion of the fairy tale from the previous lesson, while finishing your exploration of the simple past. Then turn to vocabulary for professions and the workplace, using it to construct sentences that present a new grammatical element: relative pronouns. Learn 12 of the 16 relative pronouns, which happen to be identical to the definite articles (with one exception).
27 min
24: Eine Reise nach Hamburg und Cuxhaven
Travel to two more intriguing destinations in the German-speaking world: the bustling German port of Hamburg and the quaint seaside town of Cuxhaven. Hear about die Wattwanderung, a remarkable walk across an extensive mudflat near Cuxhaven. Meanwhile, learn to form the imperative mood, which is used to issue commands, and practice constructing relative clauses with prepositions.
26 min
25: Two-Way Prepositions and Verbs That Use Theme
So far, you have studied prepositions that always take the dative case (bei, mit, von, etc.) or the accusative (durch, bis, für, etc.). Now, look at those that can take either case, depending on the context. These “two-way” prepositions include an, auf, and in. Study the verbs that often accompany them, expressing either location (and, therefore, dative) or placement/destination (hence accusative).
32 min
26: Comparative/Superlative and Adjective Endings
Professor Pfrehm introduces his three favorite German-language movies—a war film, a spy drama, and a sci-fi thriller—giving tips on the best way to watch them to improve your German comprehension, all while being entertained! His goal is not film criticism, but rather teaching you how to construct comparative and superlative sentences. After that, he tackles the three sets of adjectival endings.
31 min
27: The Genitive Case and the Passive Voice
Practice your first joke in German. Then meet the fourth and final German case—the genitive—completing your study of the case system. See how von + a dative construction performs the same function as the genitive. Then turn to prepositions that take the genitive, such as wegen, trotz, and laut. Finally, plunge into the passive voice, learning how to turn the object of a sentence into the subject.
29 min
28: The Subjunctive Mood
So far, you have been using mostly the indicative mood—the verbal form used to express reality and facts—with a brief foray into the imperative mood used to express commands (in Lesson 24). Now, learn the mood for expressing contrary-to-fact or hypothetical situations: the subjunctive. The dialogue centers around the frustrations and second thoughts attending the purchase of a new smartphone.
29 min
29: Eine Reise nach Wittenberg und Berlin
Dig deeper into the subjunctive by learning to express hypotheticals in the past tense. The dialogue takes you through eastern Germany via the famous Autobahn: first to Wittenberg, site of Martin Luther’s historic challenge to the Catholic Church, and then on to Berlin, where you survey some of the many monuments and museums, including sites commemorating the Berlin Wall and the Holocaust.
30 min
30: Our Journey: The End or Just the Beginning?
Finish with a series of unaided dialogues of increasing difficulty, covering grammar you have studied in the course. You’ll be surprised at how much you understand! Looking ahead, Professor Pfrehm offers tips and strategies for improving your German, from getting a German-speaking, video-chat pal to subscribing to German language podcasts. And so, viel Glück, auf Wiedersehen, und bis gleich!
32 min
